There was not an eye in the crowd that was not fixed on the advancing shadow; barely a hand's breadth of light remained, and the Thug gazed on it as though he were fascinated by the eye of a tiger. My father! oh he was fearful to look on; his eyes were glazed—his lips were tightened across his teeth—fear, agony, was depicted in his countenance in stronger lines than I had ever before seen. I could not look on him—his face was altered, and his usual bland expression had been usurped by that I have described. I felt sick, I could have died I thought; and would that I had died, to have been spared what followed.
"Fool!" cried the other approver, "will you sacrifice your life for those who will be instantly put to death?" He spoke in Ramasee.
The words rallied the man to whom he addressed them, and they saved him.
"Pardon, pardon!" he cried; "O, mighty prince, I have told lies. Jeswunt Mul is indeed dead; these hands dug his grave, and bore his yet warm body to it."
"Ai Bhugwan! Ai Seeta-ram!" cried the Rajah, "and is it even so? My poor friend, and art thou dead?" and for a moment or two he wept. "This is womanly," said he, rallying himself. "Proceed, O kumbukht! Let me know all, and what share he had in it."
"We met the Sahoukar at ——," said the Thug. "Ismail well knew that if we were all seen by him he would suspect us, so he sent the greater part of the band out of the village, and prevailed upon Jeswunt Mul to come and sleep in our camp, instead of remaining where he was. He went to the village, and brought him away himself, else he would not have come. The grave was dug long before he arrived; and he had not been an hour with us after the sun had set, when he was strangled in the Jemadar's presence by two Bhuttotes; and his two servants shared the same fate. I buried them all. The Sahoukar's pony we sold the next day for twenty-five rupees; and we got but little else, for he had no money but in hoondees, which we burned."
"Enough, enough," said the Rajah; "this is ample proof."
"Nay, if your greatness requires more proof, I can give you some now," continued the approver. "Look at the Jemadar's hand: he wears on it a ring he took from the body himself, and it may be recognized even by you, Maha Rajah."
My heart sank within me at this new and desperate stroke of fortune. I saw the ring torn from my father's finger. All examined it. A Sahoukar who was in the assembly declared it to have belonged to Jeswunt Mul, and, more than all, his name was engraven on its inner surface.