Two Strange Tales

So speaks a character in Two Strange Tales, a pair of novellas in which Westerners are caught up in the uncanny realm of Eastern religion and magic. In "Nights at Serampore, " three European scholars, traveling deep in the forests of Bengal, are inexplicably cast into another time and space where they witness the violent murder of a young Hindu wife. In "The Secret of Dr. Honigberger, " a respectable Rumanian physician vanishes without a trace after experimenting with yogic techniques in his quest for the legendary invisible world called Shambhala.