"Closed to-night, follower of the Way," he said with a smothered noise like a strangled laugh. "Closed to-night. Every door shut, every light hidden, and those who go and demand the dreams cannot pass in. I, only, know the password, since my master receives high persons." He spat on the floor.
Coryndon bowed his head in passive subjection.
"None else know my quantity," he murmured. "These thieves in the lesser streets would mix me a poison and do me evil."
The assistant scratched his head diligently and looked doubtfully at the Burman.
"And yet I cannot remember thy face."
"I have been away up the big river. I have travelled far to that Island, where I, with other innocent ones, suffered for no fault of mine."
Leh Shin's assistant looked satisfied. If the Burman were but lately returned from the convict settlement on the Andaman Islands, it was quite likely that he might not have been acquainted with him.
To all appearances, the bargain being concluded, and Leh Shin being absent from the shop, there was nothing further to keep the customer, yet he made no sign of wishing to leave, and, after a little preamble, he invited the assistant to drink with him, since, he explained, he needed company and had taken a fancy to the Chinese boy, who, in his turn, admitted to a liking for any man who was prepared to entertain him free of expense. Leh Shin's assistant could not leave the shop for another hour, so the Burman, who did not appear inclined to wait so long, went out swiftly, and came back with a bottle of native spirit.
Fired by the fumes of the potent and burning alcohol, the Chinaman became inquisitive, and wished to hear the details of the crime for which his new friend had so wrongfully suffered. He looked so evil, so greasy, and so utterly loathsome that he seemed to fascinate the Burman, who rocked himself about and moaned as he related the story of his wrong. His words so excited the ghoulish interest of his listener that his bloated body quivered as he drank in the details.
"And so ends the tale of his great evil; he that was my friend," said Coryndon, rising from his heels as he finished his story. "The hour grows late and there is no comfort in the night, since I may not find oblivion." He passed his hand stupidly over his forehead. "My memory is lost, flapping like an owl in the sunlight; once the road to the house by the river lay before me as the lines upon my open palm, but now the way is no longer clear."