He assured her that it was his desire and duty to save her, and to urge her to live, and to keep her family from the disgrace of being thought her murderers.  But she said she “was not afraid of their being thought so; that they had all, like good children, done everything in their power to induce her to live, and to abide with them; and if I should consent I know they would love and honor me, but my duties to them have now ended.  I commit them all to your care, and I go to attend my husband, Ummed Singh Upadhya, with whose ashes on the funeral pile mine have been already three times mixed.”

She believed that she and he had been upon the earth three several times as wife and husband, and that she had burned herself to death three times upon his pyre.  That is why she said that strange thing.  Since she had broken her bracelets and put on the red turban she regarded herself as a corpse; otherwise she would not have allowed herself to do her husband the irreverence of pronouncing his name.  “This was the first time in her long life that she had ever uttered her husband’s name, for in India no woman, high or low, ever pronounces the name of her husband.”

Major Sleeman still tried to shake her purpose.  He promised to build her a fine house among the temples of her ancestors upon the bank of the river and make handsome provision for her out of rent-free lands if she would consent to live; and if she wouldn’t he would allow no stone or brick to ever mark the place where she died.  But she only smiled and said, “My pulse has long ceased to beat, my spirit has departed; I shall suffer nothing in the burning; and if you wish proof, order some fire and you shall see this arm consumed without giving me any pain.”

Sleeman was now satisfied that he could not alter her purpose.  He sent for all the chief members of the family and said he would suffer her to burn herself if they would enter into a written engagement to abandon the suttee in their family thenceforth.  They agreed; the papers were drawn out and signed, and at noon, Saturday, word was sent to the poor old woman.  She seemed greatly pleased.  The ceremonies of bathing were gone through with, and by three o’clock she was ready and the fire was briskly burning in the pit.  She had now gone without food or drink during more than four days and a half.  She came ashore from her rock, first wetting her sheet in the waters of the sacred river, for without that safeguard any shadow which might fall upon her would convey impurity to her; then she walked to the pit, leaning upon one of her sons and a nephew—­the distance was a hundred and fifty yards.

“I had sentries placed all around, and no other person was allowed to approach within five paces.  She came on with a calm and cheerful countenance, stopped once, and casting her eyes upwards, said, ’Why have they kept me five days from thee, my husband?’ On coming to the sentries her supporters stopped and remained standing; she moved on, and walked once around the pit, paused a moment, and while muttering a prayer, threw some flowers into the fire.  She then walked up deliberately and steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing upon a couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying one sign of agony.”