That would be no profit for Mahbub ; and ' -- he giggled almost aloud -- ' I do not remember any lesson at Nucklao which will help me . Allah ! Here is Kim and yonder are they . First , then , Kim must wake and go away , so that they shall not suspect . A bad dream wakes a man -- thus -- ' He threw the blanket off his face , and raised himself suddenly with the terrible , bubbling , meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by nightmare . ` Urr-urr-urr-urr ! Ya-la-la-la-la ! Narain ! The churel ! The churel ! ' A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in child-bed . She haunts lonely roads , her feet are turned backwards on the ankles , and she leads men to torment . Louder rose Kim 's quavering howl , till at last he leaped to his feet and staggered off sleepily , while the camp cursed him for waking them . Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down again , taking care that the whisperers should hear his grunts and groans as he recomposed himself . After a few minutes he rolled towards the road and stole away into the thick darkness . He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert , and dropped behind it , his chin on a level with the coping-stone . Here he could command all the night-traffic , himself unseen . Two or three carts passed , jingling out to the suburbs ; a coughing policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off evil spirits . Then rapped the shod feet of a horse . ` Ah !
This is more like XXXXX , ' thought Kim , as the beast shied at the little head above the culvert .
Asiatic First Mahbub Narain Urr-urr-urr-urr churel coping-stone culvert foot-passenger minutes