The burnt-offerings were repeated on all holy days, and after any unusual interval between murders. After being used, it was washed with solemn rites. There was no more binding oath than to swear by the _kussee_. If the axe itself were not procurable, it sufficed to make an effigy of it in cloth or clay. The person attested, held it in his hand as he swore, and then drank the water in which it had been previously bathed. A perjurer died an awful death within six days after his guilt, his head gradually turning round till his face stood over his back. After all, this is not more strange than the old Hebrew trial of jealousy, as described in the fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers; nor more ridiculous than any ordeal in which supernatural effects were expected from simple and natural causes. If the _kussee_ fell from the hand of its bearer, his death was certain to ensue within twelve months, or else some dire calamity befel the gang. The immediate results of the untoward accident were his deposition from his high office, a change of route, and a fresh consecration of the axe. It has been before remarked, that no one but a Thug could hear the sound of the _kussee_, when used in digging graves. It had likewise another virtue, in common with the _roomal_. "Are you never afraid," asked Captain Sleeman, one day, of some of the approvers, "of the spirits of the persons you murder?" "Never," they replied, "they cannot trouble us." "Why? Do they not trouble other men when they commit murder?" "Of course they do. The man who commits a murder is always haunted by spirits. He has sometimes fifty at a time upon him, and they drive him mad." "And how do they not trouble you?" "Are not the people we kill, killed by the orders of Davey? Do not all whom we kill, go to Paradise, and why should their spirits stay to trouble us?... A good deal of our security from spirits is to be attributed to the _roomal_, with which we strangle." "I did not know that there was any virtue in the _roomal_." "Is it not our _sikka_ (ensign), as the pick-axe is our _nishan_ (standard)?... More is attributable to the pick-axe. Do we not worship it every seventh day? Is it not our standard? Is its sound ever heard when digging the grave of any but a Thug? And can any man ever swear to a falsehood upon it?"