players had not yet arrived. I could not discover, however, whether there were any unearthly spectators present. As it was then the darkest hour of the night I sat down on a small sandhill, hoping that the play would commence without much delay. I opened my gun, examined the cartridge, replaced it in the breach, and then, laying the gun on my knees, sat ready for action.
As I waited I thought of Piari's words, 'If you really don't believe in ghosts, why take the trouble to make this foolish trip? And if you are not sure whether they exist or not, I won't let you go.' She was right. What had I come out to see? It was useless to try to conceal my foolishness from my own mind. I had not come to see anything; I had merely come to show what a brave fellow I was; to prove to those that had said, 'Bengalis are cowards in action', that they were really a race of heroes.
For a long time past I had been convinced that death is the end of everything for man, and I now thought that even if he survived death, it would be neither natural nor fitting for him to come back to the place where his body had been subjected to the undignified rites of cremation, in order to kick and roll his own skull about. At least such a wish would hardly have inspired my ghostly breast after my dissolution. But then, of course, tastes differ, and there might be spirits to whom this type of sport would appeal; if so, my having come so far might not prove fruitless. At any rate the elderly gentleman from the village had held out hopes for me earlier in the day.
A sudden gust of wind blew a volume of dust and sand over me: before it had subsided, another gust came, and yet another. 'What is this?' I thought. 'There was no trace of any wind a few minutes ago.' However much we may argue and reason, the instinctive faith that there
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