Afterwards he held a great office under a Rajah.  There he had ten miles of country under his command and a military guard of fifteen men, with authority to call out 2,000 more upon occasion.  But the British got on his track, and they crowded him so that he had to give himself up.  See what a figure he was when he was gotten up for style and had all his things on:  “I was fully armed—­a sword, shield, pistols, a matchlock musket and a flint gun, for I was fond of being thus arrayed, and when so armed feared not though forty men stood before me.”

He gave himself up and proudly proclaimed himself a Thug.  Then by request he agreed to betray his friend and pal, Buhram, a Thug with the most tremendous record in India.  “I went to the house where Buhram slept (often has he led our gangs!) I woke him, he knew me well, and came outside to me.  It was a cold night, so under pretence of warming myself, but in reality to have light for his seizure by the guards, I lighted some straw and made a blaze.  We were warming our hands.  The guards drew around us.  I said to them, ‘This is Buhram,’ and he was seized just as a cat seizes a mouse.  Then Buhram said, ’I am a Thug! my father was a Thug, my grandfather was a Thug, and I have thugged with many!’”

So spoke the mighty hunter, the mightiest of the mighty, the Gordon Cumming of his day.  Not much regret noticeable in it.—­["Having planted a bullet in the shoulder-bone of an elephant, and caused the agonized creature to lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some coffee.  Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant’s spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points, and, approaching very near, I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull.  He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action.  Surprised and shocked to find that I was only prolonging the suffering of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side.  Aiming at the shoulder, I fired six shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal, after which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch six-founder.  Large tears now trickled down from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side he expired.”—­Gordon Cumming.]

So many many times this Official Report leaves one’s curiosity unsatisfied.  For instance, here is a little paragraph out of the record of a certain band of 193 Thugs, which has that defect: