came with fifty more armed men, accompanied by Baboo Mudar Buksh, the
tallookdar of Silha in Jugdispore, his own agent Muheput, and a
Brahmin prisoner named Cheyn, who knew Dulla, and the wealth he
possessed. He brought with him the merchant's son Nychint, and
commanded him to point out the place in which the valuables lay
concealed. He would not do so, and Bhooree Khan then drove four tent-
pins into the ground in the courtyard, placed Nychint on his face,
and tied his hands and feet to these pegs. He then had him burnt into
the bones with red-hot ramrods, but the young man still persisted in
his refusal. He had then oil boiled in a large brass pot which they
found in the house, and poured it over him till all the skin of his
body came off. He became insensible for a time, and when he recovered
his senses he pointed out the spot. Gold and silver ornaments and
clothes of great value, and brass utensils belonging to the family,
or held as pledges for money due to the old man, were taken up, with
one hundred and fifty matchlocks and the same number of swords. They
found also many pits, containing several thousand maunds of grain.
The valuables, and as much of the grain as he could find carriage
for, Bhooree Khan and his gang carried off, and the rest of the grain
he gave to any one who would take it. The value of the whole plunder
was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand rupees.

Nychint was unbound, but died that night, and the body was made over
to the Brahmin, Cheyn, who had now become a Mussulman. He took it to
the jungle, where he had it burnt with the usual ceremonies. Bhooree
Khan still detained Ajodheea, the son of Nychint, and Golbay, the son
of Pursun Sing, and demanded a further ransom for them, but he
released Dulla, who came home and died of grief and of the tortures
inflicted upon him in less than a month after. Cheyn, Dabey Sookul,
and Forsut, all Brahmins of Mukdoompoor, were witnesses to the
tortures inflicted upon Nychint, and to the plunder of the house. He
kept Dulla's grandsons for a year more, with occasional tortures, but
the surviving son, Pursun Sing, had nothing more to give, and no one
would give or lend him anything. Golbay, his son, at last contrived
to get a letter conveyed to him, stating that he was now less
carefully guarded than he had been; that he and his cousin, Ajodheea,
were sent to take their meals with a bearer, who lived in a hamlet on
the border of the jungle, where they