“I lost no time in setting out on the track of Balty Mahu, and, ere many days, overtook him at a small town which he had left just as I entered it, but not before he had received, through his servant, notice of my arrival.  My wary enemy, who had little expected to see me here, and who had travelled as much to keep out of my way as to see the country, conjectured my purpose, from the consciousness of what he had done to provoke it.  Thus, while we both appeared to others to be merely making a tour of Hindostan, it was soon known to both of us, that my chief purpose was to pursue him, and his to elude my pursuit.  In the ardour, as well as exercise of the chase, my health mended rapidly, but I was no nearer the object of my pursuit; for, although I travelled somewhat faster than Bally Mahu, as he wished to avoid the appearance of flying from me, he sometimes contrived to put me on a wrong track.  In this way I was once led to travel towards the coast, while he proceeded in an opposite direction to Benares, where he considered he would be most safe from my vengeance, and where the restraints both of religion and law would be more likely to operate on me than in a foreign district.

“My usual practice, on arriving at any town, was to endeavour to learn if Balty Mahu had passed through it; if so, when and in what direction; and to get the information, if possible, without seeming to seek it.  On one of these occasions, I heard from a party of merchants that the Omrah Addaway, whose health had been declining for some time, had gone to Benares, for the benefit of medical advice; that his disease, however, had become more serious; and that it was generally thought it would soon occasion his death.  What a train of new thoughts, hopes, and desires, did this intelligence excite in me!  At first, influenced by the custom of my country, which prohibits widows from marrying again, I thought only of the pleasure of Veenah’s society, which I should, of course, be permitted to enjoy, when duty no longer forbade it; but my imagination kindling in its course, I soon pictured her to myself as my wife.  The usages which stood in the way of our union, appeared to me barbarous and absurd, and I thought that, banishment from my country, with Veenah, would be infinitely better than any other condition of life without her.  These new-born visions so entirely absorbed me, that Balty Mahu was entirely forgotten, or remembered only as we think of an insect which had stung us an hour before.  I travelled on at a yet more rapid rate than I had done; and, without stopping on the road to make inquiries, I heard enough to satisfy me that the Omrah could not long survive.  When within something more than ten leagues of Benares, I called, about twilight, at a small inn, and meant, after refreshing myself with a few hours’ rest, to proceed on my journey.  Two travellers were there, who had just left Benares, and had taken up their quarters for the night.  They soon fell into conversation about the place they had left, when the mention of Shunah Shoo’s name excited my attention.