"I'm glad you have come," he said. "Whatever is to be done must be done at once. I suppose you know nothing?"
"Nothing," Stafford answered. "Your note was the first intimation I have received that there was anything amiss."
Colonel Carmichael grunted angrily.
"Of course you know nothing," he said, resuming his restless march about the room. "Nor did I—nor did any one. Heaven and earth, I'm beginning to think there's something wrong in our theory that whatever is going on under our noses must be too insignificant to be noticed! There, Nicholson, hurry up and tell him what you know."
Nicholson stood upright, and folding the map put it in his pocket.
"I was in the New Bazaar last night," he began curtly. "I go there regularly, as you know, disguised as one thing or another, just for the sake of having a look at the people when they don't know they are being watched. Last night there was no one there—not so much as a child or a woman. The place was dead. I admit that I was not particularly startled. I knew that there was a great festival at hand. Pilgrims have been streaming in for days past, and it was quite conceivable that some ceremony was taking place in the temple. Curiosity fortunately led me to investigate further. Myself disguised as a traveling fakir, I made my way to the Rajah's palace gates. Already on the road I was joined by a hurrying stream of men and women, principally men. My suspicions were aroused. I knew from experience that it was not a usual crowd of pilgrims. Every man was armed, not only with knives, but guns and revolvers. Some of them were undoubtedly deserted sepoys who had stolen their weapons. Moreover, they exchanged a signal which I recognized and, in order to escape detection, imitated. It was the signal which in past generations revealed one member of the Thug fraternity to another."
"Thugs!" exclaimed Stafford, with a faintly skeptical smile.
"Do not misunderstand me," Nicholson said. "I am not going to recall to your minds the nursery horrors with which our ayahs regaled our childish imaginations. I will only emphasize one fact. The Thugs were not and are not merely a band of murderous and treacherous robbers. They belong to the priesthood, they are the deputed servants of the goddess Kali, and their task is the extermination of the enemy—of the foreigner, that is to say—in this case, of ourselves."
Stafford glanced at the Colonel. The latter's face was set and grave.
"I do not for a moment suggest that the crowd with which I traveled were Thugs," Nicholson continued. "I know that they were not. But they had adopted the Thug sign because they had adopted the Thug mission. Not, however, till we had passed the gates and reached the palace did I realize the gravity of the situation. The Rajah stood on the great steps, surrounded by a body-guard of torch-bearers. He was dressed in full native costume, a blaze of gems, and wearing the royal insignia. The expression on his face was something I shall not easily forget, and at the time it was inexplicable to me. I can not describe it. I can only say that I was instantly reminded of Milton's fallen Satan as he stands above his followers, superb, dauntless, but tortured by hatred, contempt and God knows what strange minglings of remorse and anger. He greeted the crowd with the sign of death. His first words revealed to me that his allegiance to us was at an end, and that he meant to follow in his father's bloody footsteps."