"Sit still, sit still," said my father; "it is only a companion: in an open camp like this every one is privileged to hear the conversation of the evening mujlis, and we usually find some one among us who can enliven the evening with a tale, until it is time to rest for the night." So the old Thug sat still: I could see him playing with his fatal weapon, the handkerchief, now pulling it through one hand and now through the other; and I gazed on the group till my brain reeled again with excitement, with intense agony I might call it with more truth. There sat the old man; beside him his noble-looking boy; behind them their destroyers, only awaiting the signal; and the old man looked so unconscious of danger, was so entirely put off his guard and led into conversation by the mild, bland manners of my father, that what could he have suspected? That he was in the hands of those from whom he was to meet his death? Ah, no! And as I gazed and gazed, how I longed to scream out to him to fly! had I not known that my own death would have followed instantaneously, I had done it. Yet it would have been of no use. I turned away my eyes from them; but they returned to the same place involuntarily. Every movement of the men behind seemed the prelude to the fatal ending. At last I could bear the intensity of my feelings no longer: I got up, and was hurrying away, when my father followed me. "Where are you going?" said he; "I insist on your staying here; this is your initiation; you must see it, and go through with the whole." "I shall return directly," said I: "I go but a pace or two; I am sick." "Faint-hearted!" said he in a low tone; "see you do not stay long, this farce must soon end." A turn or two apart from the assembly restored me again, and I returned and took up my former place, exactly opposite the old man and his son. Ya Alla! Sahib, even now I think they are _there_ (and the Thug pointed with his finger), father and son; and the son's large eyes are looking into mine, as my gaze is riveted on them. Ameer Ali looked indeed as though he saw them, and stared wildly; but passing his hands across his eyes, he resumed,--