Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1899-04-22
THE PHANTOM
RIcKSHAM.
BY Rudyard kipling.
CHAPTER TWO.

What's the matter 2" cried Kitty
''What made You call out SO foolishly
Jack? If / am engaged, don't wan
all creation to know about it, Their,
was lots of space between the mule anG
the veranda, and if you think / CAM
ride There"
Whereupon willful Kitty set off, hel
dainty little head in the air, at hand
gallop in the direction of the band
stand, fully expecting, as she herself
afterward told me, that should follow
her What was the nfatterf Nothing,
indeed either that was mad or drunk
or that Simla was haunted with devils.
/ refined in my impatient cob and turned
round. The Cickshaw had turned, too,
and now stood Immediately facing me,
near the left railing of the Com bermere
bridge.
Jack Jack, darlingi' There was
no mistake about the words this time
They rang through my brain as if they
had been shouted in my ear f'It's
some hideouS mistake, m sure Please
forgive me. Jack. and let's be friends
again.
The rickshaw hood had fallen back,
and inside, as / hope and pray daily for
the death / dread by night, sat Mrs
Keith washington, handkerchief in
hand and golden head bowed on her
breast
How long 1 stared motionless l do
not know. Finally was aroused by my
syce taking the waler's bride and ask
ing whether | was i'll. From the horri-
BILE to the commonplace is but step
/ tumbled off my horse and dashed, half
fainting into Peliti's for glass of
cherry brandy. There two or three cou-
Piles were gathered round the coffee Ia
bles discussing the gossip Of the day.
Their trivialities We're more comforting
TO me just then than the consultations
of religion could have been. plunged
into the midst of the conversation at
once, chatted, laughed and jested with
a face when / caught glimpse of it
in mirror) as white and drawn as
that of corpse Three or four men no
ticed my condition, and, evidently set
ting it down to the results of overmany
pegs, charitably endeavored to draw
me apart from the rest of the loungers.
But l refused to be led away. wanted
the company of my kind-as child
rushes into the midst of the dinner
party after fright in the dark. I must
have talked for about ten minutes or
SO, though it seemed an eternity to me,
when l heard Kitty's clear voice out
side inquiring for me. In another min
ute she had entered the shop, prepared
to roundly upbraid me for failing SO
signally in my duties Something in
my face stopped her.
t'Why, Jack, she cried, what have
you been doing? What has happened
Are you i'll? Thus driven into direct
lie. | said that the sun had been lit
tie too much for me. 1t was close upon
5 o. clock of a cloudy April afternoon,
and the sun had been hidden all day |
saw my mistake as soon as the words I
we're out of my mouth, attempted to
recover it, blundered hopelessly and
followed Kitty in regal rage out of
1oors amid the smiles of my acguaint-
ances / made some excuse / have for
gotten what on the score of my feeling
faint and cantered away to my hotel,
eaving Kitty to finish the ride by her
,elf
In my room / sat down and tried |
calmly to reason out the matter. Here |
vas /. Theobald Jack Pansay, well |
Bengal civilian in the year of |
grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly |
healthy, driven in terror from my /
side by the apparition of
who had been dead and buried
light months These we're facts that / /
ould not blink Nothing was further
rom my thought than any memory of |
Mrs. Washington when Kitty and /
eft Hamilton's shop. Nothing was
more utterly commonplace than the
tretch of wall opposite Peliti's It was
oroad daylight. The road was full of
PEOPLE, and yet here. look you, in def
nee of every law of probability, in di-
ect outrage of natures ordinance,
here had appeared to me face from
he grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the
ickshaw; so that my first hope that
ONE woman marvelously like Mrs.
Washington had hired the carriage and
he coolies with their old livery was
ost Again and again went round
his treadmill of thought and again and
gain gave up baff1ed and in despair
The voice was as inexplicable as the APP
'arition. had originally some wild
lotion Of con6ding it all to Kitty; of
'egging her to marry me at once, and
n her arms defying the ghostly occu-
ant of the rickshaw ''After all,
rgued, "the presence of the rickshaw
S in itself enough to prove the exist
nee of spectral illusion. One may see
hosts of men and women, but surely
lever of coolies and carriages. The whole
hing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a
Next morning sent penitent note
0 Kitty, imploring her to overlook my
TRANCE conduct of the previous after
oon. Ny divinity was still very wroth,
nd personal apology was necessary
explained with fuency born of
light long bordering over falsehood