Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat
up. It is a mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head
tightens and you can feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the
scalp. That is the hair sitting up.

There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have
been made by one thing--a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at
great length with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it
seemed that one bed, one table, and two chairs--all the furniture of
the room next to mine--could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a
game of billiards. After another cannon, a three-cushion one to
judge by the whir, I argued no more. I had found my ghost and
would have given worlds to have escaped from that dâk-bungalow.
I listened, and with each listen the game grew clearer.
There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes there was a
double click and a whir and another click. Beyond any sort of
doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And the
next room was not big enough to hold a billiard table!

Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward--stroke
after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices;
but that attempt was a failure.

Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or
death, but abject, quivering dread of something that you cannot
see--fear that dries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat--fear
that makes you sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in
order to keep the uvula at work? This is a fine Fear--a great
cowardice, and must be felt to be appreciated. The very