"I have said that it is closed 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 him.