They lived in the rotten white bungalow at the end of the valley--Hope
and the Magician. It stood in a neglected compound that had once been a
paradise, when a certain young officer belonging to the regiment of
Sikhs then stationed in Ghantala had taken it and made of it a dainty
home for his English bride. Those were the days before the flood, and no
one had lived there since. The native men in the valley still remembered
with horror that awful night when the monsoon had burst in floods and
water-spouts upon the mountains, and the bride, too terrified to remain
in the bungalow, had set out in the worst fury of the storm to find her
husband, who was on duty up at the cantonments. She had been drowned
close to the bungalow in a ranging brown torrent which swept over what a
few hours earlier had been a mere bed of glittering sand. And from that
time the bungalow had been deserted, avoided of all men, a haunted
place, the abode of evil spirits.
Yet it still stood in its desolation, rotting year by year. No native
would approach the place. No Englishman desired it. For it was well away
from the cantonments, nearer than any other European dwelling to the
native village, and undeniably in the hottest corner of all the Ghantala
Valley.
Perhaps its general air of desolation had also influenced the minds of
possible tenants, for Ghantala was a cheerful station, and its
inhabitants preferred cheerful dwelling-places. Whatever the cause, it
had stood empty and forsaken for more than a dozen years.
And then had come Hope and the Magician.
Hope was a dark-haired, bright-eyed English girl, who loved riding as
she loved nothing else on earth. Her twin-brother, Ronald Carteret, was
the youngest subaltern in his battalion, and for his sake, she had
persuaded the Magician that the Ghantala Valley was an ideal spot to
live in.
The Magician was their uncle and sole relative, an old man, wizened and
dried up like a monkey, to whom India was a land of perpetual delight
and novelty of which he could never tire. He was engaged upon a book of
Indian mythology, and he was often away from home for the purpose of
research. But his absence made very little difference to Hope. Her
brother lived in the bungalow with her, and the people in the station
were very kind to her.
The natives, though still wary, had lost their abhorrence of the place.
They believed that the Magician, as they called him, had woven a spell
to keep the evil spirits at a distance. It was known that he was in
constant communication with native priests. Moreover, the miss-_sahib_
who dwelt at the bungalow remained unharmed, so it seemed there was
nought to fear.
Hope, after a very few months, cut off her hair and wore it short and
curly. This also seemed to discourage the evil ones. So at length it
appeared that the curse had been removed, or at least placed in
abeyance.
As for Hope, she liked the place. Her nerves were generally good, and
the joy of being near the brother she idolized outweighed every other
consideration. The colonel's wife, Mrs. Latimer, was very kind to her
from the outset, and she enjoyed all the Ghantala gaieties under her
protection and patronage.
Not till Mrs. Latimer was taken ill and had to leave hurriedly for the
Hills did it dawn upon Hope, after nearly eight happy months, that her
position was one of considerable isolation, and that this might, under
certain circumstances, become a matter for regret.