Confessions of a Thug

by Meadows Taylor

No, said I, Ameer Ali: I suppose you have some object in it, therefore go on.

Well then, resumed the Thug, the slave came to me and I was alone. "For the love of Alla," said she, "Meer Sahib, do something for my poor mistress! Ever since you left her she has been in a kind of stupor, and has hardly spoken. She just now told me to go and purchase a quantity of opium for her; and when I refused, and fell at her feet, imploring her to recall her words, she spoke angrily to me, and said, if I did not go, she would go herself. So I have purchased it; but alas! I know its fatal use: and you alone can save her. Come quickly then, and speak a kind word to her; I have heard all that has passed, and you have behaved like a man of honour; but since you cannot persuade her to forget you and relinquish her intentions, at least for the time fall in with her humour, and agree to accompany her, on the promise that she will not seek to see you on the road; and say that when you reach her Jagheer you will have your marriage duly solemnized. Oh, do this for her sake! You said you could love her as a sister, and this would be the conduct of a brother."

"Well," said I, "since the matter has come to this issue, that her life or death is in my hands, I consent;" and I arose, and went with her.

Oh, with what joy the unhappy girl received me! long she hung upon my bosom, and blessed me as her preserver, and kissed her slave when she related what she had said to me, and that I had agreed to her wishes. "It is to save your precious life," I cried, "that I thus expose myself to the sneers and taunts of my friends and your own: think on the sacrifice I make in losing their love, and you will behave cautiously and decently on the road; we need not meet—nay we must not, the temptation would be too strong for us both; but I swear by your head and eyes I will not leave you, and you shall travel in our company."

The slave had gone out, and she drew towards me. "Beware," said she, "how you deceive me, for I know your secret, and if you are unfaithful I will expose it; your life is in my hands, and you know it."

"What secret?" cried I in alarm. "What can you mean?"

"I know that you are a Thug," she said, in a low and determined voice; "my slave has discovered you, and a thousand circumstances impress the belief that you are one upon my mind—your men, the way you encamp, the ceremonies my slave has seen your men performing, and the freedom with which you go forward or return at your pleasure. All these are conclusive, and I bid you beware! for nothing that you can say will persuade me to the contrary; you have even now the property of those you have killed in your camp—you cannot deny it, your looks confirm my words."

I inwardly cursed the prying curiosity of the slave, and feared she had discovered us through one of our men with whom I had seen her conversing, and I determined to destroy him. But I had now fairly met my match, and though abashed for a moment, I replied to her: "Then, Shurfun, since you have discovered us, I have no alternative, we must be united, I to save my life and the lives of my men, you to save your own. It is a fearful tie which binds us, but it cannot be broken."

"I thought so," she said; "fool that I was not to have urged this before! I might have saved myself the agony which I have endured. Now, go; I will hear of you from day to day, and it may be that we shall have an opportunity of conversing unobserved. Now I am sure of you, and my mind is at ease."

I left her, but my thoughts were in a whirl; she had discovered us, and by the rules of our profession I could not conceal it from my associates. Alla! Alla! to what would the communication I must make to them lead! Alas, I dreaded to think—yet it must be done. A long time I deliberated with myself whether I should expose the truth to my associates, and fain would I not have done so; but the peril we were in was so imminent, and the lives of my fifty brave fellows were so completely at the mercy of a woman, that I could not overlook the strict rules of my profession. I knew that it could only lead to one alternative; but it was her fate, and it could not be avoided either by her or me.