CHAPTER I.You ask me, Sahib, for an account of my life: my relation of it will beunderstood by you, as you are acquainted with the peculiar habits of mycountrymen; and if, as you say, you intend it for the information ofyour own, I have no hesitation in relating the whole; for though I haveaccepted the service of Europeans, in my case one of bondage, I cannothelp looking back with pride and exultation on the many daring feats Ihave performed. Often indeed does my spirit rise at the recollectionof them, and often do I again wish myself the leader of a band ofgallant spirits, such as once obeyed me, to roam with them wherever myinclination or the hope of booty prompted.But the time is past. Life, Sahib, is dear to every one; to preservemine, which was forfeited to your laws, I have bound myself to yourservice, by the fearful tenure of denouncing all my old confederates, and you well know how that service is performed by me. Of all themembers of my band, and of those with whom chance has even casuallyconnected me, but few now remain at large; many have been sacrificed atthe shrine of justice, and of those who now wander, broken, and pursuedfrom haunt to haunt, you have such intelligence as will lead to theirspeedy apprehension.Yet Thuggee, capable of exciting the mind so strongly, will not, cannotbe annihilated! Look at the hundreds, I might say thousands, whohave suffered for its profession; does the number of your prisonersdecrease? No! on the contrary, they increase, and from every Thugwho accepts the alternative of perpetual imprisonment to dying on agallows, you learn of others whom even I knew not of, and of Thuggeebeing carried on in parts of the country where it is least suspected, and has never been discovered till lately.It is indeed too true, Ameer Ali, said I; your old vocation seems tobe as flourishing as ever, but it cannot last. Men will get tiredof exposing themselves to the chance of being hunted down like wildbeasts, and hanged when they are caught; or what is perhaps worse tomany, of being sent over the Kala-Panee (transported); and so heartilydoes the Government pursue Thugs wherever they are known to exist, thatthere will no longer be a spot of ground in India where your professioncan be practised.You err, Sahib; you know not the high and stirring excitement of aThug's occupation. To my perception it appears, that so long as oneexists, he will gather others around him; and from the relation ofwhat I will tell you of my own life, you will estimate how true ismy assertion. How many of you English are passionately devoted tosporting! Your days and months are passed in its excitement. A tiger, a panther, a buffalo, or a hog, rouses your utmost energies for itsdestruction--you even risk your lives in its pursuit. How much highergame is a Thug's! His is man: against his fellow-creatures in everydegree, from infancy to old age, he has sworn relentless, unerringdestructi