by Ruskin Bond
Rendezvous with Horror
By the same author:
Angry River
A Little Night Music
A Long Walk for Bina
Hanuman to the Rescue
Ghost Stories from the Raj
Strange Men, Strange Places
The India I Love
Tales and Legends from India
The Blue Umbrella
Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-I
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III
Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories
The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure
The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories
The Rupa Laughter Omnibus
The Rupa Book of Scary Stories
The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses
The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories
The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales
The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories
The Rupa Book of Love Stories
The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories
The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories
The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills
Rendezvous with Horror
Edited by
Ruskin Bond
Selection and Introduction Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2007
First Published 2007
This edition 2010
Second Impression 2011
Published by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj,
New Delhi 110 002
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Contents
Introduction
The Face of Bronze
When Glister Walked
Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Phantom Coach
All Souls'
Query
Introduction
There are some incidents in our lives which break the humdrum and leave behind some lucid footprints on our minds. Some of these flow out of fear, thrill, horror or terror. Others, just as a result of coincidence or adventure. In this collection of short stories, I have tried to traverse through the mindscape of men in strange or unfamiliar surroundings. Each story has been picked carefully and marks a unique blend of the quaint and the realistic. Living in a foreign land, adjusting to the unfamiliar environs sometimes brings with it not only a physical churning but also a psychological turbulence. At the same time, sometimes familiar surroundings suddenly appear alien and spooky, and shake us out of our cocooned existence. In this collection, I've tried to bring together all these facets of our lives.
As Edmund Burke says, 'No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.'
It is this state of the human mind which is brought to the fore in these tales of suspense. The stories are diverse and set in different backdrops. 'The Face of Bronze' brings to the fore the pull of the Orient, manifested in Sanderson as he instinctively holds on to the bronze face and the strange life-like dreams that follow. The sudden disappearance of the statue only heightens the suspense, leaving us craving for more. On the other hand, 'When Glister Walked' is more action-packed and encapsulates the culture and customs totally alien to the logical, scientific mind of the coloniser. With its highly graphic imagery, it takes us on a rare trip to the land of the occult. In 'All Souls", we travel across the globe to North America and get a taste of their brand of chilling moments.
It is unnerving to think what I would do if caught up in such a situation, but that is exactly what I feel adds spice to our lives—the thrill of the unexpected. It has been delightful to bring together this collection, and I hope it brings as much pleasure to my readers.
Ruskin Bond
April 2007
The Face of Bronze
By John Eyton
John Sanderson belonged to the Survey Department of the Government of India. At the time of this history he was thirty years of age—a sallow young man, with untidy light hair, a long, clever, clean-shaven face, and the earnest grey eyes of a dreamer. He was a member of a solitary service, which suited his character, and though for months he went without sight of another white face, the deprivation did not worry him. He loved his work, with all the spirit of an explorer, had plenty of imagination, a quiet love of adventure, and a great stock of sleepy dreams. It was a lonely temperament—with just a latent strain of morbidity. He had made few men friends at Cambridge, and it was said of him that he would run a mile to avoid a woman.
In India his habitual abstraction intensified. He grew to depend entirely on himself for companionship. He had a few book friends and loved beautiful things, so long as they were inanimate. He had only been home on leave once, and had spent the whole time intervening between two visits to his mother in walking about the North of Scotland by himself. He always loved hills.
On his return from leave, he was given a job after his own heart; he was sent to make certain verifications on the Durand Line. It was ticklish work, and he was more than once sniped at, because he would insist on avoiding his escort. Nevertheless, he was extremely happy in those barren hills. Moreover, he was just the very man to find what he did find there.
It happened quite by accident. He had been out late, and had only an hour in which to walk back to his little camp. The obvious course was to call up his escort, which was playing a game of chance on the top of a hill, and to take the rough path by which he had come. Being Sanderson, however, he completely forgot the existence of his escort, and decided to take a short cut.
His way led down the steep, stony bed of a dry nullah. He scrambled down with difficulty, using one or two stunted bushes to help him, until he got half-way down. Then, a bush came bodily away, and he fell heavily about ten feet, dislodging a small avalanche of stones. The fall was very sudden and it gave him a considerable shock, so that he sat for some time, looking vaguely round him. Then, among the stones, his eye noted an object whose texture was not that of a stone. It was smooth, of a greenish colour, and had a metallic look—whereas the stones were rough and red. He shifted his position and picked the thing up. Then, he had a surprise.
He looked at it for a long time, turning it over and over. It was a very perfect thing—the head of a woman in bronze. True, it had been broken or twisted off at the neck, but the face was uninjured. The features were beautiful—straight eyebrows, straight nose, finely moulded chin; but he did not stare at the features. The extraordinary impression of life in the face held him. Cast in bronze as it was, and coated over with the green of age, he had a feeling that it lived. He could see the bloom on the cheeks, which were soft and rounded; he could look into the eyes; and the soft sweet lips were just about to smile. Sanderson sat there an hour, forgetful of everything—a lonely figure among the rocks, in the shadow made by the setting sun. Yet, it was only a little bronze face—half life-size.
He took it home, carefully wrapped in his handkerchief. At the very outset, he risked his life for it, since it was unhealthy to be out after dark in those parts without an escort. He merely toyed with his roast chakor at dinner. Instead of recording the results of the day, he sat in a deck-chair in the ill-lit tent
, an empty pipe twirling in his mouth, and gazed and dreamed. It would not be too much to say that he fell in love with his prize. For him the face lived; he saw it in dreams—alive.
Thereafter, Sanderson abandoned himself completely to the face of bronze. His work he got through automatically, nor did he shirk any of it. For the rest, he concentrated the whole of his dreamy and somewhat morbid nature on the face. He would sit looking at it for hours on end—imbuing it with life, making stories about it, worshipping it. It seemed to mesmerise him; he did not doubt its power over him, nor did he try to fight the influence, but surrendered his mind to it.
He knew it was Greek; no other nation could have produced so magical a thing. Greek coins had been found from time to time in the ruins of Akra, and little Greek statues around Peshawar and the Khyber—relics of the days of Alexander and his generals. But this was a thing apart; he looked on it as a treasure reserved for him—the most beautiful face in the world.
He revisited the spot where he had found it, and made a very careful search; but he could not find the missing portion. There was not a trace of a ruin—just a brown, bare hill-top, a slash of a nullah in the side, and a trickling stream below. He soon gave up looking for the history of the face; it was sufficient in itself—more than sufficient. A friend might have laughed him out of his intense concentration, inducing a tardy sense of proportion. But he was entirely on his own—a day's march from the nearest outpost.
It was after he had returned from the search in the nullah that the first dream came—rather, the first connected dream—for the face itself had appeared to him nightly. It is not proposed to explain the dream; psychology may hint that it was a figment born of an overworked imagination. It is simply given as a fact—for what it is worth.
He saw the interior of a rough tent—an affair of two uprights, cross-pole, and sloping sides. It was but dimly lit by a wick floating in a saucer of earthenware. On one side was some sort of a rough couch, with tumbled rugs and skins on it; there were skins on the floor, too, which otherwise was bare. Behind the couch, in the corner, was a pile of indistinct objects, in which metal glinted. The flap of the tent was down.
There was a man in the tent—a man with curly, dark hair, clad in a tunic of some dark material. His legs were bare almost to the hips, and they looked long and shapely. His face was invisible because he was lying at full length on the ground, with his head between his hands, looking down as if he were reading. Altogether, Sanderson had an impression of a handsome, well-built youth. More he could not gather because he never saw the face. The youth was lying between the entrance and the light—face to the light and back to the entrance. He never moved. A long time passed before the tent-flap stirred and someone came silently in, and stood in the shadow, looking down on the youth as he lay. Sanderson knew, rather than saw, that the figure was a woman, wrapped in a dark cloak. … Then he awoke.
He had the impression of an actual experience rather than of a dream. This experience was consecutive and intensely vivid. It actually happened. He saw exactly the same thing several nights running, and brooded over it all day. The scene never altered; the youth never moved nor showed his face. Sanderson always awoke with the shadowy figure of the visitor before his eyes, and with a sense of some cruel thing impending. Then, one night he knew more.
The beginning was the same—the dark tent and its shadowy corners; the lissom figure on the ground; the stirring of the tent-flap; the soundless entrance; the waiting figure. But this time the figure moved, as if gathering strength. The right arm was raised, throwing a great bar of shadow across the tent. But the youth never looked up. Then came a swooping movement; something glittered in the hand of the woman, and she stooped and struck the youth between the shoulders. His head fell forward and lay still; his hands dropped; he was dead.
The woman glided swiftly forward and picked up what lay between the youth and the light. It was a head and shoulders of bronze—half life-size. She raised it above her head and fled from the tent into the darkness. Then she threw it far away… down …and herself fell huddled to the ground.
Sanderson awoke in terror—a wild fear which was akin to madness. He had only one idea—to get away; back to men and women and the sound of laughter and the welcome of little lighted shops in busy streets. He could not be alone again, nor chance seeing again what he had seen. In that last act he had been no mere spectator. In some strange way he had lived the scene, powerless to avert the horror which he felt. His face of bronze—he could never look upon it again. He dare not see it again. It would bring back the silence—the waiting—the knowledge. He would cover it up and bury it in the place whence it came. Then he might have peace.
With eyes averted he opened the box in which he had put his treasure. His hand felt for it. Then, he gave a cry of surprise—the head of bronze was not there.
When Glister Walked
By Oscar Cook
Dennis, district officer of the Labuk district in British North Borneo, had been spending a few days' 'local leave' on Tingling Estate, for, Walkely., the manager, and he were great friends. The night before his departure the two men had sat together in the latter's mosquito-room, fitted up like a 'den', and with pipes well-lit had roamed in a desultory manner over many fields of conversation.
For the last ten minutes or so there had been silence between them—the silence of friends in complete accord. Dennis broke it.
'Throw me a match, Walley,' he said.
Walkely moved as though to comply, then stopped as his 'boy' entered, carrying a tray containing whisky and soda, which he placed on a table near his master. He was about to depart when Walkely spoke.
'The Tuan is leaving to-morrow before breakfast, Amat. Tell Cookie to make some sandwiches and see the thermos flask is filled with hot tea.'
'Tuan.'
'And, hand these to the Tuan.' Walkely pointed to the matches.
Amat obeyed and went out.
Walkely rose from his long chair, mixed the drinks and held out a glass to Dennis.
'To our next meeting,' he said, and raised his glass. Dennis followed suit.
Then, yawning, Dennis rose, and stretching his arms well above his head, looked sleepily in the direction of his bedroom.
Walkely nodded assent and held open the mosquito-door.
A few minutes later the house was in darkness, save for the lights that shone through the open windows of the two bedrooms.
The rooms were on either side of a large dining-room, which in turn opened out from the main verandah, off one side of which was built the mosquito-room. At the far end of the dining room were two folding doors that led to a passage and pantry, and thence down some steps to the kitchen and 'boys" quarters at the rear of the house.
As Dennis undressed, he sleepily hummed the latest foxtrot record received from England. Then, dimming the light, he got into bed.
From where he lay he could hear Walkely moving about his room, and could see the reflection his light cast on the exposed attap roof of the house. As he idly watched, speculating dreamily on Walley's success as a manager, Walkely's lamp in turn was lowered. Followed the creaking noise of a body turning on a spring mattress—then silence.
Dennis rolled from his left to right side preparatory to sleep.
'Nighty-night, Old Thing,' he grunted.
'Night,' came back the sleepy reply.
Then, all was quiet save for the gentle rustling of the rubber trees and the occasional hoot of an owl.
Presently, Dennis awoke to full alertness. He was not strung up; no sound nor fear nor nightmare had aroused him. He was simply and quietly awake. Turning on his side he looked at his watch. The hands pointed to 2 a.m. He closed his eyes, but sleep would not be wooed.
For a long time Dennis lay in the nearly darkened room, watching the waving branch of a rubber tree outside the window, that moved gently to the sighing of the breeze.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of feet ascending the steps that led from the garden to the veranda
h doors.
But half-awake, he listened.
Slowly, the footsteps mounted the stairs; then came the lifting of the latch that fastened the low wooden gates, and the creaking of moving hinges. The footsteps entered, continued the full length of the verandah, to pass into the dining-room beyond. Here, for a moment they halted. Then they moved again, shuffling uncertainly—forward, backward, sideways—as those of a person trying to locate something in the dark.
Again, they moved with steady tread and reached the intervening doors that shut off the passage.
Dennis listened and waited. What the devil is old Walley doing? he sleepily wondered.
A sudden rush of cool air struck on him over the top of the bedroom wall, billowing out his mosquito net.
Creak—creak—creak—the doors were opening. The footsteps went along the passage and came to a standstill at the end.
'Boy!'
The call was clear and decisive, but Dennis failed to quite recognise the voice, though he realised it was a European's.
There came no answer.
'Boy!'
This time the call was sharper, and impatience was in its tone. Still, no reply.
In the silence Dennis, wondering greatly, waited, for he was still uncertain whether the voice was Walkely's or another's.
The footsteps sounded again as they descended the stairs that led to the servants' quarters. On the bottom step they halted.
'Boy!'
The call was long, loud, and angry. Yet still, no answer came.
Up the stairs the footsteps returned. They strode along the passage, paused as the doors were closed and the latch clicked, then swiftly moved through the dining-room out on to the wide verandah. Here, for a moment they rested.
Sounded the fumbling for a latch, the squeak of a faulty hinge, and from the sharp banging of a door Dennis knew the footsteps had entered the mosquito-room.
He sprang out of bed, and, sitting on its edge, hurriedly pushed his feet into slippers. Then, as he was about to move, the lamp in the room went out.