Again I was in prison; and although not in such wretched plight as I had been at Jhalone, for the cell was roomy and tolerably clean, yet still it was a prison,—confinement to my limbs and to my spirit; a conviction which threatened my life hung over me; and as I saw no prospect of escape, I was resigned to die, and to meet my fate like a man and a Thug who had been familiar with death from his childhood. We sat in silence, and my wretched companion, old as he was, clung to the idea of life with a fondness that I felt not. He had no ties on earth to bind him to it, he had never had any, yet he longed to live. I had possessed them,—they were all broken, and life had no charms for me. I could not say that I wished for death, but I was indifferent to my fate.

A week passed thus—a long, interminable week. In vain was it that I implored my jailors to relieve me from suspense, to tell me whether I was to live or die: either they knew not, or their hearts were hardened towards me; they would not tell me. But after the expiration of this period, we were not long ignorant of our sentence. We were informed that seven of our companions had been hanged, as they had been detected in the act of strangling the travellers. But there was no evidence against us so conclusive; the merchants who had escaped the fate of their associates could not swear that we had murdered any of those who had perished; and the horsemen who had captured us knew no more than that we were of the party. If this had been all, we should probably have been released; but one of the miserable men who had been executed, in a vain attempt to preserve his life, confessed his crimes; and by this last stroke of ill fortune we were convicted, and the decree went forth that we were to be imprisoned for life.

Despair seized on my faculties at the announcement of this hard sentence. Death in its most horrible shape would have been courted joyfully by me in preference to it. To linger out years and years in that wretched hole, never to be free again! I could not believe it: I tried to shut out the dreadful reality from my mind, but in vain. I implored that they would lead me to instant execution, that I might be impaled, or blown away from a gun, or hanged,—anything rather than have my miserable existence protracted in the solitude and suffering of a prison. But my entreaties were laughed at or scorned. I was loaded with a heavy chain, which confined my legs, my companion the same, and we were left to our fate. Still my restless spirit held out to me hopes of escape,—hopes that only mocked me, for every plan I formed became utterly impracticable, and this only increased my misery. One day I bethought me of the money I had collected before I was seized. It was hidden, and it was not improbable that my hoard had remained undiscovered. With this I fondly hoped I should be enabled to bribe one of my jailors; and the idea comforted me for many days, while I waited for an opportunity to put it into execution.

There was one among the guards of the prison, a young man, who was always kinder in his deportment to us than any of the others. The food he brought us was better, and the water always pure and in a clean vessel. He used to cheer us too sometimes with the hope that our imprisonment would not last so long as had been decreed; and he instanced the cases of several criminals who had been sentenced like us, but who had been released when the memory of their crimes had ceased to occupy the minds of the officers in charge of the prison. He had our clothes washed for us, and did a thousand kind acts—trifles perhaps, but still more than we experienced from any other of his companions.

It was with him, therefore, that I proposed to my fellow-captive to try our long-brooded and cherished scheme of deliverance. The next time it was his turn to attend us, I begged he would come to the cell at night or in the evening, when he would be secure from observation, for that I had something particular to communicate to him. He came in the evening of that day, and seated himself, muffled in a dark-coloured blanket, close to the bars of our cell.

"You have something to say I think," said he in a low tone, "and I have done your bidding; I am here."

"I have, good Meer Sahib," said I, (for he was also a Syud;) "listen, for what I would communicate to you will be for your benefit, if you will enter into my plans."

"Say on," replied the youth; "you may command my utmost exertions."

"To be brief then," I continued, "you must endeavour to effect our escape."

"It is impossible," he said.

"Not so," cried I; "nothing is impossible to willing hands and stout hearts. You can manage everything if you will but listen to me. When we were apprehended, we had saved a round sum of money, which is concealed in a spot I can tell you of, if you will be faithful to us. Half of it shall be yours, if you will only aid us."

"How much is it?" he asked.

"Upwards of five hundred rupees," said I; "it was securely hidden, and no one can have discovered it. I repeat, half of it shall be yours if you will assist us."

"How can I?" cried he, in a tone of perplexity; "how is it possible that you can pass these doors and walls, even were you as free as I am at this moment?"

"Leave that to me," said I; "do you accept the offer?"

"I will consider of the matter, and will be here at this time to-morrow, to give you a final answer."

"May Alla send you kind thoughts to the distressed! we shall look for your decision with impatience."

The next evening he came at the same time, and seated himself as before. "What would you have me do, Meer Sahib?" he asked; "I am ready to obey your commands if they are practicable. First, however, I must be secure of the money you have mentioned; I must receive it before I peril my situation, and, more than that, my life in your behalf."

"Listen then, Meer Sahib," said I; "I trust you,—you are a Syud and I also am one; you dare not deceive me, and incur the wrath of Alla."

"I will not, by the Prophet, whose descendant I am," said he; "were the Koran in my hands this moment, I would swear upon it."

"No, no," said I, "do not swear; the word of an honest man is far more binding than an oath. I believe that you are true, and therefore it is that I trust you. First, then, as regards the money; do you remember two old tombs, one of them much broken, which stand near the river's brink over the the north side of the city, about a cannon-shot from the wall?"

"I do, perfectly."

"Then," I continued, "in that broken one is an earthen vessel, containing the money; the vault where of old the body of the person over whom the tomb was erected was deposited, can be opened by removing four stones, which are loose, from the eastern side of it; they are neither large nor heavy, and you can manage the matter alone. In the cavity you will find the vessel, and the money is in it. I shall require half for my expenses. Now all I ask you for the present to do in return is, to procure us two small and sharp files and some ghee; and when we have cut through our chains, and one of these bars, I will tell you how you can aid us further."

"I will perform all you wish," said the youth; "and Inshalla! you shall have the files to-morrow night by this time, if I find that your statement about the money is true."

He then left us, and we anxiously and impatiently awaited his coming the next day. Nor did he disappoint us. "I have come, as you see, Meer Sahib," he said; "and behold, here are the files for you—they are English, and new and sharp; here too is the ghee. I have fulfilled my promise."

"And the money?" I asked.

"Without it you would not have seen me to-night, I can tell you, Meer Sahib. I have got it; the amount is five hundred and fifty rupees, and you shall be welcome to your share when you have got out of this hole. And how do you intend to manage this part of your scheme?"

"Are the gates of the prison shut at night?" I asked.

"No," he replied; "that is, the gate is shut, but the wicket is always open."

"And how many men guard it?"

"Only one, Meer Sahib; the rest sleep soundly after midnight."

"It is well," said I; "we can but perish in the attempt, and I for one would gladly die, rather than linger out a wretched existence here."

"And I also," said my companion.

"I fear I cannot assist you," said the man: "yet stay, suppose you were to attempt your escape when I am on guard. I shall have the last watch to-morrow night."

"May the blessing of Alla rest on you!" said I; "you have anticipated my thoughts. We will attempt it then, and may the Prophet aid us. All night we will work at our irons and one of these bars, and to-morrow night we shall be free. Go, kind friend, you do but risk detection in being seen here."

He left us, and we set to work with a good will to cut the irons on our legs and the bar. All night we worked, and the morning's light saw the iron bar nearly cut through at the top and bottom; to cut it at the top, one of us sat down by turns, while the other standing on his shoulders filed till his arm was tired. Despite of the ghee, however, the files made a creaking noise; we tried to prevent this by using them slowly, but in the excitement of the moment this was at times forgotten, for we worked hard for our liberty.

The morning broke, and we rested from our labour; one strong shake would have separated the bar, and our irons were so nearly cut through at the ancles and the waist, that a slight wrench would have divided them. Our friend we knew was faithful, for he had proved himself so, and we enjoyed a silent anticipation of our eventual triumph. "This time to-morrow," I exclaimed, "we shall be free, far from Lukhnow, and the world again before us, wherein to choose a residence!"

My companion was as full of hope as I was, and we passed most of the morning in debating whither we should go, and calling to mind the names of our former associates who would welcome us, and join us in seeking new adventures. It was about noon, I think, that a party of the soldiers of the prison, headed by the Darogha, approached our cell. My heart sunk within me as I saw them coming, and the haste with which they advanced towards us increased my alarm and apprehension. "We are lost!" said I to my companion; "they have discovered our plans." He did not reply, but despair was written on his countenance. The Darogha applied his key to the lock; it was opened, and the whole party rushed in and seized us.

"What new tyranny is this?" I exclaimed; "what new crime have we committed, that we are again to be ill-treated?"

"Look to their irons!" cried the Darogha to his men.

"You have been busy it seems," said he to us, when they found them in the state I have described. "Let me give you a piece of advice; when you next file your irons, either use more ghee or make less noise. But you will hardly have another opportunity, I think. Search them well," continued he to the men; "see where these instruments are which they have used so cleverly."

They stripped us stark naked, and the files were found in the bands of our trowsers through which the string that ties them runs. The Darogha examined them carefully. "These are new, Meer Sahib, and English. Inshalla! we will find out who supplied you with them. The fellow who has done this assuredly has eaten dirt."

"We brought them here with us," said I, doggedly. "Ye were sons of asses that ye did not search us when we entered your den of tyranny."

"We may be sons of asses," he replied, grinning, "but we are not such owls as to believe you, O wise and cunning Syud; Thug as you are, we are not going to eat dirt at your hands. Some friend you have had among my men; one is suspected; and if these files can help us to trace him—and it is probable enough—he had better say the Kulma, for his head and shoulders will not long remain together. But come," said he to his men, "your work is only half done; examine every foot of these bars; for my worthy friends here, rely upon it, have not half done their business."

They obeyed him, and, as you may suppose, soon found the bar which had been cut.

"Enough!" said the Darogha. "You were a fool, O Meer Sahib, for this wild attempt. Had you been content to bear your deserved imprisonment, mercy might in time have been shown to you; but now, give up all hope; you have forfeited that mercy by your own imprudence, and you will long live to repent it. Bring them along," said he to his men; "we must put them into narrower and safer lodgings."

Ya Alla, Sahib, what a place they led us to! A narrow passage, between two high walls, which but just admitted of a man's passing along it, contained, about half-way down, two cells, more like the dens of wild beasts than aught else. They were more strongly grated than the last we had been in, and were not half the size. Far heavier irons than those we had last worn were fastened on our legs by a blacksmith, and we were thrust into our horrible abodes.

"Now," said the Darogha, "get out if you can, Meer Sahib. If walls and iron bars can hold you, you are pretty safe here, I think."

They left us, and once more we were cast into the abyss of despair; nor was there one ray of hope left to cheer our gloomy and wretched thoughts. Here am I to live, here am I to die, thought I, as I surveyed the narrow chamber,—I who have roamed for years over the world, I who have never known restraint. Alla! Alla! what have I done that this should be? O Bhowanee, hast thou so utterly forsaken Ameer Ali? I cast myself down on the rough floor, and groaned in agony. I could not weep, tears were denied me; they would have soothed my overburthened soul. A cup of misery was before me, and I was to drain it to the dregs. Hope had fled, and despair had seized and benumbed every faculty of my mind.

Months rolled on. Though only a strong grating of iron bars divided me from my old companion, we seldom spoke to each other; at most it was a word, a passing remark hazarded by the one, and scarcely heeded by the other, so absorbed were we in our misery. I ate and drank mechanically, I had no craving for food; and what they gave us to eat was of the coarsest kind. The filth which accumulated in our cells was removed only once a week, and it bred vermin which sorely tormented us. Oh that I could die! I cried a thousand times a day. Alas! my prayer was not granted.

The second year of our captivity passed—the same unvarying rotation of misery—no change, no amelioration of our condition. We existed, but no more; the energies of life were dead within us. I used to think, were I ever released, that I could not bear the rude bustle of the world; that I should even prefer my captivity to its anxieties and cares. It was a foolish thought, for I often yearned for freedom, and occupied my mind with vain thoughts and plans for future action, should any lucky chance give me my liberty; but no ray of hope broke in upon the misery of my dungeon.

I mean not to say that my companion, the old Thug, and I never conversed; we did so now and then; we recounted our exploits again and again, and by thus recalling mine to my memory, from the beginning of my career, I stored up in my mind the adventures and vicissitudes I have related to you. One day we had been talking of my father, and his parting words to me, "I am not your father," flashed across my thoughts. I mentioned the circumstance to the old Thug, and earnestly requested him to tell me what he knew of Ismail, and of my early state.

"What!" he asked, "so you know not of it, Meer Sahib? Surely Ismail must have told you all? And yet," continued he, after a pause, "he would not have done it—he dared not."

"What can you mean," cried I, "by saying he dared not? Was I his son, or did he say truly when he declared I was not?"

"He spoke the truth, Meer Sahib. I know your origin, and it is just possible there may be one or two others who do also, and who are still living: one of these is Ganesha."

"Ganesha!" I exclaimed; "by Alla! my soul has ever told me that he knew something of me. I have striven in vain to bring any scene in which he was concerned with me to my recollection, and always failed. By your soul! tell me who and what I was."

"'Tis a long tale, Ameer Ali," said the old man, "but I will endeavour to remember all I can of it; it is one too which, were you not what you are, would horrify you."

"My parents were murdered then?" said I, my heart sinking within me. "I have sometimes thought so, but my conjectures were vague and unsatisfactory."

"You have guessed truly, Meer Sahib. But listen, my memory is still fresh, and you shall know all.

"Ismail, your father, as he called himself to you, became a Thug under Hoosein Jemadar, whom no doubt you remember. I well recollect the day he joined us, at a village not very far from Delhi; I was then a youth, and belonged to the band of which Hoosein was one of the best Bhuttotes."

"I know Ismail's history," said I; "he related it to me."

"Then I need not repeat it," he continued. "In time Ismail, by his bravery and wisdom, rose far above Hoosein, and became the Jemadar of a band of thirty Thugs. It is of this time I would speak. We were one day at a village called EklÉra, in Malwa, encamped outside the place, in a grove of trees near a well. We had been unlucky for some time before, as it was the season of the rains, when but few travellers are abroad, and we were eagerly looking for bunij.

"Ismail and Ganesha had been into the bazar, and returned with the joyful news that a party was about to set off towards Indoor, and that we were to precede them by a march, and halt whenever we thought them secure to us. I and another Thug were directed to watch their movements, while the main body went on. The information was correct, and we dogged them till the third or fourth march, when, at a village whose name I forget, we found the band halted, and rejoined it. The party consisted of a respectable man, and his wife and child, an old woman, and some young men of the village who accompanied them. The man rode a good horse, and his wife travelled in a palankeen. They were your parents, Meer Sahib."

"Go on," said I in a hoarse voice; "my memory seems to follow your narration." O Sahib! I was fearfully interested and excited.

"Well," continued he, "not long after they had arrived, Ismail and Ganesha went into the bazar, dressed in their best clothes, to scrape an acquaintance with your father, and, as Ismail told us afterwards, this was effected through you; he saw you playing in the streets, gave you some sweetmeats, and afterwards rescued you from the violence of some of the village boys who would have robbed you of them. This led to his speaking with your mother, and eventually to his becoming acquainted with your father. The end of all was, that they agreed to accompany us, and dismissed the young men by whom they had been previously attended. Does your memory aid you now, Meer Sahib, or shall I finish the relation?"

"It does," said I, "most vividly as you proceed. But go on; without your assistance, I lose the thread of my sad history." He resumed.

"Ismail in those days always rode a good horse, as also did Ganesha. He grew fond of you, and you of him, and he used to take you up before him and carry you most part of the march, or till you became fatigued. This went on for some days, but we were approaching Indoor, and it was necessary to bring the matter to a close; besides our cupidity was strongly excited by the accounts we heard from Ismail of your father's wealth, as he had told him that he carried a large sum of ready money with him. At last the bhil was determined. I could show it you now; it was close to a river, and, before the party had crossed, the jhirnee was given. We strangled them all. Ganesha killed your mother, the old woman was allotted to me; Ismail had his share also, and I believe it was your father. You had been riding upon Ismail's horse all the morning—at least after the rain had ceased—and when the jhirnee was given you were half across the river; I saw you fall, and as you did not move afterwards, I thought you were killed. You moved however, and Ganesha ran towards you; he threw the roomal about your neck, and was in the act of strangling you, when Ismail, who had uttered a cry of despair on seeing Ganesha's action, arrived just in time to prevent his deadly purpose. They had a serious quarrel about you, and even drew their swords; but Ismail prevailed, and led you to where the bodies were lying and being stripped by the Lughaees. You became frantic when you saw your mother; you clung to her body and could hardly be torn from it; you raved and cursed us all, but terror overcame you at last, and perhaps pain also, for you fainted. Ismail, when the bodies had been disposed of, and the plunder collected, mounted his horse and took you up before him; and turning off the road, we travelled in another direction.

"How you ever bore that journey I know not; you were a thin and delicate child, and we all said you would die; but you bore it well, and when we reached a place in the jungle, I was sent to a village for milk, and you drank some. Here again Ismail and Ganesha had a second quarrel about you; Ganesha said you were too old to adopt, that you would remember all that had happened, and that he would strangle you; and the abuse that you poured upon him made him still more savage. Again they drew their swords, and would have fought about you, but we prevented them.

"You were taken away by me to a distance; I rubbed your swollen neck, and Ismail gave you a strong dose of opium, which put you to sleep, and we again resumed our flight.

"Ganesha and he were never cordial friends after that day; they never acted in concert again until, as I heard, in your last expedition; and though they preserved an outward show of civility to each other, their hate was as strong as ever.

"Ismail took you to his home. He was married, but had no children; and as you grew up and improved under his kind and fatherly treatment, he became proud of you, and used often to say to us that he regretted your father had left your sister behind when he undertook his fatal journey to Indoor."

"My sister!" cried I, in an agony of apprehension.

"Yes, Meer Sahib, your sister. I, for one, heard your father say that he left her behind, as she was too young to be moved. You might get news of her at EklÉra, if you ever get out of this cursed hole."

But he now spoke to one bereft of sense—of any feeling save that of choking, withering, blighting agony. Why did not my heartstrings crack in that moment? Why did I live to drag a load of remorse with me to my grave? Yet it has even been so. I live, and I have borne my misery as best I could; to most I appear calm and cheerful, but the wound rankles in my heart; and could you but know my sufferings, Sahib, you would, perhaps, pity me. Not in the daytime is my mind disturbed by the thoughts of the past; it is at night, when all is still around me, and sleep falls not upon my weary eyelids, that I see again before me the form of my unfortunate sister; again I fancy my hands busy with her beautiful neck, and the vile piece of coin for which I killed her seems again in my grasp as I tore it from her warm bosom. Sahib, there is no respite from these hideous thoughts; if I eat opium—which I do in large quantities, to produce a temporary oblivion—I behold the same scene in the dreams which it causes, and it is distorted and exaggerated by the effects of the drug. Nay, this is worse to bear than the simple reality, to which I sometimes become accustomed, until one vision more vivid that its predecessors again plunges me into despair of its ever quitting me.

Sahib, after that fatal relation, I know not what I did for many days. I believe I raved, and they thought me mad, but my mind was strong and not to be overthrown. I recovered, though slowly, and again and again I retraced in my memory the whole of my life till that miserable day on which I murdered my sister! It could have been no other.

I tried in vain to cheat myself into the belief that it was another, but no effort that I made could shake the conviction that it was she. My unaccountable recollection of EklÉra—the relation of my father's death by the old man there—his almost recognition of me—and, more than all, the old and worthless coin for which I destroyed her, and which I now remembered perfectly—all were undeniable proofs of my crime; and conviction, though I tried to shut it out, entered into my soul, and abode there. Alla help me, I was a wretched being! My hair turned gray, my form and strength wasted, and any one who had seen me before I listened to the old Thug's tale would not have recognized me two months afterwards. A kind of burning fever possessed me; my blood felt hot as it coursed through my veins; and the night, oh how I dreaded it! I never slept, except by day, when exhausted nature at length claimed some respite. Night after night, for months and months, I either rolled to and fro on my miserable pallet, or sat up and rocked myself, groaning the while in remorse and anguish. No other act of my life rose up in judgment against me—none but that one; I tried even to think on others, but they passed from my mind as quickly as they entered it, and my sister was ever before me.

You know the worst, Sahib—think of me as you will, I deserve it. I cannot justify the deed to myself, much less to you; and the only consolation I have—that it was the work of fate, of unerring destiny—is but a weak one, that gives way before the conviction of my own guilt. I must bear my curse, I must wither under it. I pray for death, and as often, too, pray that I may live, and that my measure of punishment may be allotted to me here, that my soul may not burn in Jehanum. I may now as well bring my history to a close, to the time when, by accepting your boon of life, I became dead to the world.

My old companion died in the fourth year of our captivity. I would fain have had him deny the tale he told me of my father's destruction, but he would not; he was dying when I urged him to do so, and again declared in the most solemn manner that what he had related was true in every particular; and again he referred me to Ganesha, my mother's murderer, for confirmation of the whole.

He died, and I was left to solitude, to utter solitude, which was only broken by the daily visit of my jailor, who brought me food, and attended me during a short walk up and down the passage. This favour alone had I extorted after those years of misery, and it was grateful to me to stretch my cramped limbs, and again to feel the pure air of heaven breathe over my wasted features.

The seventh year had half passed; the Darogha of the jail was dead, or had been removed; another supplied his place, and some amelioration of my condition ensued. I was removed from the lonely cell into one near where I had been first confined; it was more spacious and airy, and people passed to and fro before it. I used to watch their motions with interest and this in some degree diverted my mind from brooding over the past.

In the twelfth year of my imprisonment the old king died, and his successor, the late monarch, ascended the musnud. Many a heart beat quickly and with renewed hope—hope, that had almost died within the hearts of those wretches who were immured within the walls—and of mine among the rest. We had heard that it was customary to release all who had been sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; and you can hardly imagine, Sahib, the intense anxiety with which I looked for the time when the mandate should be issued for our release, or when I should no longer dare to hope.

It came at last; after some days of weary expectation, the order reached the Darogha, and it was quickly conveyed to me. I was brought forth, the chains were knocked off my legs, and I was free. Five rupees were given to me, and a suit of coarse clothes in place of those which hung in rags about my person. After more than twelve weary years I issued from those prison walls, and was again thrown upon the world to seek my fortune.

"Beware, Meer Sahib," said the Darogha, as he presented me with the money, "beware of following your old profession; you are old, your blood no longer flows as it used, and what you have been you should forget. Go! follow some peaceful calling, and fortune may yet smile upon you."

I thanked him and departed. I roamed through the city till nightfall, and after satisfying my hunger at the shop of a bhutteara I begged from him shelter for the night. It was readily granted; and I lay down and enjoyed the first quiet and refreshing sleep I had known for years. I arose with the dawn and went forth,—whither I cared not,—all places in the wide world seemed alike to me. I knew no one, I could find no one who knew me in that large city, and I felt the desolation of my condition press heavily upon me. What to do, or whither to go, I knew not; but a faint hope that I might discover some of my old associates if I could reach Bundelkhund impelled me to travel thither. A change in my dress was soon effected. From a Kalundur Fakeer I purchased a high felt hat and a chequered garment for a small sum: and thus equipped, with a staff in my hand, I left the city by the north gate, and travelled onwards.

It was as I thought; I was never without a meal, though it might be of the coarsest food; and when I reached Jhalone, my little stock of money was nearly as large as when I had left Lukhnow. I went direct to the house of the Moola, for my thoughts were ever with my daughter, and my soul yearned to know her fate. Alas! I was disappointed. His house was inhabited by another, whom I knew not, and all he could tell me was that the old man had gone to Delhi he believed some years before, and that he had not heard any tidings of him since. I asked after his daughters, but the man knew nothing of them, except that one he had adopted had been married in Jhalone to a person who resided in a village of the country, but of his name or direction he was ignorant.

I turned away from the door,—I dared not pass my own, and I withdrew to an obscure part of the town where there was a small garden in which a Fakeer usually resided. Him I had known of old, he had eaten of my bread and received my alms, and now I was his equal. He will not recognize me, thought I, in this dress, and changed as I am no one knows me; I will seek him however, and if he is as he used to be I may learn some news of my old friends.

I found the Fakeer I sought; old I had left him, he was now aged and infirm; his garden, which he had always kept with scrupulous neatness, was overgrown with weeds and neglected, and he had barely strength remaining to crawl about the town for the small supply of flour or grain which sufficed for his daily wants. I was much shocked to see him thus, and representing myself to be a wandering Kalundur desirous of remaining in Jhalone, I begged to be allowed to reside and share with him whatever I got. My offer was readily accepted, and there I took up my abode, in the hope that some wandering party of Thugs might pass Jhalone, to whom I could disclose myself.

Gradually I discovered myself to the old man. I led him to speak of old times and of persons by allusion to whom he must know I was a Thug. He did not hesitate to speak of them, and in particular of myself, whose fate he mourned with such true grief, that I could control myself no longer; and to his wondering ear I related the whole of my adventures, from the time I had been released by the Rajah to the period of my taking up my abode with him. And much had I to hear from him in return—much that distressed and grieved me. Many of my old companions were dead, others had been seized and executed, and hardly one of the old leaders of Bundelkhund were in the country or in the exercise of their vocation; new leaders had sprung up, and he spoke in warm terms of a young man named Feringhea, who when I had last seen him was a mere boy.

Four months passed thus. To support the old Fakeer as well as myself, I was obliged to perambulate the town daily: and I asked and received alms, given in the meanest portions, in the place where my hand had ever been open to the poor. A sad change in my fortune, Sahib! Yet I bore up against it with resignation, if not with fortitude, hoping for better days and new adventures.

New adventures, Ameer Ali! I exclaimed. Had not the punishments you had received turned your heart from Thuggee?

No Sahib! cried the Thug with fervour; why should they? Had not my heart become hardened by oppression and misery? They had aroused within me a spirit of revenge against the whole human race. I burned to throw off my wretched disguise, and again take to the road—it mattered not whether as a leader or a subordinate, so that I could once more be a Thug. Nor was I old; true, my beard had become grizzled and gray, and care had seamed my countenance with many wrinkles; but I was still strong and powerful, and my hands had not forgotten their cunning. Four months I have said had elapsed, and as no Thugs came near Jhalone, I set off with a few rupees I had saved from the produce of my daily alms for Tearee, where I hoped to meet the Brahmin astrologer who had so materially aided me in the affair of the pearl merchant. His share of that booty had been duly remitted to him immediately on my arrival at Jhalone; and though I had never heard from him afterwards, yet I felt assured that the letter could not have miscarried.

I reached Tearee after many days. I knew that bands of Thugs were abroad, for I saw their fire-places and marks at many villages and upon the roads; but I met with none, to my disappointment, and on my arrival I hastened at once to the temple, where I found the Brahmin; and, notwithstanding my misfortunes, I was kindly, nay warmly welcomed. The Brahmin still kept up his connection with Thugs, and I learned from him, to my joy, that a band, under a Jemadar named Ramdeen, about twenty in number, had passed through the town only the day before, and were on their road towards the Nerbudda.

"You can easily overtake them, Meer Sahib," he said; "and if your old fame as a leader fails in procuring you a welcome reception, a few lines from me may aid you." And he wrote a note to the Jemadar, informing him who I was, and how I had been connected with him of old. I did not long delay after I had received it, and again set off in search of my future companions. I came up with them on the second day, and warm indeed was the welcome I received; one and all were amazed to see me, whom they had long thought dead. I was clothed in decent raiment by them, admitted as one of their band, and treated as a brother. Truly their kindness was refreshing to my almost withered heart. Ramdeen insisted that I should take an equal rank with him in the band; and after the necessary ceremonies I resumed my roomal, and in a few days again ate the Goor of the Tupounee.

Sahib, you must by this time be weary of my adventures with travellers, and I met with none during my connection with Ramdeen's party worthy of relation. We avoided the Company's territories and kept to those of Sindia; penetrating as far as Boorhanpoor, and on our return visiting the shrine of Oonkar Manduttee, on the Nerbudda. From this latter place we were fortunate in enticing a party of pilgrims, and a large booty fell into our hands at the bottom of the Jam Ghat, whither we escorted them on their return to Oojein. Upwards of four hundred rupees was my share of this: so again you see me independent, and fortune smiling upon me. But Ramdeen became jealous of me, and of my superior skill and intelligence. We had many quarrels, and at last I left him, and determined, with what I had, to travel to the Dukhun, and to seek my fortune in the Nizam's country, where I knew that Thuggee still flourished unchecked.

But it was fated not to be so. My road from where I left Ramdeen lay through Saugor, and there I met with my old acquaintance Ganesha, at the head of a small band, apparently in wretched plight. I could but ill dissemble my feelings of abhorrence at meeting with him; my own misfortunes and history, and the tale of my companion in imprisonment, were fresh in my recollection; nevertheless I disguised the dislike I felt, though revenge still rankled in my heart, and I would gladly have seized any opportunity to satisfy it. Among his band was a Thug I had known in former days; he was weary of Ganesha, whose temper was not improved by age, and he advised me to put myself at the head of a few men he could point out to me, who would be faithful, and who he thought would prove the nucleus of a large band; for my name was still fresh in the memory of the older Thugs, who would gladly flock to me when they heard I was determined to set up for myself without connexion with others. And he was right; in a few months I was at the head of forty men; and we were fortunate. Taking a new direction, we passed through the territories of the Rewah Rajah, returning to our home, which we fixed in a village not far from Hindia, in a wild and unfrequented tract, where we were secure from treachery and from the operations against the Thugs then being carried on from Saugor.

Two years passed in this manner, and I was content, for I was, as I wished to be, powerful and actively employed. Two seasons we went out and returned laden with plunder, and the name of Ameer Ali was again known and feared. Another season and it shall be my last, said I; I had discovered some clue to my daughter, and thought (vain idea!) if I could only collect a few thousand rupees, that I could dare to seek her, to live near her, and to abandon Thuggee for ever. Why was I thus infatuated? what else could it have been but that inexorable fate forbade it? The destiny which had been marked out for me by Alla I was to fulfil, and I blindly strove against it. The vain purposes of man urge him to pursue some phantom of his imagination, which is never overtaken, but which leads him on often by smooth paths and buoyed up by hope, till he is suddenly precipitated into destruction.

I had planned an expedition on a larger scale than ever, towards Calcutta, and we had sworn to Bhowanee to pay our devotions at her shrines of Bindachul and Calcutta; the omens were favourable, and we left our home in joy and high excitement. And what cared I then, though I knew that the English had set a price of five hundred rupees upon me? It was a proof that I was dreaded and feared, and I rejoiced that Ameer Ali, the oppressed and despised for a time, had again emerged from his obscurity, and I braved the danger which threatened me. I was a fool for this, yet it was my destiny that impelled me: and of what avail would have been precautions, even had I taken any? I knew that treachery could not reach me where I was, and I trusted to my apparently lasting new run of good fortune, and to the omens with which our expedition had begun, to escape apprehension in the districts of the Company's territories, where operations against Thugs were being carried on with much success.

Saugor lay directly in the route which we proposed taking, and it was here that the greatest danger was to be apprehended. I might have avoided it perhaps, but I trusted to the celerity and secrecy of my movements for a few days until we should pass it; and as my band were unanimous in refusing to change the route after it had been determined on and sanctioned by favourable omens, I undertook to lead them at all hazards. We travelled by night, therefore, and avoided all large villages, resting either in waste spots or near miserable hamlets. Nor did we seek for bunij,—the danger was too imminent for any time to be lost; and though one or two persons died by our hands, yet this was rather to enable us to eat the Goor of the Tupounee, and to perform such ceremonies as were absolutely necessary for the propitiation of our patroness, and our consequent success.