| caption: |
Chapter fourteen. Things That Go Bump in the Night. |
| text: |
A few nights later, when Namkia and I, after an uneventful evening, had retired, I to my camp cot, he stretched out against the far wall like a big dog, there was a rasping, scuffling noise from the small room used as a store. Rats had been very destructive recently; and I was certain they were making off with something, and called to Namkia to go and investigate. He merely hunched himself more tightly in his blankets, and said it was the spook, and he wouldn't. |
| text: |
There was an argument then, he maintaining that he wasn't afraid, but that the spook did not steal eggs or chew tea- packets, and there was no point in leaving a warm bed on a bitter night to paddle about in search of the intangible; and I declaring that until he had investigated, he couldn't possibly tell whether it was the spook or rats. He, however, insisted that he could; so, the noise still persisting (it sounded, say, like a brick on a piece of paper being drawn steadily across a concrete floor) I said I'd go and see for myself, and tumbled shivering out of bed with a flashlight. Namkia then reluctantly wrapped himself in a blanket and followed. |
| text: |
He was perfectly right. There was no sign of a rat in the store. The room was small, not more than ten feet square, with rough bamboo shelves on three sides and the usual matting floor. I searched it all, peering along the not-very-full shelves and behind the jappas, and nowhere could I find (111) anything to account for the noises; which, maddeningly enough, continued the whole time at a point impossible to place. It was close, certainly within a few feet of us, but I could not locate it. Puzzled, and by then distinctly chilly, I gave it up and went back to bed. |
| text: |
An hour or so later the rasping grew so loud that it woke me up. This time I was determined to find it. There must be something solid to account for the row. Up I got and put on a coat, and, followed by a still-reluctant Namkia, searched the whole of the store, the back hall and the bathroom systematically and chink by chink. I looked in and under everything. I opened jappas and boxes; I ran a torch beam along the rafters; I stamped on the floor, to discourage anything underneath; I routed with a stick in the rat-runs at the foot of the walls; and all the time that wretched noise kept steadily and imperturbably on. At the end of half an hour's intensive hunting, I had found nothing. I left it still briskly scraping and went to bed. |
