They were very beautiful buildings, and had been erected at
great cost and kept in good repair. She told me that she had never
mentioned this her resolution to any one from that time, nor breathed
a syllable on the subject till she called out 'Sat, sat, sat',[8]
when her husband breathed his last with his head in her lap on the
bank of the Nerbudda, to which he had been taken when no hopes
remained of his surviving the fever of which he died.
Charles Harding, of the Bengal Civil Service, as magistrate of
Benares, in 1806 prevented the widow of a Brahman from being burned.
Twelve months after her husband's death she had been goaded by her
family into the expression of a wish to burn with some relic of her
husband, preserved for the purpose. The pile was raised to her at
Ramnagar,[9] some two miles above Benares, on the opposite side of
the river Ganges. She was not well secured upon the pile, and as soon
as she felt the fire she jumped off and plunged into the river. The
people all ran after her along the bank, but the current drove her
towards Benares, whence a police boat put off and took her in.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104