Ajeet was forced to admit that it was the one thorough way, but he
persisted that they were decoits and not thugs.

At this Sookdee laughed: "Jamadar," he said, "what matters to a dead
man the manner of his killing? Indeed it is a merciful way. Such as
Bhowanee herself decreed--in a second it is over. But with the spear,
or the sword--ah! I have seen men writhe in agony and die ten times
before it was an end."

"But a caste is a caste," Ajeet objected, "and the manner of the caste.
We are decoits, and we only slay when there is no other way."

Hunsa tipped his gorilla body forward from where it rested on his heels
as he sat, and his lowering eyes were sullen with impatience:

"Chief Ajeet," he snarled, "think you that we can rob the _seth_ of his
treasure without an outcry--and if there is an outcry, that he will not
go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think
you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to
the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art
of the strangler. With these,"--and extending his massive arms he
closed his coarse hands in a gnarled grip,--"with these I would, with
one sharp in-turn on the _roomal_, crack the neck of the merchant and
he would be dead in the taking of a breath. And, Ajeet, if this that
is the manner of men causes you fear--"

"Hunsa," and Ajeet's voice was constrained in its deadliness, "that
ass's voice of yours will yet bring you to grief."

But Sookdee interposed: