"Salam!" said he, as he departed: "if you were going instead of returning, we might get good plunder in company; we Dacoos are rare hands at rough work."
I had spoken in a disguised voice, and it was impossible he could recognize me again if he met me. I did this for an object which occurred to me at the moment, as you shall learn hereafter. I mentioned this meeting to my father. "What hinders us," said I, "from meeting them as they come up? they will be laden with spoil, and will be an easy prey. Brave and reckless as they are, they have no wit, and will never find us out."
"I don't know that," said my father; "they are not so stupid as you think; I know much of them, have killed some of them, and they were cunning enough. Several gangs of them have escaped Thugs by being able to detect them. However, I see nothing objectionable in your plan; and at any rate, it will furnish excuse for a new expedition."
"Ay," said Ganesha, who was present, "let us go; I long to see the Meer Sahib act. We hear so much of him, that, by Bhowanee, perhaps an unlucky old Thug like myself may pick up something new. Will you let me come also?"
"Certainly," said I; "but you will see no more than you know already; lucky I have been, but you know my pretensions to knowledge are very small, and I have never boasted of them. To my perception, the whole art consists in having a smooth tongue in one's head; and a man who is a good Bhuttote rarely makes a good Sotha."
"Yet you are both, Meer Sahib," said Ganesha, with a malicious grin; "and your men would follow you to the death."
"So they will," said I; "for I am kind and considerate to them, and reward them handsomely."
This stung him to the quick; for he was a rough bully, and, though perhaps one of the best Bhuttotes then living, was no hand at inveigling travellers; and as he always persisted in being a Sotha himself, he was notoriously unlucky; but few men, too, would serve under him. He was preparing to retort sharply, when my father stopped him.
"Let him alone," said he; "he is a proud boy, and bickerings among us lead to no good: you must not think on what he has said."
"Nay, Ismail," said he, with the air of an offended child, "I care not what he says; pride will have its fall, and I may live to see it."