quick their senses, sharpened as they had been by long practice, that
success became hopeless. He had fallen into deep dejection, and
concluded that his only hope lay in the efforts of the Government to put
down these assassins. Our appearance had at last saved him.

"Neither I, nor any of my men, nor any Englishman who heard this story,
doubted for an instant the truth of every word. All the newspapers
mentioned with delight the fact that an Englishman and his son had been
rescued. Pity was felt for that father who, for his son's sake, had
consented to dwell amidst scenes of terror, and sympathy for the anguish
that he most have endured during that terrific captivity. A thrill of
horror passed through all our Anglo-Indian society at the revelation
which he made about Thuggee; and so great was the feeling in his favor
that a handsome subscription was made up for him by the officers at
Agra.

"For my part I believed in him most implicitly, and, as I saw him to be
unusually clever, I engaged him at once to be my servant. He staid with
me, and every month won more and more of my confidence. He had a good
head for business. Matters of considerable delicacy which I intrusted to
him were well performed, and at last I thought it the most fortunate
circumstance in my Indian life that I had found such a man.

"After about three years he expressed a wish to go to England for the
sake of his son. He thought India a bad place for a boy, and wished to
try and start in some business in his native land for his son's sake.

"That boy had always been my detestation--a crafty, stealthy, wily,
malicious little demon, who was a perfect Thug in his nature, without
any religious basis to his Thuggeeism. I pitied Potts for being the