d led me to forget my duty to my general,
my country, my monarch, and my own honor!

Thus it was that the escape took place:--My own fellow of the
Irregulars, whom I had summoned to dress me, performed the operation to
my satisfaction, invested me with the elegant uniform of my corps, and
removed the Pitan's disguise, which I had taken from the back of the
prostrate Bobbachy Bahawder. What did the rogue do next?--Why, he
carried back the dress to the Bobbachy--he put it, once more, on its
right owner; he and his infernal black companions (who had been won over
by the Bobbachy with promises of enormous reward), gagged Macgillicuddy,
who was going the rounds, and then marched with the Indian coolly up to
the outer gate, and gave the word. The sentinel, thinking it was myself,
who had first come in, and was as likely to go out again,--(indeed my
rascally valet said that Gahagan Sahib was about to go out with him
and his two companions to reconnoitre,)--opened the gates, and off they
went!

This accounted for the confusion of my valet when I entered!--and
for the scoundrel's speech, that the lieutenant had JUST BEEN THE
ROUNDS;--he HAD, poor fellow, and had been seized and bound in this
cruel way. The three men, with their liberated prisoner, had just been
on the point of escape, when my arrival disconcerted them: I had changed
the guard at the gate (whom they had won over likewise); and yet,
although they had overcome poor Mac, and although they were ready for
the start, they had positively no means for effecting their escape,
until I was ass enough to put means in their way. Fool! fool! thrice
besotted fool that I was, to think of my own silly person when I should
have been occupied solely with my public duty.

From Macgillicuddy's incoherent accounts, as he was gasping from the
effects of the gag and the whiskey he had taken to revive him, and from
my own subsequent observations, I learned this sad story. A sudden and
painful thought struck me--my precious box!--I rushed back, I found that
box--I have it still. Opening it, there, where I had left ingots, sacks
of bright tomauns, kopeks and rupees, strings of diamonds as big as
ducks' eggs, rubies as red as the lips of my Belinda, countless strings
of pearls, amethysts, emeralds, piles upon piles of bank-notes--I
found--a piece of paper! with a few lines in the Sanscrit language,
which are thus, word for word, translated:

"EPIGRAM.