Biblical Buddhism: Tales and Sermons of Saint Iodasaph. Robert M. Price

him like a pack of jackals. They took everything he had, even his furs. As was their custom, they choked him to within an inch of his life and left him to die of the cold in the high mountain pass. Already as they disappeared from his sight, he began to lose feeling in his hands and feet. He despaired of life and began to say his prayers and to recall what he could of the Book of the Dead.

      "But then his heart leapt within him as he saw the shadows of an approaching party. It was a Brahmin priest, finely attired, with his entourage of slaves and concubines, none of whom paid the man aught but contemptuous regard.

      "Only an hour later, another figure came near, that of a Shaivite ascetic. But neither man was so much as aware of the other's presence, as the wounded man was now past consciousness, and the other was rapt in a mystical ecstasy even as he walked.

      "Not long after, when the sun had disappeared and his soul made ready to forsake that body for another, the man had a third visitor. Lo, it was one of the very Thugs who had so ill-used him hours before! It seems that, as he departed with his companions, his heart smote him, and for shame he could take no part in his fellows' merriment. When they were all besotted with drink, he crept from the camp and found his way back to the place where they had apprehended the man. There his erstwhile victim lay with hardly a sign of life. Lifting up his head, the Thug opened the man's lips with a gloved finger and poured in the merest trickle of wine.

      "Looking this way and that, the Thug gave thought to his position. Of a sudden, he stooped down and wrapped the stiffening form of the man in a cloak and hefted him astride his shoulders as a shepherd carries a lone sheep. Taking a secret path known to none but the Thuggee, he made for a nearby inn.

      "Entering the smoky tap-room, he cleared space on one of the long tables for the man, whose blood was again warming. The Thug took aside the innkeeper, a man long known to him, and whispered, 'Here, I have retrieved some of the silver coins we took from him. Take them and provide for his recovery. As for me, I must away before my absence is discovered. Mayhap I shall return in the spring.'

      "The heavy wooden door closed against the bitter mountain night (a night much like this one, O monks), and the innkeeper stood by the table on which lay the recumbent form. As he looked from the pitiful body to the silver in his hand, his eyes began to glow with more than the reflection of the hearthfire. Summoning one of his hired men, he ordered him to take the man, now returning to consciousness, into the back room, where the innkeeper should tend to him. Alone with the man, he withdrew an iron knife from his apron and quickly slit the man's throat. Kicking open the back door, he wasted no time in casting the body onto the trash heap. Before many moments went by, a pack of jackals had found the scent and set upon the man. The innkeeper counted it a profitable day and a boon from his gods."