Probably in any case I should have written to tell this friend of the incident, on account of a conversation I had with Bobajee when he returned from his ghastly entertainment. I had looked inside the Memorial, and had seen that the stone steps were crumbling away and looked very unsafe, so when he came back and said: "Something bad inside there, Lady Sahib," I concluded naturally that he was referring to the state of the staircase, and attributing the poor coolie's fall to some such cause.
But he denied this strenuously: "No! no! Lady Sahib—some bad debil inside there. He threw coolie over!" Then he went on to tell us that on one special night in the year no native man, woman, or child in the whole city could be induced to pass the Mutiny Memorial at midnight. The few daring souls who had passed there, had found the tower all lighted up inside, and the Sepoys and the British soldiers had come back, and were fighting their battles over again! The man spoke in simple good faith, and assured me that all Delhi people knew this to be a fact, and gave the place a wide berth on that anniversary.
The idea of the "bad debil" throwing the poor coolie down from the top of the tower, followed by this curious legend, interested me as a bit of folk-lore, but my companion was drastic in her remarks. "Silly nonsense, Bobajee!" was her reception of the story; and this made me feel intensely sorry for the moment, that Lady Wincote, who would have been as much interested as myself, should not have been present. Did this moment of intense desire for her, project itself into the appearance she saw in her room? Who can say? Certainly it was a curious coincidence that she should see me in an annoyed and excited state just when I was feeling annoyed and excited—so many thousand miles away.
Delhi seems to have been specially favourable to psychic experiences, for I find another one recorded on the very day succeeding the last event.
My friend, having some slight ailment, I had driven out alone with our native servant, and we made a long tour, returning about six p.m. past Ludlow Castle, of famous Mutiny memory, and still—in the year 1891—a Government bungalow.
The present Czar of Russia was travelling through India at the time as Czarewitch, with his cousin, Prince George of Greece, and they were expected to arrive in Delhi that same evening. The Royal party and suite were to be lodged at Ludlow Castle, and were expected within an hour.
Bobajee jumped off the box of my carriage, and urged me to "go look, see!"
"No, Bobajee! Drive on—can't go look see—they no let me in."
"Yes, yes, Lady Sahib," he said eagerly—"everything ready—all gone away—nobody in there yet."
With our English notions this seems inconceivable, but it proved to be absolutely true. I went in, expecting to be turned back ignominiously before I had crossed the hall, but there was positively no one there! The place was like a City of the Dead. Yet within an hour, a banquet arranged for about seventy people was to take place! I made the best of my opportunity, ranged through the numerous bedrooms—with hanging Japanese blinds shutting them off and each one inscribed with the card of the special Russian or Greek general who formed part of the suite. At length I strolled into the dining-room—a long, narrow room—arranged for the coming festivity (at least sixty to seventy covers were laid), the flowers arranged on the tablecloth in the pretty, artistic Indian fashion, all the beautiful glass and silver placed in readiness.