They were not particular, however, to ascertain that their victims
carried valuable property before disposing of them. Eight annas
(8d.), one of them said, [688] was sufficient remuneration for
murdering a man. On another occasion two river Thugs killed two
old men and obtained only a rupee's worth of coppers, two brass
vessels and their body-cloths. But as a rule the gains were much
larger. It sometimes happened that the Thugs themselves were robbed
at night by ordinary thieves, though they usually set a watch. On one
occasion a band of more than a hundred Thugs fell in with a party of
twenty-seven dacoits who had with them stolen property of Rs. 13,000
in cash, with gold ornaments, gems and shawls. The Thugs asked to be
allowed to travel under their protection, and the dacoits carelessly
assenting were shortly afterwards all murdered. [689] As already
stated, the Thugs were accustomed to live in towns or villages and
many of them ostensibly followed respectable callings. The following
instance of this is given by Sir W. Sleeman: [690] "The first party
of Thug approvers whom I sent into the Deccan to aid Captain Reynolds
recognised in the person of one of the most respectable linen-drapers
of the cantonment of Hingoli, Hari Singh, the adopted son of Jawahir
Sukul, Subahdar of Thugs, who had been executed twenty years before. On
hearing that the Hari Singh of the list sent to him of noted Thugs
at large in the Deccan was the Hari Singh of the Sadar Bazar, Captain
Reynolds was quite astounded; so correct had he been in his deportment
and all his dealings that he had won the esteem of all the gentlemen
of the station, who used to assist him in procuring passports for
his goods on their way from Bombay; and yet he had, as he has since
himself shown, been carrying on his trade of murder up to the very
day of his arrest with gangs of Hindustan and the Deccan on all the
roads around and close to the cantonments of Hingoli; and leading
out his band of assassins while he pretended to be on his way to
Bombay for a supply of fresh linen and broad-cloth." Another case is
quoted by Mr. Oman from Taylor's _Thirty-eight Years in India_. [691]
"Dr. Cheek had a child's bearer who had charge of his children. The
man was a special favourite, remarkable for his kind and tender ways
with his little charges, gentle in manner and unexceptionable in all
his conduct. Every year he obtained leave from his master and mistress,
as he said, for the filial purpose of visiting his aged mother for one
month; and returning after the expiry of that time, with the utmost
punctuality, resumed with the accustomed affection and tenderness
the charge of his little darlings. This mild and exemplary being was
the missing Thug; kind, gentle, conscientious and regular at his post
for eleven months in the year he devoted the twelfth to strangulation."