Confessions of a Thug

by Meadows Taylor

"An idle threat, and one befitting what I have heard of you," said he. "Go, Meer Sahib, you are a boy and a fool: I do not fear you."

Stony-hearted villain, he had destroyed my son. Situated as I was I could then do nothing, but I was determined to have my revenge: and I took it too. I mentioned what had occurred to my father and to three of my intimate associates; they were determined to stick by me whenever I chose to attack Ganesha, and would fain have done so the next day; but this did not suit me, though his words rankled in my heart, and the deed he had done made me hate him more than ever. I deferred my revenge to the last moment, but I took it, as you shall hear.

We stayed on the ground that night; the palankeen had been broken in pieces and thrown into the hole, but my father personated the Moonshee the next morning as we rode through the camp of the Feringhees, which had been pitched so near us, that indeed I have often wondered they heard not the cries of the party as we despatched them. But we had taken good precautions. The noise of the drums, and the confusion occasioned by letting loose two of the Moonshee's horses, which were here and there pursued by a number of Thugs, shouting and screaming after them, had drowned the cries of our victims, and we had effected the whole without suspicion. Our good friends, the Potail and the Duffadar, had kept the sepoys in conversation, and they had not noticed the noise, beyond hazarding a passing remark as to its cause.

Again, therefore, we were on the road. We had not got all the booty we expected, it did not indeed amount to three thousand rupees, and we earnestly looked out for the Dacoos, who were we hoped to be our next bunij. We went on to Nagpoor, and sold the Moonshee's camels and horses. Here the gang divided; one part under a Jemadar named Emom Buksh, took our old road towards Oomraotee, and through the valley of Berar to Khândésh and Boorhanpoor; the rest of us returned by the road we had come, after staying four days in the city of Nagpoor. On our second or third march homewards we overtook the Dacoos. They had been seen by our spies the moment we entered the village we had encamped at; and as much caution was requisite in managing them, my father at once proposed to be alone the Sotha, or inveigler.

"I shall feign to be a Hindoo," said he; "these rascals will suspect me if I go by my own name, and indeed they would know me. I will be a Rajpoot Jemadar, come from Hyderabad, and you shall see I have not forgotten my old trade."

Accordingly he painted his forehead and breast after the fashion of the Hindoos, covered his eyes with wood ashes, put on a waistcloth and dress he borrowed from one of the men, and attended by another, went into the village.

How anxiously I expected his return! I feared he would fail in his mission, but Ganesha was confident. "He never fails," said he to me; "he is one of Bhowanee's own favourites; nothing he ever did failed. Would that I had his luck."

But he was absent so long that I became apprehensive for his safety, and was on the point of setting out to gain tidings of him, when to my great joy I saw him approaching. I ran to meet him. "What news?" cried I; "oh, my father, my liver has been burnt during your absence. Why did you stay so long?"

"Never mind, my son," said he, when he had dismounted, "you would have been wrong to come after me. But ah, the owls! I have entrapped them—they are ours."

"Ul-humd-ul-illa!" cried I, "this is rare news; but how did you manage it?"