All four were strangled, including the fakeer.

Surprised to find among the fakeer's effects 30 pounds of coral, 350 strings of small pearls, 15 strings of large pearls, and a gilt necklace." It it curious, the little effect that time has upon a really interesting circumstance.

This one, so old, so long ago gone down into oblivion, reads with the same freshness and charm that attach to the news in the morning paper; one's spirits go up, then down, then up again, following the chances which the fakeer is running; now you hope, now you despair, now you hope again; and at last everything comes out right, and you feel a great wave of personal satisfaction go weltering through you, and without thinking, you put out your hand to pat Mithoo on the back, when -- puff! the whole thing has vanished away, there is nothing there; Mithoo and all the crowd have been dust and ashes and forgotten, oh, so many, many, many lagging years! And then comes a sense of injury: you don't know whether Mithoo got the swag, along with the sin, or had to divide up the swag and keep all the sin himself.

There is no literary art about a government report.

It stops a story right in the most interesting place.
These reports of Thug expeditions run along interminably in one monotonous tune: "Met a sepoy--killed him; met 5 pundits--killed them; met 4 Rajpoots and a woman--killed them"-- and so on, till the statistics get to be pretty dry.