intend taking one step backward on this break neck of a road. Hire two or three coolies to carry the traps, and en avant marchons, if you know what that means.'

Sahib quite plenty-too-much sure he mean go?' 'Yes.'

Then I make poojah (prayer) for master come safe away.'

'Make what you like, Ramiah, only be sharp and let's get on.'

Six miles only as it was, daylight had quite come before we arrived at the bungalow, which, of its kind, was really pretty, standing back from the roadside, picturesquely embowered in a little grove of margosa, suria, mango, custard apple, and other trees, and with oleanders, crotons, and such like common tropical shrubs growing in its clean wellkept compound. I really felt thankful at getting a rest after the shaking of the nibb, in the charmingly inviting place, haunted, as it was said to be, by my henchman's account.

The village head-man interviewed, a messenger on a rough pony started into Jaggareebad for another 'Red Rover' to be sent to me as soon as possible; there was nothing more to be done for twenty-four hours at least, so I set about killing time as pleasantly as I could. And really, now that I recall it, sitting at this desk of mine, the day passed far from uninterestingly.

First I took a stroll into the neighbouring bazaar, to pick up from the sellers of fowls and eggs, honey and coarse fruit, their best for the consumption of Ramiah and self; to look as well upon

'The early village maiden,
With her shining pitcher laden
Moving-gait erect and steady-
To the well across the plain,'

and after that marketing and
inspection, to potter for a while

among paddy-fields, and raggee (millet) lands, in hopes of a stray snipe, a partridge or two, or perhaps even a spotted deer; the said potter, I may as well state, unsuccessful. Then breakfast, a cheroot, and a lounge in the verandah, taking note of the travellers up and down the road in front. Many and various were they :

'Some swarthy magnates urbans,
With wrappers round their turbans
And their chis,'

looking as if they had chronic toothache, riding past with a motley retinue of horsemen and footmen armed to the teeth with matchlocks, and tulwars, and lances. Presently an elephant, with a gaudily-painted howdah ; after it a varnished yellow-curtained palanquin, supposed to conceal the lovely light of a nawab's hareem, but more likely the brown leather-like face and shrivelled figure of an old Mahometan squaw. Next, troops of the carriers of that part of Southern India, the Bringarees as they are called, the women in quaint picturesquely-coloured needlework costumes leading the cattle, loaded with bags of corn and fodder.

'Then a group of woodsmen passes,
With their fagots on their asses;
And a drove of oxen plodding,

Each with grain-filled sack.
And a postal runner, ringing
All his little bells, and swinging
With his measured trot, and letters
In the leather at his back ;**

and
a host more of those wayfarers
who, to a stranger in a strange
land, and that land the Deccan,
are such objects of surprise and
concern, but soon fade into no-
thingness.

So the day went, and the night

palaver with the bungalow-keeper, a half-caste of alcoholic proclivities, and who corroborated Ramiah's tale anent the dacoit and his sprite, adding that, in consequence of the bad name the bungalow had acquired, there was difficulty-pay notwithstandingto get a person to take charge of it.

'Did the dead and buried, or burnt, Pathan of a dacoit come back often to take a look at the scene of his demise?'

'Only now and again.'

'Have you ever seen or heard him?'

'No. I am only here a few days; if I did see or hear, I should go.'

'Being a Christian, Gomes' (that was his name), 'do you believe the story, or do you think that it is a trick to steal the alarmed travellers' rupees?'

I pin

The saints shield me! my faith upon its truth.' 'Well, you and I are at variance. Good-night.'

Then I lay down upon the much-infested charpoy, and Ramiah spread his mat in the adjoining bath-room.

I must have slept for some hours, spite of heat, mosquitoes, and other blood suckers, when suddenly I jumped up, disturbed by the din and clatter of somebody, or something, tumbling over tables and chairs, in a rapid flight across the brick floor. This was followed by a noise like the banging of a door, and the opening and shutting of the flap-shutters of a wooden window. Then

there was a sort of unearthly howl or laugh, of a convulsive, spasmodic nature; a jump, a fall, and the light tread of rapidly retreating footsteps across the compound.

'Hullo! who's there?-what's that? Speak! or I'll fire at you.'

I seized the oil-lamp, dimly burning in the furthest corner of the room. Its light showed me a chair upset, a window ajar, and the awfully scared Ramiah cowering in the doorway. That khitmitghar's face was usually black, but, so far as I could now see it, it was the colour of the ashes drawn in lines across his forehead on religious high days and holidays of his faith. His white teeth, immovable except when pitching into curry and rice, were now rattling like dice in a dice-box; his eyeballs stared; he was trembling from head to foot. He was within an ace of a fit; one infinitesimal degree more of fright, and the seizure would have been accomplished.

'Wah, wah! uppah, uppah! My lord, I tell you so; my fader, why you bring poor Ramiah here? I dead, I dead! Siva got me; nebber again my wife, my sister, my poor old mudder see! wah, wah!'

'Why not,' I said, ‘if, in the terrible uncomeliness of all three, they are worth they are worth looking upon once more? Pull yourself together, man; and the thing, whatever it was, being gone, Ramiah's himself again.'

'Can't be, saab; can't be. Master not see?'

'No, I only heard; and I think it must have been a-'

'No, my lord, no any odder living thing than dead dacoit; one big, stout, copper-skin man. I sleep-hot breath like forge come 'pon my face-wake me. I look I see two big eyes like debil staring at me—I see mouth red, like fire, close my neck, grinning at me. I see arm, long like paddy-pounder, wave over me. I scream Shitan- he himself-I know him-run, my room into master's, and knock down eberyting for rage.'

'Well, Ramiah, as a general rule, ghosts in other countries go noiselessly over or through obstructions. What they may do here, or in the particular case of the spirit of a dacoit, I don't know, for I have never seen the individual dead or aliye. So I repeat that the thing which made that awful shindy just now must have been a four-footed-'

'No, saab; 'scuse me, not four, only two; plain, like my own, I see them, and-uppah! uppah ! I see him now-look! look!'

We were standing near the open window gazing into the gloom of the surrounding tope of

trees.

'Look, saab! look!

I could see nothing, but still my frightened servant kept on crying out, 'Look, look!'

'Where, you wretched old nigger coward? where?'

There! there! ghoul slinking away, 'mong the trees-deckho! see, aie-aie! yes, yes!'

'Well, if he be slinking off I will haphazard give him something to freshen his way back to Tartarus.'

I took up my rifle, which was loaded, and fired. The ball went whizzing among the branches and pinging in the distance. There was a sound as of something fleeing rapidly.

'Gone,' said Ramiah; and he seemed to be much relieved, and to breathe more freely in consequence.

'An animal, by all that is natural,' I observed; a prowling jackal, perhaps ; a honey-seeking bear, maybe; a cheetah. No! by Jove, no!' as I sniffed the tainted atmosphere of the room. 'No; I have it. "The Moor-I know his trumpet." An empyreumatic nido. rous beast of a laughing hyæna, by all that is disgusting! For goodness' sake, let me get out of this into the fresh air!'

Ramiah shook his head.

'Saab will 'scuse me-this not scent of hyæna; Shitan's very own self-same scent. Native mans know it well-betterer than sandal wood or rose otto rajahs and nawabs use and gib presents ob at tamashas (fêtes) in city. Master's a good gentleman, master's a cleber man, master nebber tell lie; but, all same, now I not b'lieve him. Dat ting come dis night dâk bungalow, kick up bobheree, laughing hyæna? Nebber! No, sar; he ghost of dacoit saab painter Mee Gilp shoot in dis very, very house. I see him, and I swear, sar.'

'Well, Ramiah, "opinions are opinions," as M— of my old regiment used to say. You stick to the "ghost in the dâk bungalow;" I will to the laughing hyæna— there! Yours is the better story; but- Hurrah! Here comes the "Red Rover" nibb. Let us be off for Dooliebearerbore and the G.I.P. Railway.'

H. L. COWEN.