CHAPTER II.
in which it will appear that ameer ali's curiosity is violently excited.
I MUST have been at this time about five years old. It will strike you perhaps as strange, Sahib, that I should remember so many particulars of the event I have described; but when I was imprisoned some years ago at Dehlie, I used to endeavour, in my solitude, to recollect and arrange the past adventures of my life, one circumstance led me to the remembrance of another—For in solitude, if the mind seeks the occupation, it readily takes up the clue to past events, however distant, and thought brings them one by one before the imagination, as vividly fresh as the occurrences of yesterday—and from an old Thug's adventures, which I heard during that imprisonment, I found my memory to serve me well. I was in possession of the whole of the facts, as I have related them to you, and I have only perhaps supplied the minor points from my own mind. I particularly recollect the scene with Gunesha, which he has since related to me, and told me, that such was his rage at the abuse I poured on him, that had it not been for the dread of Ismail's vengeance, and of his power, he would have sacrificed me in his fury.
But to return to my story, if you are not tired of it.
No, indeed, said I; I am becoming more and more interested in it.
Well, resumed Ameer Ali, I was kindly nursed and tended by Ismail and his wife. The curiosity of the villagers was a good deal excited by my appearance, and I have since suspected Ismail thought I might one day reveal what I knew of my origin; and for this reason I was never allowed out of his or his wife's sight. I must then however have speedily forgotten all about it, or at least have retained so confused and indistinct a recollection of the circumstances, that had I endeavoured to relate them to any one, I could not have made them intelligible, and should have been disregarded.
Ismail, in his village, carried on the trade of a cloth merchant, at least, when he was at home. He daily sat in his shop, with different kinds of cloths before him for sale; but it was plain, even to me, to see that he was restless and uneasy. He would very often be absent for days together, without his family knowing where he had gone; and he would suddenly return with large quantities of cloth and other goods, which were always exposed for sale. I continued to be the object of his greatest care, and I reciprocated his affection, for indeed I was more kindly treated by him than I ever had been by my father, who was a proud and ill-tempered man. My new mother too, never gave me reason to be displeased with her; for having no child of her own, I was her pet, and she lavished on me all the means in her power. I was always well-dressed, and had every indulgence that a child could wish for.
I was about nine years old, I think, when my kind protectress died of a fever while Ismail was on one of his excursions, and I was taken by a neighbour to his house, until he returned. I shall never forget his despair when he found his home desolate. Young as I was, I could do but little to console him; but he used to go and deck her tomb with flowers every Friday, and bitter were his lamentations over her grave.
Poor Miriam! for that was her name—it was well for you that you died; had you lived, what would now have been your condition! As the wife of a noted Thug, your reputation would have been blasted, and you would have become an outcast!
Sahib! she never knew what Ismail was. He was to her a man in prosperous circumstances. She had everything she could desire, and not a want remained unsatisfied; and so deeply and well laid were his plans, that she would never have known, till the day of his capture, that she was the wife of a professed murderer!
I pass over the next four or five years of my life, as I can remember no incident in them worth relating. Ismail, soon after the death of his wife, removed from the village where he had hitherto resided, and took up his abode in the town of Murnae, which was then in Sindia's possession, and I was put to school with an old man, who taught me to read and write Persian.
As I grew older, I observed that Ismail used, very frequently, to have a number of men at his house by night, and I was naturally curious to know who they were, and why they assembled. One evening that I knew they were expected, I feigned to lie down and go to sleep as usual; but when they had all come, I got up cautiously, and hid myself behind a Purdah or screen at the further end of the room where they sat. After they had eaten what was prepared for them, they all drew together, and began conversing in a language I only partially understood, and I thought this strange, as I knew Hindoostanee and the common dialect myself, having picked up the latter by associating with the boys of the town. By and bye, Ismail went to a closet very near where I lay, and his movement alarmed me greatly, as I was fearful of being discovered; he took from it a box, which he placed in the circle, and opened it. Rich as I had always thought him, I had no idea of the wealth it contained; there were quantities of gold and silver ornaments of all kinds, with strings of pearls and other valuables; they seemed all parcelled out into lots, as equally as possible, and to each man he gave one, reserving a considerable share for himself.
At last they began to speak in Hindoostanee, a language I understood. One of them, an elderly man with a venerable beard, said to Ismail,—
"What do you intend doing with Ameer? He is almost a young man; and if he is to be one of us, it is high time he should be taught what to do. It is very dangerous to have him about the house; he might discover something, and be off before you knew anything of the matter."
"Oh, I have no fear of him," said Ismail; "he is too fond of me; besides, he has no other protector in the world but myself. He was the son of * * * * *"
And here the conversation was carried on by Ismail again in the language I did not understand.
"It does not matter," said another man, whose name was Hoosein, and whom I knew very well, as he was employed by Ismail, to all appearance, as an agent for selling his cloth; "the lad is a smart active fellow, and a great deal too knowing for you to let him go about everywhere with so little restraint; he will find out all one of these days, if he is not fairly brought among us. Besides, he is old enough to be of use in many ways, and he ought to be instructed in our profession, if he be ever to learn; depend upon it, the sooner he eats the Goor, the more relish he will have for it. I brought up a lad myself; and when once he got his hand in, he was a perfect tiger at the work, and became so expert, that our oldest hands could hardly compete with him."
"Well," said Ismail, "I believe you are right, and I foretell great doings from this boy. He is brave and stout beyond his years, and there are but few who can excel him in his Qusrut[1], which I have taught him ever since he was a child; but he is of so kind and gentle a disposition, that I do not know how to break the matter to him. I almost fear he will never consent."
"Pooh!" said a third man, whom I had never seen before; "these very kind-hearted boys are the best we could have; they are the more easily led and won over, and one has more dependence upon them. Put the matter in the proper light; talk to him of the glory of the business, and of our surety of Heaven. Describe to him all about the Houris which our blessed prophet, may his name be honoured! has promised us, and tell him too of the heaven of Indur, all of which you know we are sure of; the one by our faith as Moslims, and the other by our profession. He will soon be won over, I am certain."
"I think," said Ismail, "you have hit on the right way; the lad goes to the old foolish Moola of the Mosque whenever he can get a moment's leisure, who has so filled his head with stories about Paradise, which he reads to him out of the blessed Koran, that he is at times half beside himself, and this is the only point on which he is assailable. I will talk him over, and have no doubt he will soon belong to us."
"The sooner the better," said Hoosein, laughing; "I like to see the first attempt of a beginner: he always looks so confoundedly innocent when the cloth is put into his hand, and he is told—"
"Silence!" cried the old man: "suppose he were now to hear you (and you were going on with a relation of the whole matter,) he might take a different view of the subject, and be off, as I said before."
"No; there is no fear of that," said Ismail: "but are you not tired with your march? remember, we have far to travel tomorrow, and, by Alla! it is for some good too."
"Ay!" said all, getting up; "let us go to sleep; it is too hot to rest here; we shall be cooler in the open air," and they left the room.
You may believe, Sahib, that my curiosity was at the highest pitch: who was Ismail? who were the rest? what was it I was to know, or to be taught? my mind was in a whirl. I could not sleep that night; I never closed my eyes; I seemed to be in a fever, so intense was my curiosity, and, I may say, my desire to know everything, and to become a partner with Ismail in whatever he was. Hitherto I had been looked upon, treated as a child; now that was to be cast aside. I was, like a snake, to throw off my old skin, and to appear in a new and brighter form. Who could my parents be? I had gathered enough from the conversation, that Ismail was not my father, and I taxed my memory to recollect such portions of my previous existence as might throw some light on the subject; but all was dark within me. I could remember nothing but poor Miriam, my mother as I used to call her; beyond this, though hard did I endeavour, I could recollect nothing. It was only in after times, as I have told you, and during a long imprisonment of twelve years, that my memory aided me.
The old Moola of the Mosque had hitherto appeared in my eyes the most learned of men; he had stored my mind with passages from the Koran, which had made me an enthusiast. When he spoke to me of the glories of heaven, of the thousands of Houris who would be at the command of every true believer, described their beautiful forms, their eyes like sapphires, their teeth of pearls, their lips like rubies, and their breath like the perfume of musk; the palaces of jewels, and the fountain of immortality and never-ending youth;—I believed that I was destined to enjoy all. They had inflamed my imagination; and as I used to repeat them to Ismail, he too appeared as delighted as I was, and used to regret that he had never studied the blessed book, that he might enjoy its beautiful descriptions; yet the Moola was called a fool by Hoosein, and I understood from him that theirs was a higher calling, their rewards more splendid than even those of the Moslim! What could they be? I burned to know; and resolved, that if Ismail did not break the matter to me, I would, of my own accord, lead him to the subject.
I said, I think, that my eyes never closed that night; when I rose in the morning, I found that Ismail and the others were gone. He did not return for some days. This was nothing uncommon, certainly; but his proceedings had become mysterious to me for a long time before, and I could not help connecting his frequent and long absences with his true profession, whatever that might be. He could not be only a cloth merchant: there was nothing in that plodding business to hold out to him or to me the splendid hopes which Hoosein and the rest evidently entertained, and with which I had no doubt he was familiar. It must be something beyond this, which I could not compass; and to see whether I could get any clue to it, I betook myself to the old Moola.
Azeezoola, for that was his name, received me with his usual kindness, but remarked that I must be ill, as my face, he said, was full of anxiety, and as though I was suffering from fever. I said I had had ague, but that I was better, and that it would soon pass from me. I took my usual lessons in the forms, positions, and words of a Mahomedan's daily prayers; and when these were ended, I begged him to open the Koran, and explain again to me my favourite passages. The old man put on his spectacles, and rocking himself to and fro, read to me passage by passage of the book in Arabic, explaining the meaning to me as he read. It was the same I had heard often before; and when he had finished, I asked him whether there were not other portions of the book which he had concealed from me.
"No, my son," said he; "I have concealed from you nothing. My knowledge of this blessed book is indeed very limited; but oh! that you could have seen and heard the commentaries which my revered preceptor, peace be to his memory! had written upon it. In them, so deep was his knowledge, that every sentence of some chapters, in which the true meaning is purposely hidden from the uninspired, formed a separate treatise; nay, in some passages every word, and indeed every letter, was commented upon. But he is gone, and is now enjoying the delights of the paradise I have revealed to you. All I can do is to read to you, and I will do it again and again, till you have by heart the parts which most interest you, and which are the cream of the book."
"But," said I, "have you never heard of anything beyond what you have told me, in all your long experience? You are surely concealing something from me, which you fear to tell me on account of my youth."
"No, indeed," said the old man; "it is true that some professors of our religion, Sofees and others, whose creeds are accursed, have from time to time promulgated heterodox doctrines, which are plausible enough, and entrap the unwary; but they lead to ultimate perdition, and I think you are now too well grounded in your belief to be led away by them, young as you are."
"Thanks to your kindness, I am," said I, "and it was only to try whether I had more to learn, that I have now questioned you as I have;" for I saw he either could not, or would not reveal to me more. "But tell me, father, what profession ought I to adopt to carry your wise instructions into the best effect?"
"Become a Moola," said he; "you will have to undergo much painful study, but in the course of time this obstacle will be overcome; and depend upon it, there is no station or profession so acceptable to God as that of one of his ministers. I will instruct you in the rudiments of Arabic, and your father when he sees your mind bent upon it will not oppose you; nay, he will send you to Dehlie to complete the education I shall have begun."
"Well, I will think of it," said I. But it was very far from my intention to become a Moola. I could not disguise from myself that Azeezoola was miserably poor, and was dependent upon contributions he with difficulty collected for his maintenance. Besides, Ismail was not a Moola, nor Hoosein, nor any of their set; and I must become one of them, be they what they might, before my mind could be at rest. I went no more to him. I had got from him his little store of knowledge, and if once I had broken the subject of my future life to him, I should only be subjected to continual arguments in support of his view of what would tend to my benefit; and as I did not like them, I thought it better to stay away.
Would to God I had become a Moola! Anything would be preferable to my state at present, which must now for ever remain as it is. It is my Fate however, and I ought not to murmur at the decrees of Providence. If it had not been written, would my father have been murdered? If it had not been written, should I have ever become a Thug? Assuredly not! Who can oppose Fate? who can avert its decrees? Yet would you not, Sahib, release me, and provide for me, if after many years you found me faithful?
Never! said I; you Thugs are too dangerous ever to be let loose again upon the world; your fingers would itch to strangle the first man you met, and before long we should hear of Ameer Ali Jemadar, with a gang of forty or fifty fellows, who would give us infinite trouble to catch. Would it not be so?
I believe you are right, said Ameer Ali laughing: in spite of my remorse at times, the opportunities would be too tempting for me to let them pass. And you know I have eaten the Goor, and cannot change. I am better as I am, for if you caught me again you would hang me.
I have not the least doubt we should, Ameer Ali: but go on with your story; you will forget what your train of thought was, if you digress in this manner. He resumed.
Nearly a month elapsed, and after this weary time to me, Ismail returned, accompanied by Hoosein. My father, for so I shall call him, remarked a change in my appearance, which I accounted for as I had done to the Moola, and he seemed satisfied. But was I? Oh, no! I was consumed by my burning curiosity to know all that was hidden from me. I could not sleep at nights, and became sullen, and oppressed with thoughts which led me to no conclusions. At one time I had formed the determination to leave my father, and seek my fortune; and had actually packed up a few of my clothes, and a little money I had, and resolved to leave the town in the night, little caring where my fate should lead me; but when the time came, the sense of my desolation so pressed upon me, that I abandoned the idea, and remained. I trusted to time for clearing up the mystery that hung over me, but at the same time determined that I would be more watchful over my father and his companions than I had ever been before. And many were the resolutions I made to speak to him on the subject nearest my heart; yet even when opportunities occurred, I could not bring myself to the task. It was not that I was timid—naturally I was brave—it was a mysterious consciousness that I should hear something (whenever I should hear it) that was strange, nay, fearful, that deterred me; but why this feeling should have so possessed me I cannot now tell, yet so it was.
One evening, Ismail sent for me to his sleeping room. I had been rarely admitted to it, and my heart beat fearfully, with a presentiment that I was upon the crisis of my fate.—Ismail too seemed to me to be disturbed; he bade me sit down, and we sat silently for some time gazing on one another; there was only one small oil light burning in a recess of the wall, which made the apartment very gloomy, and this trifling circumstance contributed still more to increase the morbid feeling within me. I believe I almost gasped for breath; I could bear it no longer. I arose, threw myself at his feet, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping.
"Why, Ameer, my child, my son," said he kindly and caressingly, "what is this? what has troubled you? has some fair one bewitched you? have you got into any difficulty while I have been away? tell me, my boy; you know you have no one in the world so fond of you as your father, and, alas! you have now no mother."
When my feelings gave me power of utterance, fearfully I repeated to him what I had heard from him and the rest, on the memorable night I have before related. When I had finished, I rose up, and with a throbbing heart said, "I have erred, my father; my curiosity, a boy's curiosity, overcame me, but since then my feelings have changed, why I know not; I am no longer a boy, for I feel that I can do anything, and only implore you to put me to the proof;"—and I folded my hands on my breast, and stood silently. He was evidently much moved; dusk as it was, I could see his face working with emotions, and under expressions new to me.
At last he broke the silence, which had become to me insupportable: "My son," he said, "you know more than I had ever intended you should. I have now no alternative but to make you such as I am myself, and my knowledge of your character leads me to anticipate much from you."
"Trust me, only trust me!" I passionately exclaimed; "you shall never have cause to regret it!"
"I believe you," said he; "and now attend well to what I shall say, for upon it your future existence depends. There can be no hesitation, no falling back on the world, when once you know all. You will have to undergo a trial which will stretch your courage to its utmost: will you go through with it? dare you to brave it?"
"I dare," cried I, for I was reckless.
He seemed to be absorbed in thought for a few moments, and then said,
"Not to-night, but I swear to you that in three days at the farthest, I will conceal nothing from you."
I was disappointed, yet full of hope, and he dismissed me to my repose.
Ismail performed his promise; but I can hardly describe to you, Sahib, the effect it then had on my mind: shall I endeavour to relate what his tale was? I only hesitate, as it began by his giving me a sketch of his life, which I fear would lead me from my own story—yet it would interest you greatly.
I doubt not that it would, Ameer Ali, said I; and when you have finished your own adventures you can return to it.
You are right, Sahib, I will omit it at present, all except his concluding words; which, with his tale of wrong, endured and revenged, made me hate the world, and cleave to Thuggee as the only profession and brotherhood in which I could hope to find good faith existing. They were these, and they have ever been indelibly impressed on my memory.
"Thus far, my son, have I related some events of my life for your instruction, and I have little more to add. I need hardly now mention that I am a Thug, a member of that glorious profession which has been transmitted from the remotest periods, to the few selected by Alla for his unerring purposes. In it, the Hindoo and the Moslim both unite as brothers: among them bad faith is never known: a sure proof, that our calling is blessed and sanctioned by the divine authority. For where on this earth, my son, will you find true faith to exist, except among us? I see none in all my dealings with the world; in it, each man is incessantly striving to outwit and deceive his neighbour: and I turn from its heartlessness to our truth, which it is refreshing to my soul to contemplate. From the lowest to the highest among us, all are animated with the same zeal; go where we will we find the same brotherhood; and though differing perhaps, in many parts, in customs and points of practice, yet their hearts are the same, and all pursue the great aim and end of Thuggee with the same spirit. Go where we will, we find homes open to us, and a welcome greeting among tribes even of whose language we of Hindostan are ignorant; yet their signs of recognition are the same as ours, and you need but to be thrown among them as I have been, to experience the truth of my assertions. Could this be without the aid of God? So clashing are human interests, and so depraved is the social state of our country, that I own no such feeling could exist without the Divine will. Some repugnance you will feel at the practice of the profession at first, but it is soon overcome, for the rewards held out are too glorious, to allow us to dwell for a moment on the means we use to attain them. Besides, it is Fate,—the decree of the blessed Alla! and who can withstand it? If he leads us into the undertaking, he gives us firm and brave hearts, a determination which no opposition can overcome, and a perseverance which never yet failed to accomplish its object. Such, my son, is what I would make you; you will enter on your calling at once in a high grade, under my auspices, a grade which others spend years of exertion to attain; you will never know want, for all my wealth shall be shared with you. Be firm, be courageous, be subtle, be faithful; more you need not. These are the highest qualifications of a Thug, and those which ensure honour and respect among our fraternity, and lead to certain success and high rank. As for me, I look but to see you at the head of a band of your own, to retire, and in quiet, pass the remainder of the years allotted to me, content with hearing the praise which will be bestowed upon Ameer Ali, the daring and enterprising son of Ismail! till then I shall be your guardian and instructor."
- ↑ Gymnastic exercises.