Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/147

 I started, for I remembered that I had used the very same to some one else long before. And at the same time, from over the top of the casuarina trees, from under the golden crescent of the old moon, from across the wide stretches of the flowing Ganges, right to its most distant bank—Ha ha—Ha ha—Ha ha—came the sound of laughter passing swiftly overhead. Whether it was a heart-breaking laugh or a sky-rending wail, 1 cannot say. But on hearing it I fell to the ground in a swoon.

‘When I recovered consciousness, I saw that I was lying on my bed in my own room. My wife asked me: “Whatever happened to you?” I replied, trembling with terror: “Didn’t you hear how the whole sky rang with the sound of laughter—Ha ha—Ha ha—Ha ha?” My wife laughed, as she answered: “Laughter? What I heard was the sound of a flock of birds flying past overhead. You are easily frightened!”

‘Next day I knew quite well that it was a flock of ducks migrating, as they do at that time of year, to the south. But when evening came I began to doubt again, and in my imagination the whole sky rang with laughter, piercing the darkness on the least pretext. It came to this at last