"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!