THE SQUIRE'S STORY (CONTINUED)
"When I recovered I found myself in a pitch-dark room. A terrible pain in my neck when I first moved was the first reminder of what had gone before.
"With difficulty (for I was weak and faint) I rose to my feet, thankful that, at any rate, I was not bound or fettered in any way. The darkness was unbearable. I sought the pocket in which I kept my vesta-case. It was empty, as were all my pockets. My watch was gone, likewise my cigar-case, match-box, scarf-pin, and, in fact, everything of any value. Fortunately, I discovered a couple of matches loose in my waistcoat pocket. One of these I struck on the sole of my boot. The bright light almost blinded me, but, after a moment, I was able to discover that I was in a large empty room. Empty? No, for what was that dark object in the far corner? I crept over towards it.
"It was the prostrate body of a man! Moreover, it was an Englishman, and a fellow-officer with whom I was very intimate. And he was dead.
"What did it mean? How came Lieutenant Aubrey in the cellar (for such it was) of an opium den? Of what had he died? Not till afterwards did I learn of the man who had been seized with cholera in the den on the previous day. Otherwise I might have thought, for the moment, that my brother officer and the unhappy wretch were one and the same. But something about the position of the body caused me to give it a further investigation.
"Then I perceived that, without a doubt, Aubrey had been the victim of foul play. He had been murdered!
"What seemed even more significant to me, bearing in mind the nature of my own attack by the gigantic Hindoo, was that the head of the corpse was almost entirely twisted off. The face looked upward, pale, grim, and terrible; yet the body lay on the stomach. A thin red line was marked across the throat. The neck was evidently broken.
"'What did it mean?' I asked myself again and again.
"My last match had died out, burning my fingers. I was alone in an empty room—empty save for that terrible thing in the corner.
"And the door was securely fastened from without.
"There was some kind of window, though, the bars of which, though stout, were rusty, as was their setting.
"Gifted, for the moment, with almost super-human strength, I managed to remove two or three of these, and then raised myself on to the ledge. I saw that it was pitch dark, and could not tell whether there was an easy drop or no. However, there was only one thing to do. I must risk it. And I did. Fortunately, I only had to fall a few feet. Then I found myself in a small courtyard.
"How I made my way out of this, what streets I traversed, and how long it took me to reach the barracks I do not know. I recollect being challenged more than once. But I made no reply, and in the darkness I passed through unobserved until I reached some kind of a shed, in which I fell down and slept heavily until daybreak.
"Of course, my absence had been noticed, as had that of Aubrey. Hurriedly deciding my course of action, I craved an interview with the commanding officer, Sir Bromley Lestrange, who had always been most kind and sympathetic to me in the matter of my love affairs, concerning which I had told him all.
"My first idea was to invent some satisfactory explanation of my absence, making no reference to my discovery of Aubrey's dead body, or to the fact that I had laid myself open so indiscreetly to infection.
"To a stranger I might have been able to invent a tissue of lies, but to a friend, no. Accordingly, in the privacy of his own chamber, I told Sir Bromley the whole story. His horror on learning my news was as great as mine had been on perceiving how I had been ensnared by the girl Lilla, and more so when I made the gruesome discovery in the empty room.
"'We must hush this up—that's quite clear,' said Sir Bromley; 'it would never do to publish these facts abroad. Young Aubrey was no doubt drawn to the opium den by the same devilish means as those employed in your case. It will be a lesson to you, Carrington. But of that more anon. First we must recover poor Aubrey's body, and have it decently buried. Then we must do all in our power to have the wretches in the den handed over to justice. I think I can manage this quietly. Leave me now, and I will arrange the best I can. I am sorry for you, truly sorry, Carrington, but you might have expected it.' I knew that in his last sentence he referred to the paragraph in the Times, for I had not withheld any of the facts from him.
"I took my departure shortly after, first explaining the exact locality in which the opium den was to be found.
"My misconduct was never known to anyone but Sir Bromley. Consequently, it was with unusual regret I learned a year or so back that the General had died suddenly of heart disease in India. I left the regiment shortly after, under circumstances I will proceed to explain, and never saw Lestrange again, but I cherish the memory of his kindness and leniency to this day.
"I subsequently learned that a police raid had been made on the premises of the opium den, when the body of Lieutenant Aubrey was found, and secretly returned to the barracks. I forget exactly how his death was explained, but as we had one or two cases of fever in the hospital about that time, I presume his relatives were led to believe that the young man succumbed to that disease.
"Of course, on discovering that I had escaped, or, perhaps, immediately after robbing me of all I possessed, the proprietors of the opium den decamped.
"But the corpse of my unhappy fellow-officer afforded a distinct clue to the clever, but lazy, native police. Aubrey had been slain by Phansigars, or, as they are better known to the world, Thugs!
"The police were able to inform us, from my description, that Lilla was a well-known 'sotha,' or entrapper. How many victims she had secured for her terrible gang the police did not know, but she was considered a queen among her people—a position she owed to the fact that she had bewitched and ensnared more victims than any other candidate for the nominal honour. The old Chinese woman, her mother, was a 'guru,' or teacher, her occupation being the instructing of children in the art of Thugee—the so-called religion of Kalee, the goddess of scientific murder. The giant Hindoo, who was the husband of Lilla, combined the callings of 'bhuttote,' which means strangler with the noose, and 'lughaee' (grave-digger). There were several other members of the gang, which subsisted entirely on plunder.
"Once on the track of these inhuman scoundrels, the police quickly managed to effect the arrest of the whole gang, with the single exception of Lilla (or the girl I knew by that name). The latter was never captured.
"Exactly what punishment was meted out to the captives I never learned. I feel sure, though, that the death sentence was passed upon them, for the treatment of Thugs is very severe in India, as it necessarily should be.
"The strangest part of my story still remains to be told.
"A few months later I was walking down an almost deserted street in Madras, when my attention was arrested by a roll of thin yellow parchment lying in the pathway, and on which was written my own name!
"Very naturally I picked up the sheet, and, unrolling it, was astounded to read the following message in Hindustani:—
"'My baby was born nine days ago. Siva (the husband of Kalee) has decreed that it should be a male. My vengeance will be slow. The boy shall be brought up as an expert "Phansigar" (another name for "Strangler") until he shall have reached manhood in five-and-twenty years. He shall be taught to avenge his father, and, as his father's and mother's son, shall give his life for that purpose and the fraternity. I am dying, but my mother will bring him up, and, after eight years, sixteen years, and four-and-twenty years, shall inform you of his progress, lest you forget the day when you despised Lilla, the "sotha." When five-and-twenty years shall have passed away, your doom shall be sealed by Lilla's gift to the world. If you are dead, then shall the doom descend upon your dear ones. The curse of Devi (another name for Kalee) be upon you, but not until five-and-twenty years have passed. In those years all that you shall do will prosper, but there shall be no peace for you, for the doom of Kalee and Siva shall rest upon you and your seed until that which I have prophesied shall have come to pass.'
"To say that I was frightened by the words in this strange letter would be to exaggerate my feelings. In those days I did not know what I do now about the Thugs and their so-called religion, or I should have given more heed to the warning. One thing I did, that was to lay the letter before Sir Bromley, who took a very grave view of it.
"'Those Thugs,' he said, with an ominous shake of his head, 'are devils. No other word can be so aptly applied to them. I have made a study of their art, for such it is, and I can say that there are thousands of authentic cases in which they have done marvels—really marvels—of brutality. Beware, my boy! If I were you I would try to change my regiment, and get out of the country as quickly as possible. Murder is not as uncommon in this part of the Queen's Empire as you might think; and the relatives of these captured Thugs would consider that they had done a good deed if they were able to put an end to your existence.'
"It was not for this reason, though, that I returned to England shortly after. The fact was, I learned, about this time, that a man in London, for whom I had once been able to do a good turn, had recently died, bequeathing to me a sum of money which would, at any rate, make it unnecessary for me to work for my daily bread. 'Ah!' I thought, when I heard the good news, 'if only Edith had waited a few months longer!'"