As quick as thought the cloth was round his neck--I seemed endued with superhuman strength--I wrenched his neck round--he struggled convulsively for an instant, and fell. I did not quit my hold, I knelt down on him, and strained the cloth till my hand ached; but he moved not--he was dead! I quitted my hold, and started to my feet: I was mad with excitement!--my blood boiled, and I felt as though I could have strangled a hundred others, so easy, so simple had the reality been. One turn of my wrists had placed me on an equality with those who had followed the profession for years,--I had taken the first place in the enterprise, for I had killed the principal victim! I should receive the praise of the whole band, many of whom, I was confident, had looked on me as only a child. I was roused from my reverie by my father. "You have done well," he said in a low and kind voice; "you will receive the reward of this soon; now follow me, we will go to the grave. Ere this the bodies have been collected, and I myself must see that they are properly disposed of. There will be a noise about this business, and it will need great exertion for us to get out of the road we are now travelling." I followed him. We descended into the bed of the stream, and were led to the grave by one of the men; others bearing the body of the Sahoukar followed. We passed up the bed of the stream for a short distance; and near the mouth of a small nulla, the bed of which was dry, a number of the men were standing. "The grave?" asked my father. "It is up there," said one; "you will have to creep, and the thorns are very bad." "It matters not," he replied; and we entered the place. The banks of the rivulet were perhaps two or three yards high, and the bed was so narrow that but two persons could advance abreast. The creepers and trees were matted overhead, and the sides so thick that it was impossible that any one could have got down from above. The tangled character of the spot increased as we proceeded, until it became necessary to free our clothes from the thorns which caught us at every step. In a few moments we heard the sound of voices, and after creeping almost on all fours through a hole which had apparently been forced through the underwood, we came upon the grave. There was only one; it occupied almost the entire breadth of the stream; it was very deep, and the earth, or rather sand, had been thrown out on each end. The Lughaees were sitting there, sharpening stakes cut from the jungle; but they could scarcely be seen from the darkness of the place, which the thick wood above only partially allowed the moonbeams to penetrate. They were conversing in a low tone in the slang of the band, which I had not learned: my father spoke to them, or rather to their leader.