Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/450

442 our hands. The guards drew around us. I said to them, "This is Buhram," and he was seized just as a cat seizes a mouse. Then Buhram said, "I am a Thug! my father was a Thug, my grandfather was a Thug, and I have thugged with many!"

So spoke the mighty hunter, the mightiest of the mighty, the of his day. Not much regret noticeable in it.

So many many times this Official Report leaves one's curiosity unsatisfied. For instance, here is a little paragraph out of the record of a certain band of 193 Thugs, which has that defect:

"'Fell in with Lall Sing Subahdar and his family, consisting of nine persons. Traveled with them two days, and the third put them all to death except the two children, little boys of one and a half years old.'"

There it stops. What did they do with those poor little fellows? What was their subsequent history ? Did they purpose training them up as Thugs ? How could they take care of such little creatures on a march which stretched over several months? No one seems to have cared to ask any questions about the babies. But I do wish I knew.

One would be apt to imagine that the Thugs were utterly callous, utterly destitute of human feelings, heartless toward