"
For answer, Dick pointed to the bodies of the two men he had first
shot. One still grasped the roomal, or twisted silk sash, while a like
deadly implement lay by the side of the other.
"Thank Heaven!" Surajah ejaculated. "I was afraid there might have
been a mistake, Dick, but I see that you were right, and that it was a
party of Thugs. If it had not been that you were on the watch for
them, and had your pistol ready, we should have lost our lives."
"It was a close shave as it was, Surajah. One second later, and you
and I should both have been strangled. I had my hand on my pistol, and
felt so sure that an attack was intended that, the moment something
passed before my face, although I had no idea what it was, I threw
myself back and fired at the man behind me, with an instinctive
feeling that my life depended on my speed. But it was only when, on
looking at you, I saw a man in the act of throwing a noose round your
neck, that I knew exactly what I had escaped."
"It was fortunate that they had not pistols," Surajah said. "We should
have had no chance against them, if they had had firearms."
"No; they could have shot us the moment I first fired. But Uncle said,
when he was talking to me one day, that he had heard that the
Stranglers did not carry firearms, because the reports might attract
attention; and that it was a matter of religion, with them, to kill
their victims by strangling; but that if the Strangler failed, which
he very seldom did, the other men would then despatch the victims with
their swords and knives.
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