The sergeant, who was weak and ill at the time, was lying upon the bedding thrown on a baggage-mule, being too weak, from a recent attack of fever and ague, to sit his horse. His muleteer suddenly shouted to him, “Sahib, they have blocked the road.” Collins sat up on his mule and saw some men in front of him covering him with their guns. These commanded him to get down; the only reply that he made was to tell them to be off, and to fire his revolver twice at them. It appeared that the second shot slightly wounded one of the men. The thieves now rushed in, firing as they came; more thieves closed in from behind and also fired. Collins was hit in two places, and death must have been instantaneous, as a _post-mortem_ examination I made two days after, when the body was brought in, showed that one bullet passed into the brain, and another fired from behind entered the chest. He fell at once, and the ruffians rushed in and beat the body with their iron-headed bludgeons, breaking one arm. They then blindfolded his Armenian wife and his two servants, and carried them some distance off the road, where they detained them till after midnight. The dead body was also dragged off the road itself. Some time elapsed ere the murderers could be brought to justice. Five of these came to a dismal ending. One died in some weeks from a gunshot wound; it was said that this was from one of the shots fired by Collins. One committed suicide when the Persian authorities had made the pursuit very hot. This is a most unusual thing in the East. Three others were after considerable trouble arrested, and thrown into the jail at Shiraz.