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195-196
When
I had recovered my senses outdoor and intended to reenter the chamber and
accomplish the task, all physical senses and powers and courage did not
encourage me enough to go in again. I decided to leave the job up till the next
day and released the laborers and went toward the hotel in my room. My wife
welcomed me with a gloomy and sullied face. She had always been a staunch
opponent of my ventures of digging out the ancient tombs. In the afternoon, a
baseless fear and fright overcame her heart and she expressed this to me and
took a pledge from me that I will never go near such things again in my life.
In order to relax and disport, I went to Luxor near the bank of the river Nile
in order to change my station and fixed my camp there. I got some relaxation
and peace there. I had hidden that idol of bat in my luggage and did not tell
about it to anybody'. Voice of Mr. Hendry became lower and with tears in his
eyes, he added 'one night I sprang up due to an extraordinary macabre voice and
saw a white bat hovering inside my tent. It was screaming in high voice with a
frightening pitch. I drove it outside of my tent and slept. I saw a dream that
I am locked up in that crypt and my heart is occupied by an unimaginable fear
and alarm which was chocking my breaths. Side by side this thing, an invisible
power was pushing me towards death. my wife was also seen tied into an unknown
invisible knot. She was reluctant to express this. At last, one night, she
slept okay but was found dead on her bed in the morning. Doctors diagnosed that
her death was caused by heart failure due to some agony. Destruction after
destruction hit me afterwards. My business was closed. A very trustworthy
friend of mine misappropriated my forty thousand Dollars in New York and
committed a suicide later.
*
After
that, my father suddenly died. Thence forth, I am a helpless and alone victim of
this dangerous invisible enemy 'white bat' and till today I am badly a captive
of its strikes day and night and sitting before you having lost hopes of my
life'. At the end, he shouted 'O Cheiro! It is just my whim or madness? Before
this, I often used to laugh at those tales of people having hurt by the
invisible blights in wake of their excavation of the ancient graves of Egypt
but now ……'. Here he started trembling and became silent. For some time, he
remained drowned in strange contemplation and after getting his wits refreshed
a little again, he spoke 'in many nights, that white bat rides over my bosom
and chokes my breath till to the verge of death and leave me alive again for
giving me more damage and grief. Sleeping is like facing a hair-raising
exercise of embracing the death for me and God knows when I will get rid of
such horrible life'. I enquired him about his date of birth and drew his
horoscope after seeing his palm and came to know that the dreadful hour of his
death was near. However, I thought it better in not disclosing the shocking
prediction about his expiry so that his grieves and sufferings should not be
increased. I consoled him with fabricated and false hopes and made him peaceful
and contended. On leaving, he first said to me 'Mr. Cheiro! Could you please do
a favor for me? I have to go on an urgent assignment. Could you please keep
this thing, the white bat, in your custody for some days?' He put that idol on
my hand. As soon as my hand felt its touch, a frightful invisible electricity
entered my body. Although I was also greedy for such objects in capacity of my
profession, but this thing had transformed my temptation into fear. My guest,
looking my face with a sharp gaze, said 'Mr. Cheiro! I hope you will not fear
from this thing'. As a gesture of self-respect and pretention, is said 'Not at
all'.
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