When the morning came, I
considered
that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
inquired for the means of departure.
Kipling - Poems
The very improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow
proved the reality of the thing. No man--drunk or sober--could imagine a
game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a "screw-cannon. "
A severe course of dak-bungalows has this disadvantage--it
breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed
dak-bungalow-haunter:--"There is a corpse in the next room, and there's
a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel
have just eloped from a place sixty miles away," the hearer would not
disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, or
horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow.
This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person
fresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I
did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores
of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so
surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the
echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the
players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures
who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I only
know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept
because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept
awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and
peered into the dark of the next room.
When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
"By the way, khansamah," I said, "what were those three doolies doing in
my compound in the night? "
"There were no doolies," said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open
door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black
Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below.
"Has this place always been a dak-bungalow? " I asked.
"No," said the khansamah. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room. "
"A how much? "
"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah
then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to
come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and
they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But
the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to
Kabul. "
"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?
proved the reality of the thing. No man--drunk or sober--could imagine a
game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a "screw-cannon. "
A severe course of dak-bungalows has this disadvantage--it
breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed
dak-bungalow-haunter:--"There is a corpse in the next room, and there's
a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel
have just eloped from a place sixty miles away," the hearer would not
disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, or
horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow.
This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person
fresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I
did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores
of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so
surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the
echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the
players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures
who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I only
know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept
because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept
awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and
peered into the dark of the next room.
When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
"By the way, khansamah," I said, "what were those three doolies doing in
my compound in the night? "
"There were no doolies," said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open
door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black
Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below.
"Has this place always been a dak-bungalow? " I asked.
"No," said the khansamah. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room. "
"A how much? "
"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah
then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to
come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and
they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But
the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to
Kabul. "
"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?
