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306 The Maharajah at length enjoyed the compliment he had so long coveted, and was so long denied—at the review he was greeted with the full sum of twenty-one guns, his nephew and two brothers receiving seventeen each. He wore his royal honors for seventeen days and no more. Distributing $50,000 among the mutineers, he returned in state to his Cawnpore residence. This was a hotel kept by a Mohammedan, and in which the writer slept when in the place a few months previously. The Nana took possession of these premises, which were about seventy-five paces from the house here shown, where the poor ladies were confined. Here he lived from day to day in a perpetual round of sensuality, amid a choice coterie of priests, panderers, ministers, and minions. The reigning beauty of the fortnight was one Oula or Adala. She was the Thais on whose breast sank the vanquished victor, oppressed with brandy and such love as animates a middle-aged Eastern debauchee. She is said to have counted by hundreds of thousands the rupees which were lavished upon her by the affection or vanity of her Alexander. Every night there was an entertainment of music, dancing, and pantomime, the latter being some caricature of English habits. The noise of this revelry was plainly audible to the captives in the adjoining house; and as they crowded round the windows to catch a breath of the cool night air, the glare of the torches and the strains of the barbarous melody might remind them of the period when he who was now the center of that noisy throng thought himself privileged if he could induce them to honor him with their acceptance of the hospitality of Bithoor. To such reality of woe were they reduced! Heat, hardship, wounds, and want of space and proper nourishment were beginning to release some from their bondage before the season marked out by Azeemoolah for a jail delivery such as the world never witnessed before. A sentence of relief may be added here, as rumors contrary to the fact have been circulated: Trevelyan, whom we have so freely copied, declares that the evidence shows that these ladies died without mention, and we may hope without apprehension, of dishonor.

The hour of retribution dawned at length! Outraged