Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy by Rudyard Kipling Read Free Book Online Page B

to bear me company, as far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
    My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been thinking over it all dinner time.
    â€˜I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?’ The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from before I was aware.
    â€˜That!’ said I, pointing to It.
    â€˜ That may be either D.T. or eyes for aught I know. Now you don’t liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can’t be D.T. There’s nothing whatever where you’re pointing, though you’re sweating and trembling with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it’s eyes. And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I’m on the Blessington lower road.’
    To my intense delight the rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about twenty yards ahead – and this, too, whether we walked, trotted, or cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion almost as much as I have told you here.
    â€˜Well, you’ve spoilt one of the best tales I’ve ever laid tongue to,’ said he, ‘but I’ll forgive you for the sake of whatyou’ve gone through. Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I’ve cured you, young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food till the day of your death.’
    The rickshaw kept steadily in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
    â€˜Eyes, Pansay – all eyes, brain, and stomach; and the greatest of these three is stomach. You’ve too much conceited brain, too little stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy eyes. Get your stomach straight and the rest follows. And all that’s French for a liver pill. I’ll take sole medical charge of you from this hour; for you’re too interesting a phenomenon to be passed over.’
    By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and the rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath.
    â€˜Now, if you think I’m going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the sake of a stomach- cum- brain -cum -eyeillusion … Lord ha’ mercy! What’s that?’
    That was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliffside – pines, undergrowth and all – slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered: ‘Man, if we’d gone forward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now! “There are more things in heaven and earth” … Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a drink badly.’
    We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr Heatherlegh’s house shortly after midnight.
    His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla’s best and kindest doctor.Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh’s ‘spectral illusion’ theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a fall from horse kept me indoors