their bows
respectfully, and began to enter into conversation with their two
friends, the groom and butler, who were coming up behind. The Mogul's
nostrils began again to swell, and he bid the strangers be off. The
groom and butler interceded, for their master was a grave, sedate
man, and they wanted companions. All would not do, and the strangers
fell in the rear. The next day, when they had got to the middle of an
extensive and uninhabited plain, the Mogul in advance, and his two
servants a few hundred yards behind, he came up to a party of six
poor Musalmans, sitting weeping by the side of a dead companion. They
were soldiers from Lahore,[11] on their way to Lucknow, worn down by
fatigue in their anxiety to see their wives and children once more,
after a long and painful service. Their companion, the hope and prop
of his family, had sunk under the fatigue, and they had made a grave
for him; but they were poor unlettered men, and unable to repeat the
funeral service from the holy Koran-would his Highness but perform
this last office for them, he would, no doubt, find his reward in
this world and the next. The Mogul dismounted--the body had been
placed in its proper position, with its head towards Mecca. A carpet
was spread--the Mogul took off his bow and quiver, then his pistols
and sword, and placed them on the ground near the body--called for
water, and washed his feet, hands, and face, that he might not
pronounce the holy words in an unclean state. He then knelt down and
began to repeat the funeral service, in a clear, loud voice. Two of
the poor soldiers knelt by him, one on each side in silence. The
other four went off a few paces to beg that the butler and groom
would not come so near as to interrupt the good Samaritan at his
devotions.

'All being ready, one of the four, in a low undertone, gave the
"jhirni" (signal),[12] the handkerchiefs were thrown over their
necks, and in a few minutes all three--the Mogul and his servants--
were dead, and lying in the grave in the usual manner, the head of
one at the feet of the one below him. All the parties they had met on
the road belonged to a gang of Jamaldehi Thugs, of the kingdom of
Oudh.[13] In despair of being able to win the Mogul's confidence in
the usual way, and determined to have the money and jewels, which
they knew he carried with him, they had adopted this plan of
disarming him; dug the grave by the side of the road, in the open
plain, and made a handsom