“‘Yes,’ said Balty Mahu, ‘he has always been a scoffer of our religion.’  As soon as these words reached my ears, with the quickness of thought I snatched a cimeter from the hands of one of the guards, and plunged it in his breast.  Of all that happened afterwards, my recollection is very confused.  I was rudely seized, and hurried to prison.  My father was coming to meet me, when he was informed of the fatal deed.  I remember that my coolness, or rather stupor, was in strong contrast with the violence of his emotion.  He accompanied me to prison, and continued with me that night.

“It is not easy to take the life of one of my caste in India; and, by dint of the exertions of my friends, in spite of the influence of Shunah Shoo, and the family of the Omrah, I was pardoned, on condition of doing penance, which was, that I should never live in a country in which the religion of Brahmin prevailed, and should not again look at, or converse with, any woman for two minutes together.  Ere this took place, my excellent mother, unable to withstand the shocks she had received from my supposed death, my misfortunes, and my crime, died a martyr to maternal affection.  Wishing to conform to the sentence, and to be as near my father as I could, I removed to the kingdom of Ava, where, you know, they are followers of Buddha.  Here I continued as long as my father lived, which was about six years.  In this period, time had so alleviated my grief, that I began to take pleasure in the cultivation of science, which constituted my chief employment.

“After my father’s death, I indulged a curiosity I had felt in my youth, of seeing foreign countries; and I visited China, Japan, and England.  During my residence in Asia, I had discovered lunarium ore in the mountain near Mogaun; and this circumstance, many years afterwards, when I determined to rest from my labours, induced me to settle in that mountain, as I have before stated.  I have occasionally used the metal to counterbalance the gravity of a small car, by which I have profited, by a favourable wind, to indulge the melancholy satisfaction of looking down on the tombs of my parents, and of the ill-fated Veenah:  approaching the earth near enough, in the night, to see the sacred spots, but not enough to violate the religious injunctions of my caste; to avoid which, however, it was sometimes necessary for me to go across Hindostan to Arabia or Persia, and there wait for a change of wind before I could return:  and it was these excursions which suggested to the superstitious Burmans that my form had undergone a temporary transformation.  When such have been the woes of my life, you can no longer think it strange, Atterley, that I delayed their painful recital; or that, after having endured so much, all common dangers and misfortunes should appear to me insignificant.”

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