Why did we go at such a season into the forests of the Terai?
it was madness; we knew it was, and Ram Lal knew it too.

Hence his warning.
O Ram Lal, you are a wise old man, with your gray beard and you mists of wet white velvet and your dark sayings! Ram Lal, will you riddle me, also, my weird that I must dree?
A cold draught passed over my head, and I turned on my couch to see whence it came.

I started bolt upright, and my hair stood on end with sudden terror.

I had uttered the name of Ram Lal aloud in my reverie, and there he sat on a chair by the door, as gray as ever, with his long staff leaning from his feet across his breast and shoulder.

He looked at me quietly.
"I come opportunely, Mr.Griggs, it seems.