Eduardo Ciannelli: Guru

Gunga Din

Guru

Guru: You seem to think warfare an English invention. Have you never heard of Chandragupta Maurya? He slaughtered all the armies left in India by Alexander the Great. India was a mighty nation then while Englishmen still dwelt in caves and painted themselves blue.

Guru: Oh Thugs lift up your faces to the light that shines from Kali's throne.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: Oh brothers of Thuggee we are defenders of this earth. An immense hand is against us. We have been kicked, spat upon and driven to the hills like wild pigs. My father was a thug and he was hanged. His father was blown from the cannon's mouth. And what of your kinsmen, your fathers and their fathers and their father's fathers before them? Oh my brothers a new day is at hand. I have read the omens and they are good. Three nights ago a jackal screamed up on the left, another answered from the right at once.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: What does that mean my brothers? It means that mother Kali with all her arms outstretched hugs us to her bosom. Welcoming us back as Thugs, Thugs awakened from a sleep of 50 years. Let the neophytes and their teachers draw near. Where are the stranglers?
Thuggees: [Thuggees respond in Hindi]
Guru: Give them their strangling cloths.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: Give them their burial picks.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: Swear by our mother Kali to be thrice faithful to her and to me and to our order and to all of us.
Thuggees: [Thuggees pray in Hindi]
Guru: Rise, our new-made brothers. Rise and kill. Kill, lest you be killed yourselves. Kill for the love of killing. Kill for the love of Kali. Kill! Kill! Kill!
Thuggees: [Thuggees cheer]

Sgt. Archibald Cutter: You're mad!
Guru: Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad, and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot. Ever since time began, they've called mad all the great soldiers in this world. Mad? We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness. For this is but the spring that precedes the flood. From here we roll on. From village to town. From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening, until at last my wave engulfs all India!

[Sgt. Cutter confronts the Thugs in their stronghold]
Sgt. Archibald Cutter: Well if it ain't young toadface. Fancy meeting you here.
Guru: Vile dog! For that insolence you shall grovel before my son. You shall grovel, I say!
Sgt. Archibald Cutter: Look here! I'm a soldier of her Majesty, the Queen. I don't grovel before any 'eathen.
Guru: Tabul, take him to the tower and teach him the error of false pride. Take him away!