"Can you help me put it on my back?" he asked.
"Don't try to do that, Shaban. We will carry it together." The Pasha took hold of the other handle. When they got as far as the outer door he let down his end. It was not light. "Wait a minute, Shaban. Let us shut up the kiosque, so that no one will notice anything." He went back to blow out the candles. Then he thought of the fountain. He caught a play of broken images in the pool as he turned off the water. When he had put out the lights and had groped his way to the door he found that Shaban was already gone with the chest. A last drop of water made a strange echo behind him in the dark kiosque. He locked the door and hurried after Shaban, who had succeeded in getting the chest on his back. Nor would Shaban let the Pasha help him till they came to the edge of the wood. There, carrying the chest between them, they stumbled through the trees to the place that was ready.
"Now we must be careful," said the Pasha. "It might slip or get stuck."
"But are you going to bury the box too?" demanded Shaban, for the first time showing surprise.
"Yes," answered the Pasha. And he added: "It is the box I want to get rid of."
"It is a pity," remarked Shaban regretfully. "It is a very good box. However, you know. Now then!"
There was a scraping and a muffled thud, followed by a fall of earth and small stones on wood. The Pasha wondered if he would hear anything else. But first one and then another nightingale began to fill the night air with their April madness.
"Ah, there are two of them," remarked Shaban. "She will take the one that says the sweetest things to her."
The Pasha's reply was to throw a spadeful of earth on the chest. Shaban joined him with such vigour that the hole was very soon full.
"We are old, my Pasha, but we are good for something yet," said Shaban. "I will hide the shovels here in the bushes," he added, "and early in the morning I will come again, before any of those lazy gardeners are up, and fix it so that no one will ever know."