They were merely instruments in the hands of God. "No man is ever killed by man's killing," but through the will of the Deity. Many "incursions" had been made at different times against Thuggee, but never on such a scale as that instituted by the company's officers. "The Company's Ikbal (genius, or good fortune) is such, that before the sound of your drums, sorcerers, witches, and demons take flight, and how can Thuggee stand?" In the early ages of the "institution," Bhowanee used to dispose of the dead bodies and efface all signs of the murder, but she distinctly warned her votaries against looking back after they had again taken to the road. Curiosity, however, at length proved too strong for the sons of Eve, and one day it came to pass that a Thug looked over his shoulder and beheld the goddess playing at ball with the corpses, throwing them up into the air and catching them as they fell; or, according to another account, she had a dead body in her mouth, the extremities projecting on either side. After this discovery of her favourite pastimes, Kalee refused to have anything more to do with their victims, and left it to themselves to conceal the tokens of their "piety." But she did not altogether abandon them. Even in her wrath she was gracious to those who held her name in honour. She accordingly bestowed upon them one of her teeth for a pick-axe, a rib for a knife, and the hem of her garment for a noose: yellow and white being the colours she most affected, such were frequently the hues of the _roomal_. To the last she "everywhere protected the Thugs, so long as they attended religiously to their duties." Even when through inattention to the omens she sent for their guidance, any of them were apprehended and punished, her vengeance was sure to overtake their oppressors. "Was not Nanha," said an approver, "the Raja of Jhalone, made leprous by Davey for putting to death Bodhoo and his brother Khumoolee, two of the most noted Thugs of their day? He had them trampled under the feet of elephants, but the leprosy broke out upon his body the very next day." Nanha was so sensible of his guiltiness, that he did all in his power to appease Davey. "Bodhoo had begun a well in Jhalone; the Raja built it up in a magnificent style; he had a Chubootra (tomb) raised to their name, fed Brahmans, consecrated it, had worship instituted upon it, but all in vain; the disease was incurable, and the Raja died in a few months a miserable death.... When Madhajee Scindiah caused seventy Thugs to be executed at Mathura, was he not warned in a dream by Davey that he should release them? And did he not, the very day after their execution, begin to spit blood? And did he not die within three months?... When Dureear, the Rathore, and Komere and Patore, the Kuchwaha Rajpoots, Zemindars, arrested eighty of the Thugs who had settled at Nodha, after the murder of Lieutenant Monsell, they had many warnings to let them go,