eight thousand rupees if
he wished his father to live. The house having been plundered, the
family had nothing left, and could persuade no one to lend them. On
receiving a reply to this effect, Maheput had the old man's body
plastered all over with moist gunpowder, and made him stand in the
sun till it was dry. He then set fire to the powder, and the poor man
was burnt all over. He then cut off both his hands at the wrists, and
his nose, and sent them to his family, and in this condition be
afterwards sent the poor man to his home upon a cot. The son met his
father at the door, but the old man died as soon as his son had
embraced him.

Maheput carried off Pem, the son of Teeka, at the same time, and
tortured him till his family paid the ransom demanded. He was witness
to the tortures of the old Brahmin.

In August 1847, Maheput and his gang attacked the house of Bichook, a
Brahmin, in the village of Torsompoor, in Rodowlee, at midnight,
while he was sleeping, and bound and carried him off to the jungle.
The next day, when he was about to have him tortured for a ransom,
one of his followers interceded for him, and he was released. But a
month after, Maheput and his gang again attacked his house, and after
plundering it of all it contained, they burnt it to the ground.
Bichook had run off on hearing their approach, and he escaped to
Syudpoor.

In November, 1846, Maheput Sing attacked the house of Sook Allee, in
Guneshpoor, at midnight, with a gang of one hundred men; and, after
plundering it of all the property it contained, to the amount of four
hundred rupees, he burnt it to the ground, and bound and carried off
Sook Allee to the house of his friend, Byjonath Bilwar, a landholder
in the village of Kholee, eight miles distant. He there demanded a
ransom of five hundred rupees; and on his declaring that he neither
had nor could borrow such a sum, he had him tortured with hot irons,
and flogged in the usual way. He kept him for two months at Kholee,
and then took him to Tukra, in the Soorajpoor purgunnah, where he
kept him for another month, torturing, and giving him half a meal
every other day. At the end of three months, Akber Sing and Bhowanee
Deen, Rajpoot landholders of Odemow, contrived to borrow two hundred
rupees for Sook Allee, and he was released on the payment of this
sum. The marks of the hot irons, applied to his body by Maheput Sing,
with his own hands, are still visible, and will remain so as long as
he