Yielding now to the wishes of my anxious parents, I consented to travel.
I was at first benefited by the exercise and change of scene; but after
a while, my melancholy returned, and my health grew worse. Though
indifferent to life itself, and all that it now promised, I exerted
myself for the sake of my parents, especially of my mother, who suffered
so acutely on my account: but I carried a barbed arrow in my heart, and
the greater the efforts to extract it, the more they rankled the wound.
"After spending more than a year in travelling, first through the
mountainous district of our country, and then along the coast, and
finding no change for the better, I determined to try the effect of a
sea voyage. I accordingly embarked at Calcutta, in a coasting vessel
that was bound to Madras. At this time I had wasted away to a mere
skeleton, and no one who saw me, believed I could live a month. Such,
indeed, were my own impressions. In the letter which I wrote to my
parents, I endeavoured to prepare them for the worst. When, after a long
voyage, we reached Madras, my health was evidently improved; but a piece
of intelligence I here received, had perhaps a still greater effect I
learnt that Balty Mahu, who had kept himself concealed from me before I
left Benares, had lately visited Madras, on a travelling tour. This news
operated on me like a charm. The idea of avenging myself on the author
of all my calamities, infused new life into my exhausted frame, and from
the moment that I determined to pursue him, I felt like another man.
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