for thee, Kim. And this is not a matter for the police. That would
be no profit for Mahbub; and' - he giggled almost aloud - 'I do not
remember any lesson at Nucklao which will help me. Allah! Here is
Kim and yonder are they. First, then, Kim must wake and go away, so
that they shall not suspect. A bad dream wakes a man - thus -'

He threw the blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly with
the terrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by
nightmare.

'Urr-urr-urr-urr! Ya-la-la-la-la! Narain! The churel! The churel!'

A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died
in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned
backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.

Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his
feet and staggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for
waking them. Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down
again, taking care that the whisperers should hear his grunts and
groans as he recomposed himself. After a few minutes he rolled
towards the road and stole away into the thick darkness.

He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped
behind it, his chin on a level with the coping-stone. Here he could
command all the night-traffic, himself unseen.

Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughing
policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off
evil spirits. Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.