I confess I left our home with regret; many, many happy days had been passed there, and we were beloved by the villagers, to whom we had endeared ourselves by our inoffensive conduct. We were now to seek a new country, and form new ties and connections--a disagreeable matter under any circumstances. But my father's wisdom had saved us. The information the English officers had obtained--Alla only knows how--was correct. In a very few months after we were settled in our new abode, we heard that the whole Purgunna of Murnae had been attacked, village by village. Many of the best and bravest of the Thugs had died defending their homes; the survivors had fled, routed and utterly disorganized, and had taken refuge with those who had made previous settlements as we had done. For my own part, so long as my money lasted I was in no humour to expose myself to fresh risks. I had too attained the highest rank possible among Thugs, for I had been declared a Soobehdar immediately upon my return from the last expedition; and I was content to enjoy my ease, and assist my father in the management of the villages which had been confided to us, and by which we realized a comfortable income. For the time, therefore, Thuggee was abandoned; and though often urged by Ganesha, who had a wild and restless spirit, to join him in an expedition, we refrained from doing so, and lived peacefully and respectably. There was something about Ganesha which to me was mysterious, and the instant I saw him at the court of the Rajah, a thought flashed into my mind that I had met him before under painful circumstances. In spite of all my endeavours I could hardly ever shake it off sufficiently to be on any terms of cordiality with him; and I viewed with suspicion and distrust his intimacy with my father, and the evident effect his counsels had upon him. In person Ganesha was tall and strong, but his face was more forbidding than any one I had ever before seen, and there was a savage ferocity about his manner which disgusted me. But let him pass at present; he has now little to do with my story; hereafter I shall be obliged to bring him prominently and disagreeably before you.