If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through Bengal
with his corpse.
I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while the
wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong "hundred
and fifty up." Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt
that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.
Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of it.
That was the bitterest thought of all!
THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES
Alive or dead-there is no other way.
--Native Proverb.
THERE is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by
accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is the
only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar institution used to
flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that if you go
into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart of the Great Indian Desert,
you shall come across not a village but a town where the Dead who did not die
but may not live have established their headquarters. And, since it is
perfectly true that in the same Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich
money lenders retreat after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast
that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect
them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring
barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and
ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's tale
should not be true.
Pages:
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218