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230 "Which Rohini?"

"The one who used to be in the Koti at Prasâdpur."

"I, and my father before me, have never been to the Prasâdpur Koti."

"How did Rohini die?"

"I hear she committed suicide."

"Do you know anything of the murder?"

"Nothing at all."

The Vakil then read over to the witness the deposition he had made before the magistrate, and then asked, "Come, now, did you not say all that to the Magistrate Sâhib?"

"Yes, I said it."

"But if you know nothing, why did you say it?"

"Because of the beating. Pichel Khân covered my whole body with blows." Here the witness wept. Some days previously, in a quarrel with his own brother about some land he had sustained some blows. The marks remained. These the witness, with unblushing face, displayed to the judge, as the marks of Pichel Khân's beating.

Much perplexed, the Vakil called the other witness. The second witness spoke to the same effect. Before coming he had