We went down the path that cut across the cemetery. Although both Feluda and I made fun of Lalmohan Babu’s fears, and Feluda dismissed them as mere superstition, I had to admit that there was something creepy in the air. It wasn’t just the tombs, but the abundance of trees and bushes and undergrowth. They added to the generally eerie atmosphere. Nevertheless, Lalmohan Babu’s responses seemed a trifle exaggerated. It was, after all, broad daylight and I failed to see why he was so afraid. He proceeded slowly, looking at the tombstones out of the corner of his eye, and muttering constantly, as if he was chanting a mantra. What was he saying? I had to strain my ears to catch the words. They were certainly worth hearing.

‘Please, Mr Palmer, please, Mr Hamilton, and you, too, Miss Smith; please don’t break our necks, please let us get on with our work. You’ve given so much, taken so much, taught us so much, even beaten the hell out of us ... Mr Campbell, Mr Adam, and—I say, I can’t even pronounce your name!—but anyway, I beg of you, all of you, if you’re no more than handfuls of dust, do stay that way ... dust to dust, dust ... dust ...!’

I could contain myself no more. ‘What are you going on about? What’s all this about dust?’ I asked.

‘Dear Tapesh, I read about all this as a child. Dust thou art, to dust returnest. All these people have been reduced to dust.’

‘In that case, what’s there to be afraid of?’

‘That’s what a poet wrote. Poets aren’t always correct in what they write, are they?’

We turned left. The fallen tree was still lying on the ground, and the ground was now dry. But there was rather a lot of earth spread around Thomas Godwin’s grave.

‘Dust ... dust ... dust ...!’

Lalmohan Babu continued to chant that word like a robot—perhaps in order to gather courage—and moved towards Godwin’s tomb. Then he stopped, gasped, said ‘Sk-sk-skel-skel-skel-!’ and promptly keeled over, like a felled tree, landing on top of the mound of earth.

Quite close to the spot where he had fallen was a chasm. The earth had been dug quite deep. In the centre of that chasm, still half-buried in the ground, was a human skull.

Chapter 8

I had to shake Lalmohan Babu at least ten times before he opened his eyes. Had he not come round, I would have really been in trouble since I’d never found myself in a similar situation before. Finally Lalmohan Babu picked himself up, dusted himself down, and announced that, when frightened, writers had a tendency to faint more easily than others, as their imagination was more powerful than other people’s.

‘What your cousin said about superstition is complete nonsense. I have no such ... er ... problem!’ he told me.