Then she suddenly became pensive. She no longer attended to what
was passing around her. Her looks were wildly fixed upon the pile. Her
face grew pale. She trembled with fear, and seemed ready to faint away.
The Brahmins, who took the lead in this ceremony, with her relations,
seeing her sad condition, ran to her, and endeavored to restore her
spirits, but she seemed not to know what they said, and answered not a
word.
They made her quit the palanquin, and her nearest relatives took her to
a pond of water which was near the pile, where they washed her. They
then attended her to the pile, on which the corpse of her husband had
already been laid. It was surrounded with Brahmins, each with a lighted
torch in one hand, and a bowl of melted butter in the other, all ready,
as soon as the poor victim was placed on the pile, to envelope her in
fire.
The relatives armed with muskets, sabres, and other weapons, stood
closely around in a double line, for the purpose, it was said, of making
her afraid, if she might wish to draw back, or of frightening any body
who might pity her, and endeavor to rescue her.
At length the time for firing the pile being proclaimed, the young widow
was stripped of her jewels, and led on towards the pile.
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