| caption: |
Chapter fourteen. Things That Go Bump in the Night. |
| caption: |
poltergeist in the cookhouse |
| text: |
Whatever it was had, in the interval, moved several stages (108) up the lines. Almost everyone had heard it by now, and it had taken - of all noises for a ghost to make ! - to blowing " raspberries ". Then the cookhouse became affected. There were fearful crashes at night as though a whole stack of pans had fallen, and when the men came running, there was nothing disturbed. The manifestations, too, were growing more frequent. There was one almost every night now; and, at the beginning of February, the thing spread to the bungalow. I was sitting by the fire in the living-room one evening after dinner and reading peacefully enough, when I suddenly heard a pattering as of a heavy dog trotting down the outside veranda. My mind leapt to Khamba and the risk of leopards, and I caught up a flashlight, opened the nearest door, and jumped out to catch him. As I laid hold of the door-bar the noise was opposite me, but as I came out I stopped short, for there was nothing there. I thought he must have leapt out over the railing, and swept the torch-beam round the ground outside; but there was no sign of anything; and then I hailed the lines, and was told that Khamba was safely tied up there that minute, and hadn't been off the chain since dusk. |
| text: |
A few nights later exactly the same thing happened. The third time I heard it, I didn't bother to look out. |
