Six months passed away without any news of him;
and at last the wife dreamed that he had died on the road, and began
forthwith, in the middle of the night, to call out "Sat, sat, sat!"
Nothing could dissuade her from burning; and in the morning a pile
was raised for her, on the north bank of the large tank of
Hanuman,[15] where you have planted an avenue of trees. There I saw
her burned with her husband's turban in her arms, and in ten days
after her husband came back.'
'Now the burning has been prohibited, a man cannot get rid of a bad
wife so easily?'
'But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become
suttees.'
'Who made the pile for her?'
'Some of her family, but I forget who. They thought it must have been
a call from Heaven, when, in reality, it was only a dream.'
'You are a Rajput?'
'Yes.'
'Do Rajputs in this part of India now destroy their female infants?'
'Never; that practice has ceased everywhere in these parts; and is
growing into disuse in Bundelkhand, where the Rajas, at the request
of the British Government, have prohibited it among their subjects.
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