A map of the country some eight feet square, from Fort St George to beyond Haidarabad in the north, and to Coorg in the west, hung at the front of the marquee. It had aroused much interest as they assembled – what clues as to their work, and where exactly. ‘Quite a reredos, eh, Coote?’ the paymaster had said. Malet had heard, and smiled. More a backdrop, he’d reckoned, for this was theatre.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ began Hervey, with a distinct note of relish; ‘there’s much country to hunt this morning, which no doubt is evident from the map. The regiment has two distinct but associated charges. Together, it may be a business of some heat, and perhaps some months. First, we are to pinch out the brigand tribe in the Northern Circars known as “thugs”; and then we are to stand ready to take prisoner the Ranee of Chintal in order that the government in Calcutta may annex that princely state – for the reason that will be made clear.’

No one spoke, but there was a collective stirring, a keen anticipation. There was very likely no one who’d known where Chintal was before seeing the map – not with any precision at least – or anything about it. Nor, until now, that its ruler was female. Still, they’d lately deposed the Rajah of Coorg; so unseating a woman should hardly be troublesome, an affair of only moderate heat at best. Hounding out these ‘thugs’ sounded far greater sport.

‘First, I have asked Major Sleeman, the general superintendent of operations against the bandits, who will by now be known to most if not all, to give his intelligence of thuggee, and its irruption in the Circars.’

Hervey took his seat and Major Sleeman rose to address them.

‘Gentlemen, many of you will be acquainted with stories of banditry, but I ask for your forbearance, for in order to convey the extremes of thuggee, I feel I must relate an actual account of their depravity – a deposition by an approver, a man turned King’s Evidence as it were; a deposition taken by me personally, and touching on the particular gangs which I believe are now active in the Northern Circars.’

The assembly sat back to listen. It was always pleasing to hear an account of crime and punishment at first hand.

‘The first relates to the murder of a party of silk merchants and their families …’

Sleeman spared them no detail. The fate of Bunda Ali and his party, had he known of it, could not have served his purpose better (except that the murder of a man in the regiment’s employ was an affront to honour as well as to all else). Then having revolted them thoroughly, he concluded with a depravity for which no officer, no dragoon indeed, could wish other than the speedy justice of the noose. ‘Having thought they’d killed every man and woman, and stripped and disposed of the bodies in the usual way, the thugs sat down to their hookahs and bhang thandai; but their attention was soon arrested by the figure of one Ghufoor Khan, their chief, dragging along a girl, who resisted to the utmost of her power, but who was evidently nearly exhausted: “Ha!” cried he, “Meer Chopra, is that you? Here have I been working like a true Pindaree, and have brought off something worth having; look at her, man! Is she not a Peri? a Hoori? The fool, her mother, must needs oppose me when I got into her tent, but I silenced her with a thrust of my sword, and lo! – here is her fair daughter, a worthy mate for a prince. Speak, my pretty one, art not thou honoured at the prospect of the embraces of Ghufoor Khan?”