all was well, when the gold repeater struck thirteen in poor
Macgillicuddy's abdomen. I suppose that the works must have been
disarranged in some way by the bullet, for the repeater was one of
Barraud's, never known to fail before, and the circumstance
occurred at seven o'clock. {1}

I could continue, almost ad infinitum, an account of the wars which
this Helen occasioned, but the above three specimens will, I should
think, satisfy the peaceful reader. I delight not in scenes of
blood, Heaven knows, but I was compelled in the course of a few
weeks, and for the sake of this one woman, to fight nine duels
myself, and I know that four times as many more took place
concerning her.

I forgot to say that Jowler's wife was a half-caste woman, who had
been born and bred entirely in India, and whom the Colonel had
married from the house of her mother, a native. There were some
singular rumours abroad regarding this latter lady's history: it
was reported that she was the daughter of a native Rajah, and had
been carried off by a poor English subaltern in Lord Clive's time.
The young man was killed very soon after, and left his child with
its mother. The black Prince forgave his daughter and bequeathed
to her a handsome sum of money. I suppose that it was on this
account that Jowler married Mrs. J., a creature who had not, I do
believe, a Christian name, or a single Christian quality: she was
a hideous, bloated, yellow creature, with a beard, black teeth, and
red eyes: she was fat, lying, ugly, and stingy--she hated and was
hated by all the world, and by her jolly husband as devoutly as by
any other. She did not pass a month in the year with him, but
spent most of her time with her native friends. I wonder how she