the girls was a very handsome young woman, and
Pancham, a Jemadar, wished to preserve her as a wife for his son. But
when she saw her father and mother strangled she screamed and beat
her head against the ground and tried to kill herself. Pancham tried
in vain to quiet her, and promised to take great care of her and
marry her to his own son, who would be a great chief; but all to no
effect. She continued to scream, and at last Pancham put the _rumal_
(handkerchief) round her neck and strangled her. One little girl
of three years old was preserved by another Jemadar and married to
his son, and when she grew up often heard the story of the affair
narrated. The bodies were buried in a ravine and the booty amounted
to Rs. 17,000. The Thugs then decided to return home, and arrived
without mishap, except that the Jemadar, Pancham, died on the way.

7. Disguises of the Thugs

They were not particular, however, to ascertain that their victims
carried valuable property before disposing of them. Eight annas
(8d.), one of them said, [688] was sufficient remuneration for
murdering a man. On another occasion two river Thugs killed two
old men and obtained only a rupee's worth of coppers, two brass
vessels and their body-cloths. But as a rule the gains were much
larger. It sometimes happened that the Thugs themselves were robbed
at night by ordinary thieves, though they usually set a watch. On one
occasion a band of more than a hundred Thugs fell in with a party of
twenty-seven dacoits who had with them stolen property of Rs. 13,000
in cash, with gold ornaments, gems and shawls. The Thugs asked to be
allowed to travel under their protection, and the dacoits carelessly
assenting were shortly afterwards all murdered. [689] As already
stated, the Thugs were accustomed to live in towns or villages and
many of them ostensibly followed respectable callings. The following
instance of this is given by Sir W. Sleeman: [690] "The first party
of Thug approvers whom I sent into the Deccan to aid Captain Reynolds
recognised in the person of one of the most respectable linen-drapers
of the cantonment of Hingoli, Hari Singh, the adopted son of Jawahir
Sukul, Subahdar of Thugs, who had been executed twenty years before. On
hearing that the Hari Singh of the list sent to him of noted Thugs
at large in the Deccan was the Hari Singh of the Sadar Bazar, Captain
Reynolds was quite astounded; so correct had he been in his deportment
and all his de