to-night, so none may enter. There is a
password, but I alone know it, and I may not tell it, friend of an evil
man."

"There are other nights," whined the Burman, "many of them in the
passing of a year. When I have the knowledge of thee, then may I seek
and find later." He rubbed his knees with an indescribable gesture of
mean cringing.

The Chinese boy drank from the bottle and smacked his lips.

"Hear, then, thou convict," he said in a shrill hectoring voice. "By the
way of Paradise Street, along the wharf and past the waste place where
the tram-line ends and the houses stand far apart. Of the houses of
commerce, I do not speak; of the mat houses where the Coringyhis live, I
do not speak, but beyond them, open below to the water-snakes, and built
above into a secret place, is the house we know of, but Leh Shin is not
there for thee to-night, as I have already spoken."

He felt in the pouch at his waist for a rank black cigar, which he
pushed into his mouth and lighted with a sulphur match.

"Who fries the mud fish when he may eat roast duck?" he said, with a
harsh cackle that made the Burman start and stare at him.

"_Aie! Aie!_ I do not understand thy words." The Burman's face grew
blank and he went to the door.

"Neither do you need to, son of a chained monkey," retorted the boy,
full of strong liquor and arrogance. "But I tell thee, I and my mate,
Leh Shin, hold more than money between the finger and the thumb,"--he
pinched his forefinger against a mutilated thumb. "More than money,
see, fool; thou understandest nothing, thy brain is left along with thy
chains in the Island which is known unto thee."

"Sleep well," said the Burman. "Sleep well, child of the Heavens, I
understand thee not at all," and with a limp shrug of his shoulders, he
slid out of the narrow door into the night.

Coryndon gave one glance at the sky; the dawn was still far off, but in
spite of this he ran up the deserted colonnade and walked quickly down
Paradise Street, which was still awake and would be awake for hours.
Once clear of the lessening crowd and on to the wharf, he ran again;
past the business houses, past the long quarter where the Coringyhis and
coolie-folk lived, and, lastly, with a slow, lurking step, to the close
vicinity of a house standing alone upon high supports. He skirted round
it, but to all appearances it was closed and empty, and he sat down
behind a clump of rough elephant-grass and tucked his heels under h