The man had been some years in his service, and was very attached to him, and had saved his life more than once, he told me.

On one occasion he caught a cobra by the neck as it was about to strike my brother's hand as he sat at table; he carried it out into the compound, as George called it, but which means, he told me, garden, and there let it escape.

Another time he caught a Thug, which means a sort of robber who kills his victims by strangling before robbing them.

They are a sort of sect who regard strangling as a religious action, greatly favored by the bloodthirsty goddess they worship.

He was in the act of fastening the twisted handkerchief, used for the purpose, round my brother's neck, when Ramoo cut him down.