We did not eat our fill at the first shop. To have done so would have been to leave the keeper a pauper. When our hunger had been somewhat allayed, we rose to our feet.
“I’m sorry to work this phony game on you, old girl,” said James, “but I know you couldn’t cash a check—”
“Nămelay-voo?” cried the personage thus disrespectfully addressed, and the family smile broadened and spread to the family ears. We caught up the knapsack and walked rapidly away; for well we knew the agonized screams that would greet our perfidy and the menacing mob that would gather at our heels. Four steps we had taken, and still no outcry. We hurried on, not daring to look back. Suddenly a roar of laughter sounded behind us. I glanced over my shoulder. Not a man pursued us. The family still squatted on the bamboo floor of the booth, doubled up and shaking with mirth.
We levied on the shopkeepers whenever hunger assailed us thereafter, though never eating more than two or three cents’ worth at any one stall. Never a merchant showed anger at our rascality. So excellent a joke did our ruse seem to the natives that laughter rang out behind us at every sortie. Nay, many a shopkeeper called us back and forced upon us handfuls of the best fruit in his meager little stock, guffawing the while until the tears ran down his cheeks, and calling his neighbors about him to tell them the jest, that they might laugh with him. And they did. More than once we left an entire village shaking its sides at the trick which the two witty sahibs had played upon it.
When night came on we appropriated lodgings in the same high-handed fashion, stretching out on the veranda of the most pretentious shop in a long, straggling village. Unfortunately, the wretch who kept it was no true Burman. A dozen times he came out to growl at us, and to answer our questions with an angry “nămelay-voo.” Darkness fell swiftly. It was the hour of closing. The merchant began to drag out boards from under his shanty and to stand them up endwise across the open front of the shop, fitting them into grooves at top and bottom. When only a narrow opening was left, he turned upon us with a snarl and motioned to us to be off. We paid no heed, for so fierce an evening storm had begun that the shop lamp lighted up an unbroken sheet of water at the edge of the veranda. The shopkeeper blustered and howled to make his voice heard above the rumble of the torrent, waving his arms wildly above his head. We stretched our aching legs and let him rage on. He fell silent at last and squatted disconsolately in the opening. He could have put up the last board and left us outside, but that would have been to disobey the ancient Buddhist law of hospitality.
A half-hour had passed when he sprang up suddenly with a grunt of satisfaction and stepped into his dwelling. When he came out he carried a lantern and wore a black, waterproof sheet that hid all but a narrow strip of his face and his bare feet. Bellowing in our ears, he began a pantomime that we understood to be an offer to lead us to some other shelter.
“Let’s risk it,” said James. “This is no downy couch, and he’s probably going to take us to a Buddhist monastery. If he tries any tricks we’ll stick to him and come back.”
We stepped into the deluge and followed the native along the highway in the direction we had come. The storm increased. It was not a mere matter of getting wet. There was not a dry thread on us when we had taken four steps. But the torrent, falling on our bowed backs, weighed us down like a mighty burden, a sensation one may experience under an especially strong shower bath.
Mile after mile the native trotted on; it seemed at least ten, certainly it was three. The mud, oozing into our dilapidated shoes during the day, had blistered our feet to the ankles; our legs creaked with every step. The Australian fell behind. I stumbled over a knoll and sprawled into a river of mud that spattered even into my eyes. A bellow brought the Burman to a halt. I splashed forward and grasped him by a wrist.
“Hold him!” howled James from the rear. “The bloody ass will take us clear back to Pegu. There’s a house down there. Let’s try it.”