a
small burrow near the Colonnade, and turned into a mean house where the
paper lantern still burned in token that the owners were awake. It was
quite clean inside, and divided into large cubicles. In each cubicle was
a table, covered with oilcloth, at the head of which was placed a red
lacquer pillow and a little glass lamp that gave the only light needed
in the long, low room. On the tables lay Burmen and Chinamen, some rigid
in drugged sleep, and some smoking immense pipes with small, cup-like
receptacles that held the opium. The proprietor was alert and wakeful as
he flitted about, an American cigarette between his lips, in this
strange garden of sleep.

"I am weary," said Leh Shin. "Let me rest here."

"It is great honour," replied the small, wizened old man, with the
laugh. "What of thine own house by the river?"

"My limbs fail me. To-night my assistant supplies the needs of those who
ask, for I had a business."

"And I trust thy business hath prospered with thee?"

Leh Shin stretched himself out on a table near the door.

"I await the hour of prosperity,"--he twisted a needle in the brown mass
that was offered to him and held it over the lamp. "Evil are the days of
a life whilst an old grudge burns like hot charcoal in the heart."

"It is even so," agreed the proprietor, and he hurried away from the
noose of talk that Leh Shin would have cast around him.

The beggar, having followed Leh Shin as far as the opium den, returned
along the Colonnade and knocked at the door of the house where Shiraz
waited anxiously for his master.

"Is my bath prepared, Shiraz? I must wash before I sleep, and I shall
sleep late."

Coryndon was weary. No one who has not watched through hours of strain
and suspense knows the utter weariness of mind and body that follows
upon the long effort of close attention, and he fell upon his bed in a
huddled heap and slept for hour after hour, worn out in brain and body.

XVII

TELLS HOW CORYNDON LEARNS FROM THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH WHAT THE REV.
FRANCIS HEATH NEVER TOLD HIM.

When Coryndon sat up in his bed, and recalled himself with a jerk from
the drowsiness of night to the wakefulness of broad daylight, he called
Shiraz to give to him instructions.

After dark, his master told him, he was going to return to the
Cantonments, and during his absence there were some matters which he had
decided to leave unreservedly in the hands of Shiraz. He was to
cultivate his acquaint