Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories Page 9

  I don’t quite remember what followed, but I think that Strickland must have stunned him with the long boot-jack or else I should never have been able to sit on his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl, and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. The human spirit must have been giving way all day and have died out with the twilight. We were dealing with a beast that had once been Fleete.

  The affair was beyond any human and rational experience. I tried to say ‘hydrophobia’, but the word wouldn’t come, because I knew that I was lying.

  We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah-rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and gagged it with a shoehorn, which makes a very efficient gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had despatched the messenger and were drawing breath, Strickland said, ‘It’s no good. This isn’t any doctor’s work.’ I, also, knew that he spoke the truth.

  The beast’s head was free, and it threw it about from side to side. Any one entering the room would have believed that we were curing a wolf’s pelt. That was the most loathsome accessory of all.

  Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fist, watching the beast as it wriggled on the ground, but saying nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It stood out like a blister.

  In the silence of the watching we heard something without mewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sick—actually and physically sick. We told each other, as did the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat.

  Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little man so unprofessionally shocked. He said that it was a heartrending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could be done. At least any palliative measures would only prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Dumoise could offer no help. He could only certify that Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then howling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to poison Dumoise’s New Year. He could only ask him not to give the real cause of Fleete’s death to the public.

  So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the noise of the cartwheels had died away, Strickland told me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and I, who entertained all Strickland’s beliefs, was so ashamed of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve.

  ‘Even if the Silver Man had bewitched Fleete for polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could not have fallen so quickly.’

  As I was whispering this the cry outside the house rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that held it would give way.

  ‘Watch!’ said Strickland. ‘If this happens six times I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to help me.’

  He went into his room and came out in a few minutes with the barrels of an old shotgun, a piece of fishing-line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead. I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed perceptibly weaker.

  Strickland muttered. ‘But he can’t take away the life! He can’t take away the life!’

  I said, though I knew that I was arguing against myself. ‘It may be a cat. It must be a cat. If the Silver Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here?’

  Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the gun barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on the table and broke a walking stick in two. There was one yard of fishing-line, gut, lapped with wire, such as is used for mahseer-fishing, and he tied the two ends together in a loop.

  Then he said, ‘How can we catch him? He must be taken alive and unhurt.’

  I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out softly with polo sticks into the shrubbery at the front of the house. The man or animal that made the cry was evidently moving round the house as regularly as a night watchman. We could wait in the bushes till he came by and knock him over.

  Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we slipped out from a bathroom window into the front veranda and then across the carriage drive into the bushes.

  In the moonlight we could see the leper coming round the corner of the house. He was perfectly naked, and from time to time he mewed and stopped to dance with his shadow. It was an unattractive sight, and thinking of poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by so foul a creature, I put away all my doubts and resolved to help Strickland from the heated gun barrels to the loop of twine—from the loins to the head and back again—with all tortures that might be needful.

  The leper halted in the front porch for a moment and we jumped out on him with the sticks. He was wonderfully strong, and we were afraid that he might escape or be fatally injured before we caught him. We had an idea that lepers were frail creatures, but this proved to be incorrect. Strickland knocked his legs from under him and I put my foot on his neck. He mewed hideously, and even through my riding boots I could feel that his flesh was not the flesh of a clean man.

  He struck at us with his feet-stumps. We looped the lash of a dog whip round him, under the armpits and dragged him backwards into the hall and so into the dining-room where the beast lay. There we tied him with trunk straps. He made no attempt to escape, but mewed.

  When we confronted him with the beast the scene was beyond description. The beast doubled backwards into a bow as though he had been poisoned with strychnine, and moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several other things happened also, but they cannot be put down here.

  ‘I think I was right,’ said Strickland. ‘Now we will ask him to cure this case.’

  But the leper only mewed. Strickland wrapped a towel round his hand and took the gun barrels out of the fire. I put the half of the broken walking stick through the loop of fishing-line and buckled the leper comfortably to Strickland’s bedstead. I understood then how men and women and little children can endure to see a witch burnt alive; for the beast was moaning on the floor, and though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible feelings passing through the slab that took its place, exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot iron-gun barrels for instance.

  Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a moment and we got to work. This part is not to be printed.

  The dawn was beginning to break when the leper spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his breath as he did so.

  We watched the face of the beast, and saw the soul of Fleete coming back into the eyes. Then a sweat broke out on the forehead and the eyes—they were human eyes—closed. We waited for an hour but Fleete still slept. We carried him to his room and bade the leper go, giving him the bedstead, and the sheet on the bedstead to cover his nakedness, the gloves and the towels with which we had touched him, and the whip that had been hooked round his body. He put the sheet about him and went out into the early morning without speaking or mewing.

  Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A night-gong, far away in the city, made seven o’clock.

  ‘Exactly four-and-twenty hours!’ said Strickland. ‘And I’ve done enough to ensure my dismissal from the service, besides permanent quarters in a lunatic asylum. Do you believe that we are awake?’

  The red-hot gun barrel had fallen on the floor and was singeing the carpet. The smell was entirely real.

  That morning at
eleven we two together went to wake up Fleete. We looked and saw that the black leopard-rosette on his chest had disappeared. He was very drowsy and tired, but as soon as he saw us, he said, ‘Oh! Confound you fellows. Happy New Year to you. Never mix your liquors. I’m nearly dead.’

  ‘Thanks for your kindness, but you’re over time,’ said Strickland. ‘Today is the morning of the second. You’ve slept the clock round with a vengeance.’

  The door opened, and little Dumoise put his head in. He had come on foot, and fancied that we were laying out Fleete.

  ‘I’ve brought a nurse,’ said Dumoise. ‘I suppose that she can come in for … what is necessary.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Fleete cheerily, sitting up in bed. ‘Bring on your nurses.’

  Dumoise was dumb, Strickland led him out and explained that there must have been a mistake in the diagnosis. Dumoise remained dumb and left the house hastily. He considered that his professional reputation had been injured, and was inclined to make a personal matter of the recovery. Strickland went out too. When he came back, he said that he had been to call on the Temple of Hanuman to offer redress for the pollution of the god, and had been solemnly assured that no white man had ever touched the idol and that he was an incarnation of all the virtues labouring under a delusion. ‘What do you think?’ said Strickland.

  I said, ‘There are more things ….’

  But Strickland hates that quotation. He says that I have worn it threadbare.

  One other curious thing happened which frightened me as much as anything in all the night’s work. When Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and sniffled. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when he sniffled. ‘Horrid doggy smell, here,’ said he. ‘You should really keep those terriers of yours in better order. Try sulphur, Strick.’

  But Strickland did not answer. He caught hold of the back of a chair, and, without warning, went into an amazing fit of hysterics. It is terrible to see a strong man overtaken with hysteria. Then it struck me that we had fought for Fleete’s soul with the Silver Man in that room, and had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen forever, and I laughed and gasped and gurgled just as shamefully as Strickland, while Fleete thought that we had both gone mad. We never told him what we had done.

  Some years later, when Strickland had married and was a churchgoing member of society for his wife’s sake, we reviewed the incident dispassionately, and Strickland suggested that I should put it before the public.

  I cannot myself see that this step is likely to clear up the mystery; because, in the first place, no one will believe a rather unpleasant story, and, in the second, it is well-known to every rightminded man that the gods of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to deal with them otherwise is justly condemned.

  The Fire-Jogi

  A.C. Renny

  Many miles to the west of the Mechi river, in the practically impenetrable primal forests of the Nepal Tarai which stretch for many miles north and west till brought to an abrupt termination by the Kosi river, are to be found large game in a far greater variety and abundance than can be met with in the forests of the Indian Government.

  Benighted one evening, it was my misfortune to be compelled to spend the night in the fork of a tree; my only solace being an experienced, but garrulous shikari chowkidar and a plentiful supply of smokes. We were well out of the reach of carnivora, but fair game for the most voracious mosquitoes it has ever been my lot to meet. Smoking, slapping and swearing were useless deterrents, they had found good feeding grounds and were unsparing. Our faces and hands were tingling from their bites and the chowkidar, congratulating them on the sharpness of their needles, prognosticated a horrible death for us from a malignant fever, the germs of which had been injected into our blood.

  What I looked like, I could not tell, but when the first streak of dawn lit up the Eastern sky and I could indistinctly make out the chowkidar’s muffled face, it appeared to have swollen to twice the size. Consoling myself that I could not be as bad, I waited for the strengthening of the morning light—and when the light had gained in strength I was well repaid for all the inconvenience of having spent a dreadful night, for the animals that had crossed from the Nepal forests into the reserves of the Nirpania Government blocks, commenced to return again.

  It is no exaggeration to say that every animal walking on four feet was represented. They came on singly, in pairs and in batches, the last lot being lesser game such as pigs, deer, hare and porcupine.

  ‘This thing I have never seen before, huzoor,’ remarked the chowkidar.

  ‘And will never see again unless you come a second time to give the mosquitoes a feed,’ I answered.

  What that chowkidar said about the origin of mosquitoes and their subsequent relations will not bear repeating. It took a little over an hour for the animals to cross over, and as the last snuggled into the forest undergrowth, the mighty orb rose to light the world.

  We got down in silence and wended our way home. I, to my bungalow, the chowkidar to his scolding wife whose wrath combined with the bites of the mosquitoes seem to be the two topics occupying his troubled mind. He began telling me of the wretched life he led and I could barely suppress a laugh at times.

  Three days after, a planter friend arrived to spend a few days with me. When I related my story and came to the part where I had seen a veritable Noah’s Ark emptying itself, his eyes glowed with excitement.

  ‘If you can persuade the chowkidar to take you, for I refuse point blank to repeat the experience, and as you are only armed to shoot a jungli murghi, keep to it, for without a permit no shooting is allowed.’

  ‘I’ll get at the chowkidar this evening; bribe him if possible,’ he returned.

  ‘Wish you luck,’ I answered, ‘the money will probably do it.’ But when the chowkidar arrived to report in the evening and was asked, then coaxed and threatened and finally offered a bribe, he was adamant. Turning to me he said, ‘not because of the mosquitoes, huzoor, but because of the fire-jogi.’

  ‘The fire-jogi, never heard of him.

  ‘Neither had I, huzoor, but when I explained to my wife where and how we had spent the night, she said it was a pity I had not been consumed by the fire-jogi. I looked at her in surprise, but when I asked her to explain what she meant, she referred me to Dhanbir Sirdar.’

  ‘Have you questioned Dhanbir?’

  ‘I have, huzoor, for the woman’s wild talk haunted me all day. It was last evening I met Dhanbir and taking him aside, questioned him.’

  ‘What had he to say?’

  ‘It is not good to talk of, huzoor, you and I have had a narrow escape from an enemy of mankind.’

  ‘It may not be good to talk of, but we wish to hear what he had to say. If any misfortune follows, we are prepared to take the responsibility.’

  ‘He says, huzoor, not a hundred yards from where we sat, a most mysterious occurrence takes place every night. We were too busy with the mosquitoes to take note of our surroundings. It is as well, huzoor, for very few have seen the fire-jogi and the few have met with misfortune shortly after. In the day he is a jogi at night a fire.’

  ‘Tosh! twaddle,’ exclaimed my friend. ‘Look here, can you get us someone to show us this strange man. We only desire to see him, after that we will investigate on our own account. Five rupees I will gladly pay for this.’

  A tharoo was brought to us the next day. A tharoo is an indigenous dweller of the Nepal Tarai, and because of his living in the Tarai, he is immune from the deadly Tarai fever. Take him away from his environments and curiously enough he immediately goes down, with the fever. Time alone cures them as it does most things and we find them employed all over India as elephant drivers. The chowkidar brought him up and introduced him to us. ‘This man, for the consideration of the money offered, is prepared to show you the fire-jogi.’

  My friend was impatient to be off. I restrained him, saying, ‘look here, let me question this man and if his answers are satisfactory, we engage him. If not, the f
ire-jogi can wait a bit or go hang.’

  Turning to the tharoo I asked him if he had ever seen the jogi. ‘Often,’ came his prompt reply. ‘He has been in the same place for years and intends remaining until he can coax an elephant to be his friend and not continue as his enemy.’

  ‘Quite satisfactory!’ I exclaimed. ‘We can start now if you wish it.’

  Taking our revolvers unknown to anyone, we followed the tharoo. He led us to the same jungle in which the chowkidar and I had spent our wretched night and going two hundred yards inside, suddenly turned to the right and disappeared through an opening in the undergrowth. We did the same and coming to a clearing observed a jogi, ash-smeared and naked, with matted hair and emaciated features calmly sitting on a tiger skin in deep contemplation. In front of him, prostrated, we saw the tharoo.

  As we approached, the venerable old priest raised his head and looked at us. ‘Curiosity has made you brave all danger to see me.’

  ‘True, sadhuji,’ I answered, before my friend could bring out an irreverent reply. ‘I have heard of you only today and have lost no time to pay my respects.’

  ‘Lie not, O sahib, there is much to be gained in truthfulness. Who am I to you that you should trespass into my little domain to pay your respects? From me you can hide naught. Curiosity compelled you and curiosity will not be satisfied until I have explained why I am in this jungle by myself and why men call me the fire-jogi.’

  My friend, who understood something of the conversation, was furious. The jogi, however, looking him calmly in the face, smilingly said, ‘Young man, many summers are needed to gain some wisdom of the mysteries of this land, and not understanding much, you become wrathful. Your wrath is nothing to me. Be calm always and that which you do not understand, endeavour to learn, loss of temper repays not. This sahib, your friend, has been long in the land and understands somewhat of our ways but even to him much is hidden. He knows, if we admonish we mean no harm.’