| The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales | |
|---|---|
original publication |
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| Author(s) | Rudyard Kipling (English) |
| Country | British India |
| Language | English |
| Series | Indian Railway Library |
| Publisher | A H Wheeler & Co |
| Publication date | 1888 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (published 1888) is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling.
Contents |
After an affair with a Mrs. Agnes Keith-Wessington in Simla, the narrator, Jack, repudiates her and eventually becomes engaged to Miss Kitty Mannering. Yet Mrs. Wessington continually reappears in Jack's life, begging him to reconsider, insisting that it was all just a mistake. But Jack wants nothing to do with her and continues to spurn her. Eventually Mrs. Wessington dies, much to Jack's relief. However, some time thereafter he sees her old rickshaw and assumes that someone has bought it. Then, to his astonishment, the rickshaw and the men pulling it pass through a horse, revealing themselves to be phantoms, bearing the departed ghost of Mrs. Wessington. This leads Jack into increasingly erratic behavior which he tries to cover up by concocting increasingly elaborate lies to assuage Kitty's suspicions. Eventually a Dr. Heatherlegh takes him in, supposing the visions to be the result of disease or madness. Despite their efforts, Kitty and her family become increasingly suspicious and eventually call off the engagement. Jack loses hope and begins wandering the city aimlessly, accompanied by the ghost of Mrs. Wessington.
The narrator, while staying at a dâk-bungalow in Katmal, India, hears someone in the next room playing billiards. He assumes that it is a group of doolie-bearers who've just arrived. The next morning he complains, only to learn that there were no doolies in the dâk-bungalow the night before. The owner then tells him that ten years ago it was a billiard-hall. An engineer who'd been fond of the billiard hall had died somewhere far from it and they suspected that it was his ghost that occasionally came to visit it.
One evening Morrowbie Jukes, an Englishman, is feeling a bit feverish and the barking of the dogs outside his tent are upsetting him. So he mounts his horse in order to pursue them. The horse bolts and they eventually fall into a sandy ravine on the edge of a river. He awakens the next morning to find himself in an Indian leper colony. He quickly learns that it is impossible to climb out because of the sandy slope. And the river is doubly treacherous with quicksand and a rifleman who will try to pick them off. He recognizes one man there, a Brahmin named Gunga Dass. Gunga has become ruthless, but he does feed Jukes. Eventually Jukes discovered that another Englishman had been there and died. On his corpse Jukes finds a note explaining how to safely get through the quicksand. After Jukes explains it to Gunga, Gunga confesses to murdering the Englishman for fear of being left behind. They plan their escape for that evening, when the rifleman will be unable to see them in the dark. When the time to escape arrives, Gunga knocks Jukes unconscious and escapes alone. When Jukes awakes he is found by the boy who kept his dogs and helped to escape by means of a rope.
The narrator, a journalist, meets two colorful characters, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnahan, while on a train. Later they seek him out at his printing press in Lahore, for books or maps of Kafiristan. He then plays witness to their vow to each other to become kings of Kafiristan, a venture which he sees as ill-advised. Two years later Peachey returns and informs the narrator that they indeed reached Kafiristan. While there, were seen as gods and eventually Daniel is made king. They taught the Kafiristanis how to use rifles and military tactics. Eventually Dravot decides to take a Kafiristani woman to wife. In her terror she bites him. Upon seeing him bleed, the priests declare him not to be a god and the Kafiristanis immediately seek their deaths. One clan chief, whom they call "Billy Fish" helps them to escape but eventually they are caught and Daniel is thrown into a gorge to his death. They crucified Peachey but then let him go when he survived. The narrator puts Peachey in an asylum where he dies soon thereafter.