but they persisted and kept them till some thirty died. They collected 10,000 rupees, at the rate of 125 rupees from every Thug. What became of their families? Have they not all perished? They have not a child left. Rao Sing Havildar, the Gwalior Soobah of Nodha, took the money, but that very day his only son and the best horse in his stable died, and he was himself taken ill and died soon after a miserable death.... The Raja of Kundul, some ninety coss (180 miles) east from Hyderabad, arrested all the Thugs in his Raj for some murders they had committed. For three successive nights the voice of Davey was heard from the top of every temple in the capital, warning the Raja to release them. The whole town heard her, and urged the Raja to comply. He was obstinate, and the third night the bed on which he and his Ranee were sleeping was taken up by Davey, and dashed violently against the ground." They were dreadfully bruised and frightened, and lost no time in releasing their heaven-protected prisoners. Kalee not only protected the Thugs, but sent them numerous omens as encouragement or warning. An omen was, in fact, a positive command to slay the travellers in their power, or to allow them to go unharmed. If they did not attend to these omens, they became guilty of disobedience, and had no longer any claim upon the goddess for protection. On Captain Sleeman inquiring if any evil would befall them if they used the _roomal_ without reference to the divine signals, Sahib at once answered in the affirmative, adding, "No man's family ever survives a murder: it becomes extinct. A Thug who murders in this way loses the children he has, and is never blessed with more. He cannot escape punishment." "But how," said Captain Sleeman, "how can you murder old men and young children without some emotions of pity--calmly and deliberately as they sit with you and converse with you, and tell you of their private affairs--of their hopes and fears--and of the wives and children they are going to meet after years of absence, toil, and suffering?" The answer was such as might almost have been made by an ancient Hebrew, had any one asked him if he felt no pity for the wretched Canaanites he so ruthlessly murdered. "From the time that the omens have been favourable, we consider them as victims thrown into our hands by the Deity to be killed; and that we are the mere instrument in her hands to destroy them: that if we do not kill them, she will never be again propitious to us, and we and our families will be involved in misery and want." In precisely such a spirit did Samuel hew in pieces before the Lord, Agag, king of the Amalekites. The Thugs were by no means insensible to domestic feelings, or even to the charms of social and friendly intercourse. At home their conduct was irreproachable. Their villages were usually models of cleanliness and neatness; their lands were industriously cultivated, their wives and children treated with all kindness and affection.