metimes used to come and sit on the pukka ghat for
an hour and return home after nightfall.

Now, it was the 23rd of April and a bright moon-light night, every one
of us (there were about a dozen) had told the people at home that there
was a function at the school and he might be late. On this night, it
was arranged that the ghost test should take place.

The boy who had challenged the ghost, Ram Lal, was to join us at the
pukka ghat at 8 P.M.; and then while we waited there he would walk
across the sand and drive the peg into the ground at the place where a
dead body had been cremated that very morning. We were to supply the peg
and the hammer. (I had to pay the school gardener two annas for the loan
of a peg and a hammer).

Well, we procured the peg and the hammer and proceeded to the pukka
ghat. If the gardener had known what we required the peg and the hammer
for, I am sure he would not have lent these to us.

Though I was a firm believer in ghosts yet I did not expect that Ram Lal
would be caught. What I hoped for was that he would not turn up at the
trysting place. But to my disappointment Ram Lal did turn up and at the
appointed hour too. He came boasting as usual, took the peg and the
hammer and started across the sand saying that he would break the head
of any ghost who might venture within the reach of the hammerhead. Well,
he went along and we waited for his return at the pukka ghat. It was a
glorious night, the whole expanse of sand was shining in the bright
moon-light.

On and on went Ram Lal with the peg in his left hand and the hammer in
his right. He was dressed in the usual upcountry Indian style, in a long
coat or Achkan which reached well below his knees and fluttered in the
breeze.

As he went on his pace slackened. When he had gone about half the
distance he stopped and looked back. We hoped he would return. He put
down the hammer and the peg, sat down on the sand facing us, took off
his shoes. Only some sand had got in. He took up the peg and hammer and
walked on.

But then we felt that his courage was oozing away. Another fifty yards
and he again stopped, and looked back at us.

Another fifty yards remained. Will he return? No! he again proceeded,
but we could clearly see that his steps were less jaunty than when he
had started. We knew that he was trembling, we knew that he would have
blessed us to call him back. But we would not yield, neither would he.
Looking in our direction at ever