I got my girth in that season -- my girth and my depth . From Agra , by Etawah and the broad waters by Allahabad -- '' `` Oh , the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at Allahabad ! '' said the Adjutant . `` They came in there like widgeon to the reeds , and round and round they swung -- thus ! '' He went off into his horrible dance again , while the Jackal looked on enviously . He naturally could not remember the terrible year of the Mutiny they were talking about . The Mugger continued : `` Yes , by Allahabad one lay still in the slack-water and let twenty go by to pick one ; and , above all , the English were not cumbered with jewellery and nose-rings and anklets as my women are nowadays . To delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for a necklace , as the saying is . All the muggers of all the rivers grew fat then , but it was my Fate to be fatter than them all . The news was that the English were being hunted into the rivers , and by the Right and Left of Gunga ! we believed it was true . So far as I went south I believed it to be true ; and I went down-stream beyond Monghyr and the tombs that look over the river . '' `` I know that place , '' said the Adjutant . `` Since those days Monghyr is a lost city . Very few live there now . '' `` Thereafter I worked up-stream very slowly and lazily , and a little above Monghyr there came down a boatful of white-faces -- alive ! They were , as I remember , women , lying under a cloth spread over sticks , and crying aloud . There was never a gun fired at us , the watchers of the fords in those days . All the guns were busy elsewhere . We could hear them day and night inland , coming and going as the wind shifted .
I rose up full before the boat , because I had never seen XXXXX alive , though I knew them well -- otherwise .
Adjutant Agra Allahabad Jackal anklets day days jewellery slack-water white-faces