He knew that the door had been unlocked and that a light travelled in, held by a strange Burman, and that his terror of Leh Shin had made him see things strangely, as though from a long way off; until, at the last, the police had come and knocked the chain off his leg, and someone had told him that his master was dead and had been found hanging in the shop.

Absalom’s face quivered and he began to whimper.

“And now my master is dead, and never in Mangadone shall I find such another who will care for me and give me the pleasant life in Paradise Street.”

Hartley handed the boy some money.

“Take him away,” he said to the Bearer.  “You have told your story very well, Absalom.”

He looked across at Coryndon when the room was empty, but Coryndon was fiddling with some crumbs at the edge of the table.

“Madness is the real explanation, I suppose,” he said tentatively.  “Madness and obsession.”

“Obsession,” echoed Coryndon.  “That word explains almost every inexplicable act in life.”  He took up a knife and held it level on his palm.  “There you have the normal condition, but once one end swings up you get Genius and all the Arts, or madness and crime and the obsession of one idea:  one definite, over-mastering idea that drives every force harnessed to its car.”

He got up and stretched his arms, and walked out through the veranda into his room, where Shiraz was folding his clothes and laying them in an open portmanteau.  The old servant stood up and made a low salaam to his master.

“When the sun is down the wise traveller hurries to the Serai,” Coryndon said to him.  “I leave to-night for Madras, Shiraz, and you with me.”

“The end of all things is just, Huzoor,” replied the old man, a strange light of reflection in his dim pebble-like eyes.  “Is it not written that none may rise so high, or plunge so deep, that he does not follow the hidden path to the hidden end?  For like a wind that goes and returns never, or the shadow of a cloud passing over the desert, is the destiny of a man.”

GLOSSARY

Almirah                A press
Babu                   A clerk
Butti                  Lamp
Charpoy                Bed
Chota haziri           (Little breakfast) Early morning tea
Dhobie                 Washerman
Durwan                 Watchman
Ghee                   Butter
Gharry                 Cab
Gaudama                Buddha
Htee                   Topmost pinnacle
Hypongyi               Priests
Inshallah, Huzoor      God give you fortune, Prince
Joss                   A god
Khitmutghar            Footman
Loongyi                Petticoat
Napi                   Rotten fish
Nats                   Tree spirits
Pani walla             Water carrier
Pwe                    Feast