with such ludicrous promptness, that my sense of the ridiculous
outweighs all other considerations, and I regard their demonstrations of
remorse with a broad smile of amusement. It is anything but a laughing
matter from their own standpoint, however; the mudbake warns them
forthwith that I have threatened to have them bastinadoed, and they
fairly writhe and groan in an agony of apprehension. The khan, owing to
his more sanguine temperament, and a lively conception that the heaviest
burden of guilt and accompanying punishment would naturally fall on his
own shoulders as the chief of my escort, removes his turban and then lies
down on the floor and grovels at my feet.

All the hair he possesses is a little tuft or two left on his otherwise
smoothly shaven pate, by which he confidently expects at his demise to be
tenderly lifted up into Paradise by the Prophet Mohammed. After kissing
most of the dust off my geivehs, and banging his head violently against
the floor, he signifies his willingness to relinquish all anticipations
of eternal happiness, black-eyed houris and the like, by attempting to
yank out even this Celestial hand-hold, hoping that the woeful depth of
his anguish and the sincerity of his repentance may prove the means of
escaping present punishment. His eyes roll wildly about in their sockets,
and in a voice choking with emotion he begs me pathetically to keep the
matter a secret from the Khan of Ghalakua. "O Sahib, Sahib! Hoikim no,
hoikim no!" he pleads, and the anguish-stricken khan accompanies these
pleadings with a look of unutterable agony, and furthermore indulges in
the pantomime of sawing off his ears and his hands with his forefinger.
This latter tragic demonstration is to let me know that the result of
exposure would be to have the former, and perhaps the latter, of these
useful members cut off, after the cruel and summary justice of this
country. The mirza and mudbake cluster around and supplement their
superior's pathetic pleadings with deep-drawn groans of "Allah, Allah!"
and sundry prostrations toward Mecca.

It is a ludicrous and yet a strangely touching spectacle to see these
three poor devils grovelling and pleading before me, and at the same time
praying to Allah for protection in the little bala-khana, hoping thereby
to save themselves from cruel mutilation and lifelong disgrace. A
watchful eye is kept outside by the mirza, who does his groaning and
praying near the door, and the sight of