We arrived at Lucknow in November, when the cold weather is delightful, and everything was delightful to me. The bustle and life of a great Indian station, the novelty of my surroundings, the early morning rides, picnics down the river, and dances at the “Chutter Munzil”, made me look upon Lucknow as a paradise on earth; and in this light I still regarded it, until a great change came over the temperature, and the month of April introduced me to red-hot winds, sleepless nights, and the intolerable “brain fever” bird. Aggie had made up her mind definitely on one subject: we were not to go away to the hills until the rains. Tom could only get two months’ leave (July and August), and she did not intend to leave him to grill on the plains alone.  

As I sat there alone, listening to the tramping overhead—the sailors weighing anchor—I heard a saloon door clap, and some one came over and took a seat directly opposite me, with the evident intention of sharing the saloon inkstand. I am rather near-sighted, and peered across the table over my spectacles, and saw a strikingly handsome man, who was deliberately opening his writing-case. Dark, with regular features, black hair and moustache, and slender hands. He looked at me searchingly. His eyes were the keenest I ever saw; rather narrow, but piercing as cold steel. We both wrote away industriously for some time in dread silence, and then he addressed me with some little civility about the ink. He had a well-bred voice, and a slightly foreign accent. We discussed the dust of the journey, the beauty of the night—for I am not of the usual order of ancient British matrons, and when I am spoken to politely, I reply in kind. This gentleman was more than polite; he was absolutely fascinating. From Genoa we drifted to India, but he and I had never been in the same parts, and, after all, we had not much in common beyond Bombay. 

[....]
And now, in the full broad daylight, instead of the dim swinging lamps, I saw, with the eye of an old Qui Hye, that he was undoubtedly a native of India. Yes, although possibly fairer-skinned than thousands of the inhabitants of the shores we were passing, he was an Asiatic, without question; very handsome also, without doubt, with perfectly chiselled features, and a broader chest and shoulders, and a finer physique than one generally sees.
“A lovely morning; may I bring your chair under the awning?” he inquired, in a most deferential manner.
Though strikingly handsome, Mr. Raymond is an Asiatic whose European manners mask a deeply possessive and traditionalist nature. 
“Yes, it is three years since I was there.” He pronounced his w’s as v’s, the only way in which you could have discovered that he was a foreigner.
“How well you speak English!” I remarked.
“Then you have detected that I am not an Englishman,” he said, with evident surprise.
“Yes.”
“Of what country do you think I am a native?”
“Asia—possibly India, or Persia,” I ventured.
“Why?—why not a Spaniard, an Italian, a South American, or a Greek?”
“Yes, you might be a Greek, or an Armenian, but all the same I think you were born further East.” I had not been nineteen years in India for nothing!
“You are right,” he admitted with an indulgent smile. “My mother was a Persian, but I have been much in Europe. I was partly educated in England.”

I was scarcely listening to him; my attention was riveted on a lovely girl, who had just reached the top of the companion-ladder, and was looking timidly about. Suddenly she caught sight of my new acquaintance, and came towards us, with short hurried steps.
She appeared to be about twenty years of age, was slight, and of middle height, and wore an elaborately made white dress and a sailor hat, underneath which was the prettiest face I had ever seen. Her complexion was simply marvellous—pure milk and roses; her eyes, the colour of the sky, with long black lashes; her hair was really fair, with flaxen and golden shades through it. I could not take my eyes off her. As she came up to my companion, she said with an apologetic glance—
“You see, I found my way on deck myself.”

Perhaps you have seen them more than once on railway platforms in the North-West Provinces. A shabby, squalid, weary-looking group, sitting on their battered baggage, or scrambling in and out of intermediate compartments; I mean Jackson, the photographer, and his belongings. Jackson is not his real name, but it answers the purpose. There are people who will tell you that Jackson is a man of good family, that he once held a commission in a crack cavalry regiment, and that his brother is Lord-Lieutenant of his county, and his nieces are seen at Court balls. Then how comes their kinsman to have fallen to such low estate—if kinsman he be—this seedy-looking, unshorn reprobate, with a collarless flannel shirt, greasy deerstalker, and broken tennis shoes? If you look into his face, who runs may read the answer—Jackson drinks; or his swollen features, inflamed nose, and watery and uncertain eye greatly belie him. 

Poverty forbade their transit in a couple of ticca gharries, and pride shrank from an ekka; therefore Jackson left his wife in the waiting-room whilst he tramped away in the blinding sun and powdery white dust to see if there was accommodation at the dâk bungalow. It proved to be crammed, and he had not yet come down to the Serai, or native halting-place. He was (when sober) a man of some resource. He made his way up to the barracks and asked questions, and heard that the station was in the same condition as the dâk bungalow, quite full. Even Fever Hall and Cholera Villa were occupied, and the only shelter he could put his head into was the big two-storied bungalow in the Paiwene road. It had been empty for years; it was to be had at a nominal rent—say two rupees a week—and there was no fear of any one disturbing him there! It was large and close to the barracks, but greatly out of repair. With this useful intelligence, Mr. Jackson rejoined his impatient circle, and, with their goods in a hand-cart, they started off for this house of refuge without delay. 

“Well, twenty years ago, more or less, some young officers lived in that bungalow, and one of them in a passion killed his Khitmatgar. They say he never meant to do it, but the fellow was awfully cheeky, and he threw a bottle at his head and stretched him dead. It was all hushed up, but that young officer came to a bad end, and the house began to get a bad name—people died there so often; two officers of delirium tremens; one cut his throat, another fell over the verandah and broke bis neck—and so it stands empty! No one stays a week.”
“And why?” demanded the other, boldly. “Lots of people die in houses; they must die somewhere.”

“But not as they do there!” shrilly interrupted Mrs. Clark. “The Khitmatgar comes round at dusk, or at night, just like an ordinary servant, with pegs or lemonade and so on. Whoever takes anything from his hand seems to get a sort of madness on them, and goes and destroys themselves.”
“It’s a fine tale, and you tell it very well,” said Mrs. Jackson, rising and nodding her red cock’s feathers, and her placid, dark, fat face. “There does be such in every station; people must talk, but they won’t frighten me.”

“No bullocks,” was Abdul’s explanation. The same tired pair had come on most reluctantly, and in this village of cats and cocks and hens it was the same story—“no bullocks.” Abdul brought us this heavy and unexpected intelligence after a long and animated interview with the head man of the place.
“What is to be done?” we demanded in a breath.
“Stop here all night; going on to-morrow.”
“Stop where?” we almost screamed.
“Over there,” rejoined Abdul, pointing to a grove of trees at some little distance. “There is a travellers’ bungalow; Chanda is twelve miles off.”
A travellers’ bungalow! Sure enough there was a building of some kind beyond the bamboos, and we lost no time in getting into the tonga and having ourselves driven in that direction. As we passed the village street, many came out and stared, and one old woman shook her hand in a warning manner, and called out something in a shrill cracked voice.
An avenue of feathery bamboos led to our destination, which proved to be the usual travellers’ rest-house, with white walls, red roof, and roomy verandah; but when we came closer, we discovered that the drive was as grass-grown as a field; jungle grew up to the back of the house, heavy wooden shutters closed all the windows, and the door was locked. There was a forlorn, desolate, dismal appearance about the place; it looked as if it had not been visited for years. In answer to our shouts and calls no one appeared; but, as we were fully resolved to spend the night there, we had the tonga unloaded and our effects placed in the verandah, the bullocks untackled and turned out among the long rank grass. At length an old man in dirty ragged clothes, and with a villainous expression of countenance, appeared from some back cook-house, and seemed anything but pleased to see us. When Abdul told him of our intention of occupying the house, he would not hear of it. “The bungalow was out of repair; it had not been opened for years; it was full of rats; it was unhealthy; plenty fever coming. We must go on to Chanda.”

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Eurasian guard, “there has been a break on the line—bridge gone—and we can’t get forward nohow.”
Mr. Gregson glanced out on the prospect—the dusty cactus hedge, the white telegraph posts, the expanse of brownish grass, black goats, and jungle.
“Any village, any dâk bungalow?” demanded the political agent, who might have known better than to ask.
“I’m afraid not, your honour. If your honour will wait here, we will send a messenger to the next station on foot, and tell them to telegraph for another train from the junction. This will arrive at the other side of the break, and take you on about twelve o’clock to-morrow.”
“And meanwhile we are to sit here!” cried Mr. Gregson, indignantly. “A pretty state of affairs! I’ll send a memo to the railway engineer that will astonish him,” he said, turning to Goring. “It’s four now, and we shall be here till twelve o’clock to-morrow, if we don’t mind. We shall be late for the durbar, and I shall have to wire, ‘unavoidably absent.’”
“I wonder if there is any sport to be had?” said Goring, descending from the carriage, and stretching his long legs. “Any shooting, any black buck?” looking at the guard interrogatively.
“Ah, that reminds me!” exclaimed Mr. Gregson. “The Rajah has a hunting box somewhere in these parts—Kori; we can go there for the night.”

Goring, as he smoked, thought of many things; of the half-famished villagers; of the splendid shooting that was going to waste; of the grand bag he could make, and would make, at Christmas. Then he began sleepily to recall some stories—half-told stories—about this very place; tales of hideous atrocities, and crimes that had been done here, in the days of the Tiger Rajah, the present ruler’s grandfather. He was gradually dozing off, when he was aroused by the sounds of distant tom-toms playing with extravagant spirit. The drumming came slowly nearer and nearer; it actually seemed to be in the garden—louder and louder—with a whispered murmuring and low applause, and as it were the footsteps of a great multitude. But there was nothing whatever to be seen, and it was as light as day. He moved uneasily in his chair, and gazed behind him; no! nothing to be seen but his senior steadily covering sheets of foolscap. He turned his head, and was aware of an unexpected sight—as startling as it was uncanny! Two twinkling little brown feet, dancing before him on the marble pavement! exquisite feet, that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, and that kept perfect time to the inspiriting sounds of the tom-toms; they were decked with massive golden anklets, which tinkled as they moved, and above them waved a few inches of the heavy yellow gold-embroidered skirt of the dancing-girl. No more was visible. Round and round the fairy feet flitted, in a very poetry of motion; faster and faster played the tom-toms. Such dancing, such nimble feet, it had never been young Goring’s lot to behold! Yes—but where was the rest of the body?