"That night the paint-bedaubed pickaxe, sacred emblem of Kali's worship, lay on the table in my sleeping chamber. But in the morning it had disappeared--gone how and where no one has ever discovered. The informer had been confined in the public prison, guarded by two sepoys. Thither, on discovering my loss, I straightway repaired.

"The soldiers were still on guard in the corridor; nothing had happened during the night to disturb their watch.

"But within his cell the informer was found dead--strangled, eyes and tongue protruding from blackened face, the twisted knot under his ear tied in the very manner I had seen him himself tie it over his upraised knee on the afternoon of his confession.

"That is the end of my story."

The narrator of the grim tale folded his hands across his breast, bowed his head, and thus remained in an att.i.tude of meditation. There was an interval of silence.

"Who murdered the informer?" at last asked the astrologer.

"We never learned," replied the magistrate.

"Was he strangled with his own silken scarf?"

"No. A plain cotton loin-cloth had been used for the deed. It had never been worn or washed. It must thus have come straight from some shop in the bazaars. But scores of the same kind are bought and sold every day.

We could discover nothing from this, the only clue the murderer had left behind him."

"The a.s.sa.s.sin must have been the mysterious individual you saw in the rear of the shop of Kubar Bux," commented the Afghan general. "Himself a member of the thug fraternity, he no doubt took swift vengeance on the informer for having betrayed its secrets."

"As I believed then, and believe now. But the whole affair remained a puzzle. For how was access gained to the locked and guarded prison cell, and to my sleeping chamber as well whence the sacred pickaxe was stolen?"

"Well, who can be certain even of his a.s.sociates or followers? According to the miscreant's own story, there are thugs all around, knowing each other but not known to us."

"Can such things be?" asked the merchant, his eyes showing the fear and horror that had smitten him. "Many times have I travelled in company with just such a promiscuously gathered crowd as the strangler described."

"You have been in luck," laughed the Afghan.

"Doubtless on those occasions the omens proved unpropitious for the final deed. A jackal crossing the road or the hoot of an owl at midnight may have spared your life, my friend."

With a shudder, the trader drew his white garments more closely around him.

"Well," remarked the magistrate, "for my own part, ever from that day when I heard the story of thugs and thuggee I have exercised the precaution of never travelling a single mile on the road with strangers, however fair-spoken. Although I have never again met anyone whom I could positively accuse of such practices, that the evil exists in our midst, and is widely spread, I am convinced. For a religion that provides a rich livelihood, while at the same time exalting the attendant crime into positive virtue is at least convenient enough to have many ardent devotees." The words were accompanied by a glance around the listening group, and a disdainful half-smile that expressed distrust of all humanity.

"But of a truth," he went on, "I know no more than my story has told.

And hark! There is the trumpet call that heralds the coming of the sun."

Saying this, the kotwal uncrossed his legs and rose erect.

The long winding note of a horn was floating from the camp of the soldiery near the city gateway, and in a moment there came from the same direction the confused sound of men's voices afar off, calling the one to the other.

"I must away," exclaimed the Afghan, springing alertly to his feet, and buckling his sword belt. Three or four servants of the Rajput chief had approached, and were gathering together the cushions and rugs on which he had been reclining. One of them placed in his master's hand the bejewelled hilt of his scimitar.

"This for my enemies and the enemies of Akbar," cried the Rajput, drawing the curved blade half way from its scabbard. "But I would not soil it with the heart's blood of a thug. For him the gibbet, and the crows to pick out his eyes."

Just then the first lance-tips of the dawn flashed above the horizon, gilding the domes and minarets of the marble city. Away in the distance could be heard the wailing cry of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

Other members of the party had now arisen, each intent on his own affairs, one arranging his garments, another settling his turban straight on his head, the hakeem adjusting the little box of instruments and simples he carried at his girdle, the Moslem astrologer spreading his prayer carpet at the end of the veranda and prostrating himself in the direction of Mecca.

Only the fakir had remained motionless; but now he gathered up in his hands his wooden begging-bowl, and held it forth, crying, "Ram, Ram," in the plaintive whine of his profession. But there was none to pay heed to his untimely importunity. Indeed, the Bombay merchant, when the cry smote his ears, started uneasily, and in descending the steps gave the lean, ash-bedaubed figure of the ascetic the widest berth possible.

"Who can tell a thug from a honest man?" he asked of the magistrate in pa.s.sing.

"Who indeed can tell?" came the reply, in measured tone and with an enigmatic smile.

And a minute later all had gone their several ways.

THE END.