THE IiAJPOOT.

135

three of them dead at his feet, and though reeking
with blood, which poured in streams from his wounds,
he still continued to make such a desperate resistance,
that the three surviving robbers at length quitted him,
leaving him undisputed master of the field. Although
desperately wounded, he eventually recovered. This
happened not long after the birth of his first-born
child, whose destruction he had so unfeelingly ordered
the mother to perpetrate. In spite, however, of his
unyielding temper, he was a kind husband,—at least,
kind for one among a class who hold women to be
creatures bom solely for subserviency, and unworthy
of that freedom which their haughty tyrants main-
tain to be man's natural inheritance.

About two years after the Rajpoot's marriage a
son was born to him. This was an event which he
was proud to commemorate by assembling to a ban-
quet a number of his tribe, who congratulated him
at his own expense upon the birth of a male offspring,
held among Rajpoots as one of the most signal bless-
ings which the Deity can confer. Within the year
after its birth this child died, and the wretched father
was left without an object on whom he could ex-
haust the outpourings of paternal love. There was at
once a chasm in his heart not to be filled up. He
was deeply grieved at this bereavement; and though
he did not murmur at so unlooked-for a visitation,
it soon became but too evident that it left a strong
impression upon his mind.

One morning, having quitted his house and returned
unexpectedly, he was met at the door by a beauti-
ful little girl, which smiled in his face as he entered,