would voluntarily hang about a dâk-bungalow would be mad of
course; but so many men have died mad in dâk-bungalows that
there must be a fair percentage of lunatic ghosts.

In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two
of them. Up till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant's
method of handling them, as shown in "The Strange Case of Mr.
Lucraft and Other Stories." I am now in the Opposition.

We will call the bungalow Katmal dâk-bungalow. But THAT was the
smallest part of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no
right to sleep in dâk-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dâk-bungalow
was old and rotten and unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick,
the walls were filthy, and the windows were nearly black with
grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by native Sub-Deputy
Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to Forests; but real
Sahibs were rare. The _khansamah_, who was nearly bent double
with old age, said so.

When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of
the land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a
noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside.
The _khansamah_ completely lost his head on my arrival. He had
served a Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the
name of a well-known man who has been buried for more than a
quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient daguerreotype of
that man in his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel engraving of
him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a month before,
and I felt ancient beyond telling.