"My plans are not quite matured in your direction," said he. "I have heard that one of the greatest traders to Indoor and Malwa is about to send not less than two lakhs of rupees thither. I know that the Rokurreas are hired; but as yet I cannot say whether they carry hoondees or money. Three days ought to determine this, and in the mean time, as you want money, a thousand rupees are at your service, which you can repay me, with interest at three per cent. per month, on your arrival at Jhalone. I will trust to your good faith as the son of my old friend."
"I am obliged to you," replied I; "but the money is not quite so necessary as I said. I believe every man has some twenty or thirty rupees in his possession; but it was to prevent their spending this that I spoke to you as I did. Only say that within a week we may start, and my men will be careful."
"Certainly," said he, "before a week's time; come to me to-morrow evening after prayer-time, and you shall have further news about your bunij."
The interest-eating rascal! said I, as I left him. He a true believer! Strange I have never heard of him from my father; but I will ask him about the fellow on my return home, and doubt not I shall hear some evil or rascality of him. Not a rupee of his money will I touch, the kafir! A Thug to take interest from a Thug—who ever heard of it? I dare say he is as bad as the villanous Bhutteara we killed at Saugor. Nor was I wrong, Sahib. I became intimate with a Dukhun Jemadar who was waiting for bunij, who told me that he ground the Thugs unmercifully, threatened to denounce them if they ever demurred, and got from them double the share he would have been entitled to had he shared the risk and the danger on the road.
"But," said the Jemadar, "there is no doing without him, much as he oppresses us; he throws the most valuable booty into our hands, which we never could get scent of by ourselves; he has a number of Thugs who are his servants, and whom he pays liberally to get him information; he possesses the confidence of the sahoukars, as he assists them to smuggle; they pay him too for a kind word now and then with the Sahib-logue. In fine, he is paid both by them and us, and he contrives to sell all our valuable plunder."
"Then his receipts must be enormous," said I.
"They are," said the Jemadar, "and we all grudge them to him; but still he protects us, and we could not do without him."
"Has he ever been treacherous?" I asked; for, by Alla! I was inclined to mistrust the rascal.
"There are some stories of the kind," he replied, "but in the main he is to be trusted. Still, as I said, if he were not, we could do nothing without him; he knows every Jemadar of the Dukhun, and could if he chose blow up the whole system to-morrow; but it does not suit his interest to do so, and we are all his slaves."
"Long may ye continue to be so!" cried I to Peer Khan when he had left me; "but as for us, brother, 'tis the last time he will catch us here. What say you?"