DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5828#0091
A HINDOO LEGEND.
67
path wound round an abrupt projection of the moun-
tain, a horrible chasm yawning beneath, so deep that
the eye could scarcely penetrate to the bottom.
Peaks capped with clouds rose to a dazzling height,
pouring from their naked sides cataracts which fell
with a frightful rush and roar into the valleys below.
Mariataly, however, was now too much occupied by
her own misery to be alive to the sublimities of
nature: she had no sight for external objects—her
sad condition absorbed every sense.
On reaching the cavern a sight presented itself
that paralyzed her with horror. There lay the
headless trunk of Youghal in a state of rapid de-
composition. She gazed upon it with terrified asto-
nishment. Tears of anguish streamed down her
quivering cheeks as her eye fell upon the mutilated
corpse of one whom she had really loved with a
fondness not at all common among Hindoo women.
The cavern was filled with suffocating exhalations
from the disfigured object before her, and the sicken-
lng fumes only added to the horror which swept like
an inundation upon her heart. When asked if she
had not murdered her lover, she again declared her
innocence with that artless eloquence of truth which
carries conviction to every mind unclouded by pre-
judice or passion; and enquired how it was possible
that a feeble girl should have been able to overpower
a young, strong, healthy man like him, whose livid
corpse was at that moment lying at her feet under
the most unsightly aspect of death.
Her appeals to those instruments of inflexible
justice, by whom she was surrounded, moved not
67
path wound round an abrupt projection of the moun-
tain, a horrible chasm yawning beneath, so deep that
the eye could scarcely penetrate to the bottom.
Peaks capped with clouds rose to a dazzling height,
pouring from their naked sides cataracts which fell
with a frightful rush and roar into the valleys below.
Mariataly, however, was now too much occupied by
her own misery to be alive to the sublimities of
nature: she had no sight for external objects—her
sad condition absorbed every sense.
On reaching the cavern a sight presented itself
that paralyzed her with horror. There lay the
headless trunk of Youghal in a state of rapid de-
composition. She gazed upon it with terrified asto-
nishment. Tears of anguish streamed down her
quivering cheeks as her eye fell upon the mutilated
corpse of one whom she had really loved with a
fondness not at all common among Hindoo women.
The cavern was filled with suffocating exhalations
from the disfigured object before her, and the sicken-
lng fumes only added to the horror which swept like
an inundation upon her heart. When asked if she
had not murdered her lover, she again declared her
innocence with that artless eloquence of truth which
carries conviction to every mind unclouded by pre-
judice or passion; and enquired how it was possible
that a feeble girl should have been able to overpower
a young, strong, healthy man like him, whose livid
corpse was at that moment lying at her feet under
the most unsightly aspect of death.
Her appeals to those instruments of inflexible
justice, by whom she was surrounded, moved not