MURDER OF MR. BROWNE. 
269 
King. So little was danger from attacks of any kind appre¬ 
hended, by the persons best acquainted with the state of the 
country, that no difficulties whatever were suggested as likely to 
meet him ; and, accordingly, he proceeded in full confidence. 
Having reached this pass of Irak, he stopped at the caravansary 
I have just described, to take a little refreshment. That over, 
he remounted his horse; and leaving his servant to pack up the 
articles he had been using, and then follow him, he rode gently 
forward along the mountains. Mr. Browne had scarcely pro¬ 
ceeded half-a-mile, when suddenly two men on foot came up 
behind him ; one of whom, with a blow from a club, before he 
was aware, struck him senseless from his horse. Several other 
villains, at the same instant sprang from hollows in the hills, and 
bound him hand and foot. At this moment they offered him no 
further personal violence ; but as soon as he had recovered from 
the stupor, occasioned by the first mode of attack, he looked 
round, and saw the robbers plundering both his baggage and his 
servant; the man having come forward on the road, in obedience 
to the commands of his master. When the depredators found 
their victim restored to observation, they told him it was their 
intention to put an end to his life, but that was not the place 
where the final stroke should be made, Mr. Browne, incapable 
of resistance, calmly listened to his own sentence, but entreated 
them to spare his poor servant, and allow him to depart with his 
papers, which could be of no use to them. All this they granted; 
and, what may appear still more extraordinary, these ferocious 
brigands, to whom the acquisition of arms must be as the staff 
of life, made the man a present of his master’s pistols, and 
double-barrelled gun ; but they were English, and the marks 
might have betrayed the new possessors. These singular rob- 
