ling ceased altogether. Silence and hell heat
shut down on him like a coffin lid. Even the lamp flame close beside him
seemed to grow dim; the weight of black night that was suffocating him
seemed to crush light out of the flame as well.

No living mortal could endure that, he imagined. He swore aloud, but
there was no answer, so he got up, after crashing his rifle-butt down
on the floor to scare away anything that crawled. For a moment he stood,
undecided whether to take the lamp or rifle with him--then decided on
the rifle, for the lamp might blow out in some unexpected night gust,
whereas if he left it where it was it would go on burning and show him
the way back to bed again. Besides, he was too unaccustomed to the joy
of owning the last new thing in sporting rifles to hesitate for long
about what to keep within his grasp.

Through the open door he could see nothing but pitch-blackness,
unpunctuated even by a single star. There were no lights where the tents
stood, so he judged that even the accustomed natives had found the added
heat of Mahommed Gunga's watch-fires intolerable and had raked them
out; but from where he imagined that the village must be came the
dum-tu-dum-tu-dum of tom-toms, like fever blood pulsating in the veins
of devils of the night.

The punka-wallah slept. He could just make out the man's blurred
shape--a shadow in the shadows--dog-curled, with the punkah rope looped
round his foot. He kicked him gently, and the man stirred, but
fell asleep again. He kicked him harder. The man sat up and stared,
terrified; the whites of his eyes were distinctly visible. He seemed to
have forgotten why he was there, and to imagine that he saw a ghost.

Cunningham spoke to him--he first words that came into his head.

"Go on pulling," he said in English, quite kindly.

But if he had loosed his rifle off, the effect could not have been more
instantaneous. Clutching his twisted rag of a turban in one hand,
and kicking his leg free, he ran for it--leaped the veranda rail, and
vanished--a night shadow, swallowed by its mother night.

"Come back!" called Cunningham. "Iderao! I won't hurt you!"

But there was no answer, save the tom-toms' thunder, swelling now into
a devil's chorus-coming nearer. It seemed to be coming from the forest,
but he reasoned that it could not be; it must be some village marriage
feast, or perhaps an orgy; he had paid out what would seem to the
villagers a lot of money, and it might b