end, to make my peace," said Leh Shin, with an
immovable face. "On the night when the moon is full, I am minded to do
so."

His words were carried back to Mhtoon Pah, who pondered over them,
wondering what the Chinaman meant, finding something sinister in the
sound that added to his rage against his enemy.

The day of the feast was dark and overcast, and the inhabitants of
Paradise Street looked at the sky with great misgiving, but the curio
dealer refused to be alarmed.

"The night will be fine, for I have greatly propitiated the _Nats_," he
said with conviction, and he lolled and smoked in his chair at an
earlier hour than was usual with him.

Even as he had said, the evening began to clear, and by sunset the heavy
clouds were all dispersed. A red sunset unfolded itself in a scroll of
fire across the sky, and Mangadone looked as though it was illuminated
by the flames of a conflagration. A strange evening, some said then, and
many said after. Even the pointing man lost his jaundice-yellow and
seemed to blush as he pointed up the steps. He had nothing to blush for.
His master was at the summit of his power. The _Hypongyis_ lauded him
openly in the streets, and he was giving a feast at the Temple at which
the poorest would not be forgotten.

Yet Mhtoon Pah was not altogether easy. His eyes rolled strangely from
time to time, and it was remarked by several that he walked to the end
of Paradise Street and looked down the Colonnade of the Chinese quarter,
standing there in thought. Old stories of the feud between him and Leh
Shin were recalled in whispers and passed about.

The red of the sunset died out into rose-pink, and the effect of colour
in the very air faded and dwindled. People were already dressed out in
gala clothing, and streaming towards the Pagoda. The giver of the feast
did not start with them. He sat in his chair, and then withdrew into his
shop. A light travelled from thence to the upper story, and then with
slow hesitation, Mhtoon Pah came out by the front of the house and
locked the clamped padlock. He stood still for a few minutes, and then
he gasped and shook his fist at the empty air, and he, too, took his way
across the bridge and was lost in the shadows.

Still the stream from Wharf Street and the confluent streets flowed on
up Paradise Street, and gradually only the maimed and the aged, or the
impossibly youthful, were left behind, to hear of the wonders afterwards
at secondhand, a secondha