As this “homeless-ghost” was then famous and well known to every prominent ghost because of my cry which was a very lofty music for them, so one day, a famous ghost whose mother had died when all the eyes of all the creatures were still on their knees invited all the ghosts of his kind to his house as all the same kinds of ghosts are living in the same town and called the homeless-ghost to hear the music which would be the most important part for the ceremony of his mother’s birthday. But after all the invitees had gathered to his house, and ate and drank to their satisfaction, then the homeless-ghost knocked the wood as a sign, so I started to cry from that morning till the evening, but as I never eat or drink since the night he had corked me inside the hole, then my voice was entirely stiffened or dead. I was unable to cry any more, and as all these invitees had eaten and drunk to excess, and still eager to hear my cry, so after the whole of them with the “homeless-ghost” who carried me to that town had tried all their efforts to make me cry and failed, then he started to split the wood into two with an axe. Luckily when the wood was half broken the snake first found his way out as he was thinner than me and when visible to these ghosts unexpectedly all of them ran furiously to the house of the famous ghost who invited them and hid there. But as the wood had already nearly broken into two, so I tried my best and found my way out as well and without hesitation I ran into a far bush and hid there before they came back and it was already empty, so it was this time they knew that it was a person crying in it.
This is how I escaped from the “homeless-ghost” who was carrying me about, and before the dawn I had travelled very far away from that town and then entered into another town and started a new life with new ghosts. Immediately I entered this town I went round it and saw a ghost who only resembled earthly people among all ghosts who were living there. Then I entered his house, I saluted him with respect and he answered me exactly as an earthly person. He gave me a seat at once. After that I asked him to give me food as I did not eat anything since I escaped from the “homeless-ghost” who was carrying me about, but as he was a kind ghost he gave me the food without any question.
After I ate the food to my satisfaction and rested for some minutes, then I asked him whether he is an earthly person as I was doubting, he replied thus—“I am and I am not.” But as I did not know which is to be held as the truth in these two answers, so I told him that I do not understand what he means by “I am and I am not.” When heard so from me he started his story and also the story of that town as follows:
“You see, the whole of us in this town are burglars and we have burgled uncountable earthly women in every earthly town, country and village. You earthly person, listen to me well, I shall tell you how we are burgling earthly women today. If an earthly woman conceives we would choose one of us to go to her at night and after the woman has slept then he would use his invisible power to change himself to the good baby that the woman would be delivered of whenever it is time. But after he has driven out the good baby and entered into the woman’s womb, he would remain there and when it is time the woman would deliver him instead of the good baby which had been driven out; and the wonderful secret which all the earthly persons do not understand is that before two or three months that the woman bore him, he would develop rapidly as a year and an half old baby and would be very attractive to everyone, particularly the woman who bore him, as a good or superior baby. Having developed to that attractive state he would start to pretend to be sick continuously, but as he is very attractive to this woman, then she will be spending a lot of money on him to heal the sickness and also sacrificing to all kinds of gods. As this inferior baby has invisible power or supernatural power, so all the money spent on him and also the sacrifices would be his own and all would be stored into a secret place with the help of his invisible power.
“But after the woman has spent all she has and become poor, then one night he would pretend as if he has died, so the woman who bore him as a superior baby, her family and other sympathisers would be saying thus: ‘Ah! that fine baby dies’, but they do not know that he is not a superior baby. They would bury him as a dead baby, but the earthly persons do not know that he does not die but simply stops breath. But after he is buried, then he would come out of the grave at midnight, then he would go direct to the secret place where all the moneys and the sacrifices as sheep, goats, pigeons and fowls, all would be alive and are stored by his invisible power, and he would carry them to this town. So you earthly person, if you reach your earthly town and if you hear that a woman is delivering babies who die always or continuously, then believe, we are those babies and all the earthly people are calling such a baby ‘born and die’. But if you do not believe this story if a ‘born and die’ baby dies from a woman, after he is buried, watch the grave in which he is buried and after the second day try and go to that grave and dig it out; you would be very surprised that he would not be found there any more, but he has come back to this town. We have no other work to perform more than this in this town, so the whole of us in this town are called ‘Burglar-ghosts’.” But after he told me the story of their town and also about the “born and die babies” I was very impressed and surprised. He told me too that the whole of them are feeding on anything that earthly people have and said further that this is the meaning of “I am and I am not” when I first asked him whether he is an earthly person, because they were living as earthly persons and also as ghosts.
After he related the secret of the “born and die babies”, then he asked me whether I should be living with him in that town and I said “yes”, so he gave me a separate room in his house. But as I was living with this “burglar-ghost” and he was taking great care of me as if he was my father and mother, so one day, he told me that I should take care of everything in the house and said that he would go to a certain town which belongs to earthly people tonight, he said that he would return in ten months’ time. Because he had told me before that he would try the wonderful invisible power once in my presence before I would leave him to believe all his saying. Of course as he told me like that I did not believe him at all and I did not know what he was going to do in that earthly town and also I did not know the name of the right earthly town he was going to. So when it was about one o’clock in the midnight he became invisible to me, because I did not see him walk out from the house on foot, so it remained me alone at home. But after he became invisible or gone away, I was playing about in this town as I could not stay at home always, but as it is not hard or very easy for a young boy to get a friend of his rank, by that I became a tight friend with a young ghost whose father was a rich ghost and also a native of that town when I was playing around the town. This young ghost taught me how to speak some simple ghosts’ language. Of course I was unable to speak it fluently at that time. Both of us were playing about in the town in such a way that I did not remember to start to find the way to my home town again. But one night at about one o’clock in the midnight when I slept I heard somebody knocking the door of that house, when I opened this door which was a heavy flat stone it was this burglar-ghost who had gone ten months ago. Then he entered with bales of sewn clothes, sheep, goats, pigeons, fowls, all were still alive and moneys with all other used expensive articles. But when he loosened these bales of clothes there I saw plainly many clothes which belonged to my friends and my mother in my town that were among these clothes and was also surprised to see many clothes which my mother just bought for me and my brother before the war scattered all of us. After the second day that he came we killed all the fowls, pigeons, goats and sheep for the rest burglar-ghosts of this town for his good luck as he returned safely with many expensive articles. And when I saw all that he brought and also my own and my brother’s properties, then I believed his story which he told me before he went away. Of course I could not ask him how he managed to get the clothes which belonged to me and my brother as I was too young to ask him such questions, so I left them for him and he sold all to another kind of ghosts who had no invisible power to do such work, but I ate those animals with them.
As I had already become tight friends with that young ghost before he returned from the earthly town, so one day this my young ghost friend told me to accompany him to his mother’s town which was about twenty miles away from that burglar-ghosts’ town, his mother was born and bred in this town which is the 8th town of ghosts. Having reached there his mother gave us food and drinks, and when we ate and drank to our satisfaction, then we were playing all about in the town with the other young ghosts of our ranks that we met there, but as we were playing about there I saw a very beautiful young ghostess, then I told my friend that I want to marry her, so my friend told her and also recommended me highly to her, so by that she agreed at the same time, but as her father was famous and prominent in that town, so he arranged the wedding day for the ghosts’ next wedding day which was about nine days to come at that time as all the ghosts have a special day for marriage.