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CONFESSIONS OF A THUG.
CHAPTER VII.
A NEW ADVENTURE, WHICH PROVES AN UNUSUAL PRELUDE
TO AN EVENING'S ENTERTAINMENT.
The rest of the band, with the cart and laden bullocks, had proceeded some way before we overtook them. We passed through a thin jungle for some distance, emerging from which, we found ourselves on a wild, bare plain, here and there studded with straggling brushwood. We all collected together, and, lighting fires, the hooka passed round, and each one related his achievement, and gloried in the prospect of a speedy division of the booty we had acquired.
To arrange our future proceedings was by no means an easy matter, as it was necessary to get past Bassim, where the Sahoukar had friends; and his cart and bullocks might possi-
