‘He’s wholly delighted. Brar is, was, the pivot of the system throughout the Circars – through Chintal and beyond to the headwaters of the Godavari indeed. I have to say that Sleeman judged it perfectly: he said that Brar’d be forced to try to spring his wife and all, and that’s what he’d been about when they passed through the village – a reconnaissance of the fort. Really, it was quite astonishing, though, how he’d been able to go about the place without discovery. Sleeman says he doesn’t know if it was by disguise or the fear of people to expose him. But that’s by the bye now, since he’s joined his club of approvers, and with a will.’

‘And no doubt it will encourage others.’

‘Really, Somervile, it’s quite extraordinary to me how some of these fellows go to their deaths so readily – putting the nooses round their own necks on the gallows even – and yet others will turn coat and denounce men who’d hitherto been bosom associates.’

‘I have observed that every man wishes to go to heaven, but in truth that few wish to die in order to do so.’

Hervey nodded grimly. ‘Fairbrother, I might add, was first to gain the advantage. It was his address that led ultimately to Brar’s capture. I’ve mentioned his services in a despatch to Bentinck – through Sleeman, who has his ear. I trust you’ll not object.’

‘Not in the least.’

‘And the troops themselves have taken many thugs and common dacoits, some from information that Sleeman got, but a good many others by opportunity. The captains have done sterling work.’

‘I didn’t doubt they would. But this additional intelligence of Chintal, it is thoroughly opportune.’

‘In what sense exactly?’

‘Her Highness’s complicity in all this. Don’t misunderstand, me, Hervey. The charge of “Lapse” is irrefutable – her scheming in Mysore alone’s sufficient, and the provocations with Haidarabad – but scheming with thugs is simple, base law-breaking. And, I have it on good authority, she puts to the sword any who disoblige her – and summarily. In the past months, several of her household have been impaled alive, barbarously mutilated, on account of their not wholeheartedly throwing in with her schemes. It seems as if she’s determined to be the tigress in Chintal no less than she would be of Mysore.’

There was no gainsaying it. Hervey had not been in India so long as to believe, like the cynic, that intrigue was the natural condition of life; but then, nor was tranquillity. And the female of the species must surely be on especial guard, in a way quite different from the male. The tigress, it was said, had first to protect her cubs from the tiger.

‘The problem is, Hervey, the seclusion in which the Hindoostanee woman’s obliged to live isn’t favourable to the development of the female character, nor does it tend to soften and improve the heart.’

Hervey raised his eyebrows, conceding. ‘You, of course, know the country far better than do I.’