Acacias hung motionless trails of heavily scented bloom as if
carved in ivory. It was all silent as death. A flight of nobly
sculptured steps led up to a broad veranda and a wide open door
with darkness behind it. Nothing more.

I forced myself to shout in Hindustani - the cry seeming a brutal
outrage upon the night, and an echo came back numbed in the black
woods. I tried once more and in vain. We stood absorbed also into
the silence.

"Ya Alla! it is a house of the dead!" whispered Ali Khan,
shuddering at my shoulder, - and even as the words left his lips
I understood where we were. "It is the Sukh Mandir." I said. "It
is the House of the Maharao of Ranipur."

It was impossible to be in Ranipur and hear nothing of the dead
house of the forest and Ali Khan had heard - God only knows what
tales. In his terror all discipline, all the inborn respect of
the native forsook him, and without word or sign he turned and
fled along the track, crashing through the forest blind and mad
with fear. It would have been insanity to follow him, and in
India the first rule of life is that the Sahib shows no fear, so
I left him to his fate whatever it might be, believing at the
same time that a little reflection and dread of the lonely forest
would bring him to heel quickly.

I stood there and the stillness flowed like water about me. It
was as though I floated upon it - bathed in quiet. My thoughts
adjusted themselves. Possibly it was not the Sukh Mandir. Olesen
had spoken of ruin. I could see none. At least it was shelter