purity or her honour, which, now her father is dead, her people must protect. We-that is, my wife and myself—have charged ourselves with her for the present; and her people, the Durpeys of Wye, are rich and devout, they will receive and protect her."

Afzool Khan remonstrated as far as possible. Tara had grown to be a familiar and beautiful object to him; but he felt the Bramhun was right, and he must not connect her name with his son's. He dare not mention to Lurlee what had been done, but he told Fazil when he returned, and so all knew of it.

"At least she is safe and in honourable keeping," said Fazil, when he had heard all," and for the rest, as God wills. But as for that Bramhun, father, he escaped me once-it may not be again."

"Look!" cried Lurlee to Zyna, who was sitting sobbing bitterly-" look! Had I only been careful, this would never have happened. It was Sunday night, and Saturn ruled from the second hour of the first watch to the end. Could anything be worse? We should not have moved at all. My pearl, my love, she should not have left us! Hái! Hái! May the peace of the Prophet be with her, and the protection of Alla be upon her till we meet again!"

"Ameen! Ameen!" sighed Zyna, but she was not comforted, nor was Fazil.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAGNIFICENT as is the scenery of the Western Ghauts of India throughout their range, it is nowhere, perhaps, more strikingly beautiful than in the neighbourhood of the great isolated plateau which-rising high above the mountain-ranges around it, and known under the name of Maha-bul-eshwur, from the temple at the source of the sacred river Krishna on its summit-is now the favourite summer retreat and sanatarium of the Bombay Presidency. Trim roads, laid out so as to exhibit the beauties of the scenery to the best advantage-pretty English-looking cottages, with brilliant gardens, and a considerable native town, are now the main features of the place; but at the period of our tale it was uninhabited, except by a few Bramhuns and devotees, who, attracted by the holiness of the spot, congregated around the ancient temple, and occupied the small village beside it. Otherwise the character of the wild scenery is unchanged. From points near the edges of the plateau, where mighty precipices of basalt descend sheer into forests of everlasting verdure and luxuriance, the eye ranges over a sea of rugged mountain - tops,-some,

scathed and shattered peaks of barren rock-others with extensive flat summits, bounded by naked cliffs which, falling into deep gloomy ravines covered with dense forests, would seem inaccessible to man.

To some readers of our tale, this scenery will be familiar; but to others it is almost impossible to convey by description any adequate idea of its peculiar character, or of the beauty of the ever-changing aërial effects, that vary in aspect almost as the spectator turns from one point to another. Often in early morning, as the sun rises over the lower mists, the naked peaks and precipices, standing apart like islands, glisten with rosy tints, while the mist itself, as yet dense and undisturbed, lies wrapped around their bases, filling every ravine and valley, and glittering like a sea of molten silver.

sun.

Again, as the morning breeze rises in the valleys below, this vapour breaks up slowly circling round the mountain summits, lingering in wreaths among their glens and precipices, and clinging to the forests until dissipated entirely by the fierce beams of the Then, quivering under the fervid heat, long ridges of rugged valleys are spread out below, and range beyond range melts tenderly into a dim distance of sea and sky, scarcely separated in colour, yet showing the occasional sparkle of a sail like a faint cloud passing on the horizon. Most glorious of all, perhaps, in the evening, when, in the rich colours of the fast-rising vapours, the mountains glow like fire; and peak and precipice, forest and glen, are bathed in

gold and crimson light; or, as the light grows dimmer, shrouded in deep purple shadow till they disappear in the gloom which quickly falls on all.

Westward from this great mountain plateau, and divided from it by a broad deep valley clothed with forests, the huge mountain of Pertabgurh rises with precipitous sides out of the woods and ravines below. The top, irregularly level, furnished space for dwellinghouses and magazines, while ample springs of pure water sufficed for the use of a large body of men, by which it could be easily defended. At various periods of time by the early Mahratta chieftains of the country in remote ages, and afterwards by their Mahomedan conquerors-walls and towers had been added to the natural defences of the place, as well as strong gateways protected by bastions and loopholed traverses, on the only approach to the summit-a rugged pathway, which could hardly be called a road. Under very ordinary defence, the place was perfectly impregnable to all attacks by an enemy from without; and, at the period of our tale, it was held as his capital and choicest stronghold, among many such fastnesses in those mountains, by Sivaji Bhóslay, a man destined to play a conspicuous part in the history of his country and people in particular, and of India at large.

We have already informed the reader, in a somewhat desultory manner perhaps, for we are not writing his history, of the attempts made by Sivaji to establish an independent power; and, by taking advantage of

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the weakness and distraction of the kingdom of Beejapoor, of which he was a vassal, on the one hand, and of the ambitious designs of the Emperor Aurungzeeb on the other, to raise himself to a position in which he could secure the actual administration, and eventually the sovereignty, of his native wilds.

Hindu history is in all cases unsatisfactory; and that of the early Mahratta chiefs and principalities of the Dekhan eminently so. On the invasion of the Dekhan by Alla-oo-deen, nephew of the then King of Dehli, in A. D. 1294, the fort and city of Deogurh, now Doulatabad, was held by Rajah Ramdeo Jadow, who appeared then to have been prince of the whole country. Whether he was so or not, whether the chiefs of the wild tracts of the Ghauts and provinces lying on the western sea-coast were his tributaries or vassals, or whether they were actually independent of each other, has never been ascertained; but, on the downfall of the princely house of Jadow, no other ruler or chieftain seems to have made any resistance, and the Mahomedans, gathering strength, and founding a kingdom at Gulburgah, in the centre of the Dekhan, gradually subdued the whole tract, establishing garrisons in the wildest parts, fortifying hills not already used as strongholds, and improving the defences of others, in that noble, and picturesque style of fortification which now excites our wonder and admiration.

One of the Mahratta families of ancient native nobi