"What on earth is it all about, Dick?" Surajah asked, as, panting with his exertions, he looked round after cutting down his opponent.
"Thugs," Dick said briefly.
"Are you sure, Dick?" Surajah asked presently. "It may be a terrible business for us, if there is any mistake."
For answer, Dick pointed to the bodies of the two men he had first shot. One still grasped the roomal, or twisted silk sash, while a like deadly implement lay by the side of the other.
"Thank Heaven!" Surajah ejaculated. "I was afraid there might have been a mistake, Dick, but I see that you were right, and that it was a party of Thugs. If it had not been that you were on the watch for them, and had your pistol ready, we should have lost our lives."
"It was a close shave as it was, Surajah. One second later, and you and I should both have been strangled. I had my hand on my pistol, and felt so sure that an attack was intended that, the moment something passed before my face, although I had no idea what it was, I threw myself back and fired at the man behind me, with an instinctive feeling that my life depended on my speed. But it was only when, on looking at you, I saw a man in the act of throwing a noose round your neck, that I knew exactly what I had escaped."
"It was fortunate that they had not pistols," Surajah said. "We should have had no chance against them, if they had had firearms."
"No; they could have shot us the moment I first fired. But Uncle said, when he was talking to me one day, that he had heard that the Stranglers did not carry firearms, because the reports might attract attention; and that it was a matter of religion, with them, to kill their victims by strangling; but that if the Strangler failed, which he very seldom did, the other men would then despatch the victims with their swords and knives.
"Ah! here comes Ibrahim."
"I caught him just outside the trees, Sahib. He will strangle no more travellers."