Englishman,” he becomes a reptile in his turn. From that moment nothing is to be seen but grass; but the Colonel, Edward, and the soldiers, have soon very unpleasant warning of the approach of the unseen enemy.
The wild beasts, surprised by this living torrent overflowing their domains, bounded with furious springs across the herbage to escape from their tremendous enemies. The tigers, springing in prodigious leaps, in a fit of mad fear, cleared at a bound the soldiers of the ambuscade, and they—preserving their ranks motionless—reached the sublime of heroism, placed as they were between the claws of tigers and the gripe of men in the darkness of night and of the woods.
The moment had now arrived when the torrent of Thugs entered—as one may say—the river’s bed, the two banks of which were formed by the soldiers of Douglas.
A sharp hiss resounded in the solitude, and was repeated twenty times by the echos of the lake and the ruins. Three hundred men, armed with pistol and poignard, rose at this signal of their colonel. The Thugs sprang up also, uttering unearthly yells, which appeared to rise from the centre of a volcano, and a fierce struggle began which had not even the stars for witnesses; for the thick foliage of the forest floated above their heads, and the field of battle, bristling with spectres, resembled that dark cavern which is the vestibule of Hell.
The Thugs who escaped the first shock of this attack rushed desperately on their enemies to stifle them in a close embrace; to crunch their skulls with their serpents’ teeth, and to drink a little of their blood before dying; for the Thugs have not degenerated from the primitive races of India. Old Bengal has not yet enervated their souls or bodies. They are worthy sons of the giants, who overthrew and crumbled mountains, and made of them a ladder between the depths and heaven. Their arms, cast round the necks of their enemies, pressed the flesh as with fetters of bronze, and their victims, struggling in a convulsive agony, felt a hot, savage breath in their face, and beheld the monstrous grin of the demons who thus fatally caressed them. In the midst of this whirlwind of infernal combats, Edward and Douglas, exercised from infancy in feats of strength, address, and agility, never missed a blow of their robust fists, or of their poignards; the monsters fell before them, and those who arose fell again to rise no more. This horrible work of destruction was accomplished in a dull silence, unbroken even by the groans of the dying.
A single voice, a single cry resounded beneath the leafy vaults; a cry strange and even terrible, and foreign to the voice of man. It was that of the fakir Souniacy, who thus gave religious exhortation to his fanatic stranglers. When the Thugs (for a moment discouraged) heard his voice, they ground their cannibal’s teeth, stiffened their iron forms, spread their huge arms, shook their black tresses, and rushed with fresh fury on the enemy. Those who, pierced by a dagger, rolled on the grass like writhing serpents, revived at the fakir’s voice; and galvanised and blood-stained corpses clung to the feet of the soldiers and gave up their last breath tearing with their teeth the live flesh of their foes. Suddenly the voice of the fakir ceased. Then it was heard afar off, plaintive and agonised; it seemed as if the sound issued from a sepulchre on the borders of the wood. The Thugs replied by a long cry of despair; and as if the incomprehensible desertion of their fakir had suddenly deprived them of all their courage, they fled with inconceivable swiftness in the direction taken by Souniacy.
Surely this picture of Indian warfare is sufficient to discourage most candidates for Indian competitive examinations!
Douglas and Edward keep this horrible fight a profound secret, and appear at the Nabob’s breakfast table as fresh and débonnaire as if just emerged from the fabulous “Bond Street” of the tale. The Colonel—whose inopportune recall to India was a ruse devised by himself, and aided by his friend (though it had proved an unconscious prophecy, so far as the Thugs were concerned)—has meantime been wooing the Nabob’s daughter, Miss Arinda, who, having been educated in Sir William Bentinck’s house, unites the charms of a Hindoo damsel to the graces of a young lady of European civilisation. Sir Edward is delighted at this attachment, as he entertains the very un-English conviction that our worn-out British race is to acquire new life and vigour by intermarrying with the Bengalese! Miss Arinda accepts Colonel Douglas’s proposal, and they are to be married in a few weeks, Sir Edward having discovered that Count Elona is in love with the Greek Amalia, which relieves them of all uneasiness on her account. Apropos of which discovery Sir Edward observes:
At length these difficulties are clearing; a son of unhappy Poland, a daughter of unhappy Greece, two orphans of two glorious wars. . . . . It was an inevitable and most natural love. . . . It is only diplomatists who arrange impossible marriages. . . . Love is wiser than Lord Palmerston, though the noble lord calls himself Cupid!
and in this story is so remarkable a match-maker.
Colonel Douglas offers the gift of a pearl ornament to his betrothed in these words:
“One ought always to offer gifts of little value to the rich.”
Miss Arinda’s papa, be it remembered, deals in diamonds.
“Nevertheless this jewel has more than its apparent value; add to it my love! It was I who dived for these pearls in the Sea of Ceylon! I gave them to Hamlet, the king of London jewellers, who would refuse the throne of Denmark occupied by those shadows his ancestors, if it were offered him; and he put his heart in the work. . . . . He has engraved on the agrafe, which is large as a Bengali eye, his signature, HAMLET, surmounted by the touching words addressed by the Prince of Denmark to Ophelia.”
Really the heroes of chivalry sink into nothing beside these Indian officers who fight in such awful contests by night, laugh at the idea of a Thug by day, and dive for their own pearls! The formerly fashionable jeweller, also, is as mystic and sentimental as his “shadowy ancestors.”
But Colonel Douglas is not to have it all his own way. The Countess Octavie—irritated by the scandal which ensued after his abrupt departure from Smyrna—writes the whole particulars of the event, and of Amalia’s disgrace in consequence, to the “Foreign Office.” The Minister is very justly angry, and writes to Colonel Douglas, ordering him either to marry Amalie at once, or
Give up his epaulettes to Captain Moss, and quit the profession.
