thin the room she
stood up facing me and I stopped. The revolver fell from my hand. She
smiled a sad sweet smile. How beautiful she was!

"Then she spoke. A modern ghost speaking like Hamlet's father, just
think of that!

"'You will probably wonder why I am here--I shall tell you, I was
murdered--by my own father.... I was a young widow living in this
house which belonged to my father I became unchaste and to save his
own name he poisoned me when I was _enceinte_--another week and I
should have become a mother; but he poisoned me and my innocent
child died too--it would have been such a beautiful baby--and you
would probably want to kiss it'

and horror of horrors, she took out the child from her womb and showed
it to me. She began to move in my direction with the child in her arms
saying--'You will like to kiss it.'

"I don't know whether I shouted--but I fainted.

"When I recovered consciousness it was broad day-light, and I was lying
on the floor, with the revolver by my side. I picked it up and slowly
walked out of the house with as much dignity as I could command. At the
door I met one of my friends to whom I told a lie that I had seen
nothing.--It is the first time that I have told you what I saw at the
place.

"The Ghostly woman spoke the language of the part of the country in
which the Ghostly house is situate."

The friend who told me this story is a responsible Government official
and will not make a wrong statement. What has been written above has
been confirmed by others--who had passed nights in that Ghostly house;
but they had generally shouted for help and fainted at the sight of the
ghost, and so they had not heard her story from her lips as reproduced
here.

The house still exists, but it is now a dilapidated old affair, and the
roof and the doors and windows are so bad that people don't care to go
and pass a night there.

There is also a haunted house in Assam. In this house a certain
gentleman committed suicide by cutting his own throat with a razor.

You often see him sitting on a cot in the verandah heaving deep sighs.

Mention of this house has been made in a book called "Tales from the
Tiger Land" published in England. The Author says he has passed a night
in the house in question and testifies to the accuracy of all the
rumours that are current.

* * * * *

Talking about haunted houses reminds me of a haunted tank.