y way into the palace. Through the
stately halls and along the marble pavements, amid the servile crowd
that swarmed to pay homage to Meer Jaffier, I passed, and on till I
came to that hideous stair up which I had brought two of Surajah
Dowlah's victims such a short time before. On the way I gathered
something of what had taken place.

One of Surajah Dowlah's former subjects, a man whose ears the young
Nabob had barbarously cut off for some offence, had recognised him in
his flight, and had betrayed him to the agents of his successor. He
was brought back in chains to Moorshedabad and carried before Meer
Jaffier, at whose feet he flung himself, sobbing, and beseeching that
his miserable life might be spared. Meer Jaffier, partly moved by his
entreaties, partly restrained by regard for Colonel Clive, had shown a
wish to spare him. But in Meer Jaffier's son, young Meeram, the fallen
tyrant had found a spirit as ferocious and ungovernable as his own.
This boy--for he was scarcely sixteen--thirsted for his cousin's
blood, and even attempted to stab him in Meer Jaffier's presence. Meer
Jaffier, afraid of his son, had ordered the prisoner to be removed
into the dungeons under a guard, and this was done. But the fury of
Meeram was not to be appeased. In the dark hours of the night, unknown
to his father, he had descended into the dungeon, bribed or overawed
the guards, and----

They threw open the door. They held up their torches over a dark
object lying on the ground. There, with a dozen red rents in the bosom
of his tunic, with blood thickly soaked into the dye of his silk robe,
with blood caked upon the rubies and emeralds in his turban, I saw
Surajah Dowlah, dead!

For some minutes I stood still in the presence of this impressive
retribution, recalling the brief but terrible career which had thus
tragically ended. There lay the cruellest despot of his age, the
practitioner of horrible debaucheries, the sworn enemy of the English
name, who had driven us out of Bengal, and perpetrated the
never-to-be-forgotten massacre in which I had been so nearly included.
I was but newly come out of the presence of two of his victims, and
here I beheld him cut off from light more surely than the man he had
blinded, dead while the woman he had murdered still breathed. I gazed,
and was satisfied. The evil desires of vengeance which had tormented
me for so long were utterly extinguished. I beheld before me the
justice of high Heaven, and