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from the net of your secret apartments, to which I am confined, and suffer me to dwell on the wall Méghach' handa which encircles them, I will hide the picture in a place where none shall see it but pigeons.

[He goes out.

Misr. [Aside.] How honourably he keeps his former engagements, though his heart be now fixed on another object!

Ward. May the king prosper!

Dushm. Warder, hast thou lately seen the queen Vasumatì?

Ward. I met her, O king; but when she perceived the leaf in my hand, she retired.

Dushm. The queen distinguishes time: she would not impede my publick bnsinessbusiness [sic].

Ward. The chief minister sends this message: "I have carefully stated a case whiehwhich [sic] has arisen in the city, and accurately committed it to writing: let the king deign to consider it."

Dushm. Give me the leaf.—[Receiving it, and reading.]—"Be it presented at the foot of the king, that a merchant named Dhanavriddhi, who had extensive commerce at sea, was lost in a late shipwreck: he had no child born; and has left a fortune of many millions, which belong, if the king commands, to the royal treasury."—[With sorrow.]—Oh! how great a misfortune it is to die childless! Yet with his affluence he must have had many wives:—let an inquiry be made whether any one of them is pregnant.