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."

"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.