(Dec 22nd to 28th)
Format: Triple
Just when the silence was getting unendurable, the body turned over and rolled away from the basin to the side of the room, where it lay stomach-up. There was a faint ‘plop’ from the basin – exactly like the noise a fish makes when it takes a fly – and the green light in the centre revived. |
This is from ‘In the House of Suddhoo’ in ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’. Suddhoo, in Lahore, a gullible old man who is easily scared, has a sick son in Peshawar. One of his lodgers, a villainous seal-cutter, has found a way of getting swift secret news of the son’s illness by telegraph. Pretending that he is doing this by magic – a jadoo, he has been extracting many rupees from Suddhoo. Here he is putting on an impressive, skilfully faked, jadoo. |
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We could hear him moving about his own room, but there was no light there. Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a wolf. |
This is from ‘The Mark of the Beast’ in ‘Life’s Handicap’. Fleete, who knew little of India, had come in from his place in the hills for a New Year’s eve dinner. On his way home, extremely drunk, he had stubbed out his cigar on the face of an image of the Hindu god, Hanuman. Outraged, a leper priest of Hanuman has set the Mark of the Beast on Fleete, who is swiftly becoming more wolf than man. In a horrific scene, the narrator and his friend Strickland torture the priest until he takes off the curse. |
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I was actually lying on my chest leaning over the mouth of a well so deep I could scarcely see the water in it. |
This is from ‘Bubbling Well Road’ in ‘Life’s Handicap’. The narrator, out pig-hunting, has entered a patch of high plumed jungle-grass in search of a big boar. It hides a priest’s house, and a horrible secret … |