The offence which in the eyes of the late Amir was the most deadly and unforgivable was the writing by any one of reports concerning himself and his country to the Indian Government, and this was the favourite accusation of those of his spies who had an enemy to dispose of, and they showed a good deal of cunning in the preparation of the plot whereby their victim should be doomed, without chance of escaping the Amir’s vengeance, and devoted to it much thought and time. Their schemes were usually outlined on the plan of following up their own report to the Amir, which gave details of how they became cognizant of the fact of the accused reporting to the English Government, and gave as proof the bogus letter or report alleged to have been found by them, by other reports, which they obtained by sending to their friends in India, and elsewhere, a draft of what they wanted written to the Amir, with instructions to copy it and send on to him a few weeks later. By these means they managed to get letters to the Amir from different places, each accusing their victim of being an English spy. And when one letter after another came, each one confirming the other, naturally the Amir was deceived, and it was not long before the accused was in prison, and there became lost, for his fate, though guessed at, was seldom known; the custom being to remove such men at night, either by poison, bayonet, or cutting the throat. The method of cutting a man’s throat is simple but effective; two men hold the man’s arms, and force his head back, while another, or two more if the man is a strong one, hold his legs. The officer in charge then slices with his sword backwards and forwards across the man’s throat until the gash is considered deep enough, and then the man is thrown on the ground and left to kick, as a fowl does under similar circumstances, until death occurs. In some cases the head is severed from the body in the same way, when the Amir’s orders are to that effect. In other cases, when a man is ordered to be executed by having his throat cut, his grave is dug ready, and when the knife has done its work, he is thrown into it, and the earth is shovelled in at once, so that he is buried before death occurs.