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52
CONFESSIONS OF A THUG.

And we went on in the direction the beast had taken.

It led to an open glade, at one side of which there was a large rock, with some very thick bushes about it.

"She is there, depend upon it," said an old hunter; "I never saw a more likely place in my life."

We were all about thirty steps from the rock and bushes, and Dildar Khan did not at all relish his proximity to them.

"I beg to represent," said he in a low voice to us all, "that having killed so many of these brutes, I know best how to manage them; and as I am the best armed of the party, I shall take up my position near yonder bush, by which runs the pathway; she will take to it when she is driven out, and then you will see the reception she will meet with from Dildar Khan. Inshalla! I shall present the point of my sword to her, and she will run on it, then I shall finish her with one blow of my tegha."[1]

We all looked in the direction he pointed, and sure enough there was a bush, about two hundred paces off, on the pathway to the village.

"Not that one surely," said my father;

  1. Tegha, a short, crooked, heavy sword.