d there were
no outsiders besides the ladies and children who were shut up in a
room. This too was extinguished without any damage having been
done. By this time Mr. Mitra and his several friends turned up on
getting the news of the fire in his house. I was one of them. In
short the fire broke out in the house at seven different places
within an hour or an hour and a half; all these places situated so
apart from one another that one was astonished to find how it broke
out one after the other without any visible sign of the possibility
of a fire from outside. We were all at a loss to account for the
breaking out of the fire. To all appearance it broke out each time
spontaneously and mysteriously. The fact that fire broke out so
often as seven times within the short space of about an hour and a
half, each time at a different place without doing any perceptible
damage to the thatching of the bungalow or to any other article of
the occupant of the house, is a mystery which remains to be solved.
After the last breaking out, it was decided that the house must be
vacated at once. Mr. Mitra and his family consequently removed to
another house of Padri Ahmad Shah about 200 yards distant
therefrom. To the great astonishment of all nothing happened after
the 'vacation' of the house for the whole night. Next morning Mr.
Mitra came with his sister to have his morning meals prepared
there, thinking that there was no fire during the night. To his
great curiosity he found that the house was ablaze within 10 or 15
minutes of his arrival. They removed at once and everything was
again all right. A day or two after he removed to a pucca house
within the town, not easy to catch fire. After settling his family
in the new house Mr. Mitra went to a town (Moudha) some 21 miles
from the head quarters. During the night following his departure, a
daughter of Mr. Mitra aged about 10 years saw in dream a boy who
called himself Shahid Baba. The girl enquired of him about the
reason of the fire breaking in her last residence and was told by
him that she would witness curious scenes next morning, after which
she would be told the remedy. Morning came and it was not long
before fire broke out in the second storey of the new house. This
was extinguished as easily as the previous ones