When General C. Barter, C.B., was living in the Indian hill country, he met with a supernatural experience, when not only did he see the ghost of a former acquaintance, but also that of the pony which he used to ride during his life-time.
One evening when the general was returning from a day's shooting, he noticed a man on horseback, accompanied by several servants, coming slowly down a bridle-path, which slope gradually to join the wider way on which the general was riding. It was bright moonlight, and the first warning of the unusual was given by the dogs, who ran to their master and crouched by his side, apparently frightened of the people on the bridle-path above.
On they came, and General Barter had a good view of them. The man on horseback, who was wearing dinner dress, sat his powerful hill pony as if he were listless and weary past endurance; the reins hung loosely from his hands, and whilst a syce led the pony on either side, a third servant supported the rider, to steady him in his seat.
What most concerned General Barter was the fact that this particular road only led near his own house, and, not expecting any visitors, he hailed the little group and asked them what they wanted, and what they were doing hereabouts.
As he spoke, the rider stopped, and, gathering up the fallen reins, looked General Barter full in the face, and the latter, not knowing what on earth to make of the stillness and strangeness of the travellers, recognized, to his surprise, a lieutenant whom he had known some years previously, and afterwards lost sight of.
General Barter remembered his former acquaintance as a clean-shaven normal young man—this was a dead face, its ghastly pallor and its encircling dark fringe of hair accentuated by the tropical moonlight, which made the night as bright as noonday; the body was more or less bloated. And the general, startled, but not scared, rushed up the steep bank to investigate for himself.
Unfortunately, more haste and less speed resulted in General Barter falling forward in the loose earth, but he eventually stood near the place where he had first seen the waiting group-there was now not a trace of anybody. As the direct road stopped at a precipice twenty yards further on the general, retracing his steps, ran down the road to warn the little party, only to find no one in sight.
Puzzled and annoyed by an occurrence for which he could give no explanation, and finding it impossible to get the "face" out of his mind, General Barter sought out a friend of the lieutenant, and gradually brought the conversation round to his name.
Said he: "How stout B. has become lately, and whatever possesses him to wear a beard in the ugly 'fringe' fashion?"
His friend stared at him.
"How stout B. has become lately, and why does he sport such an ugly beard? My dear fellow...don't you know that B. belongs definitely to the past, and hasn't any present, so far as we, and himself, are concerned?"
"At any rate", replied the general, "I saw him last night, riding a dark brown stocky pony, with a logged mane and tail.
"Impossible, or, if it be true, you've seen two ghosts!" exclaimed his genuinely surprised brother officer. "Why, B. has been dead a couple of years, and you certainly never set eyes on the pony during its lifetime. Perhaps I'd better explain. You know, as well as I do, that B. exceeded any kind of speed limit moral or otherwise, so what with drink and the seven devils which possessed him, he gradually became as swollen as a drowned dog. When he was on the sick list, he allowed his beard to grow sa hideous face fringe, in spite of anything we could say, and he took the fringe with him to the grave.
"As for the pony, which you never saw, as a pony, B. bought him in Peshawar, and it killed him one day when he was riding ultra-recklessly down the Trete Hill. And now, for the Lord's sake, tell me your story.
The general related all that had happened on the previous evening, and the two officers were at a loss to account for the phenomena, especially as they had never been really intimate with the dead man.
Once again truth is stranger than fiction, as well as proving the insistence of the supernatural in ordinary life, although the reason for such a manifestation occurring to someone who was not interested in the one who had passed on” is incomprehensible. But as there still remains so much to make dear in the whys and wherefores of psychic phenomena, we must leave it at that, knowing that in the life after death, those who live on this side of the grave retain their identity in the other world, and there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed."