Yet Mhtoon Pah was not altogether easy.  His eyes rolled strangely from time to time, and it was remarked by several that he walked to the end of Paradise Street and looked down the Colonnade of the Chinese quarter, standing there in thought.  Old stories of the feud between him and Leh Shin were recalled in whispers and passed about.

The red of the sunset died out into rose-pink, and the effect of colour in the very air faded and dwindled.  People were already dressed out in gala clothing, and streaming towards the Pagoda.  The giver of the feast did not start with them.  He sat in his chair, and then withdrew into his shop.  A light travelled from thence to the upper story, and then with slow hesitation, Mhtoon Pah came out by the front of the house and locked the clamped padlock.  He stood still for a few minutes, and then he gasped and shook his fist at the empty air, and he, too, took his way across the bridge and was lost in the shadows.

Still the stream from Wharf Street and the confluent streets flowed on up Paradise Street, and gradually only the maimed and the aged, or the impossibly youthful, were left behind, to hear of the wonders afterwards at secondhand, a secondhand likely to add rather than detract from what actually took place.  Even the Colonnade was empty and silent.  Shiraz had gone with the crowd to see what might be seen, and Leh Shin’s assistant, furtive and watchful, and in great terror of the Burman’s knife, was also in the throng that climbed the Pagoda steps.

The moon that was to have shone on Mhtoon Pah’s feast rose in a yellow ring, and clouds came up, hazy, gaudy clouds that dimmed its light and made the shadows in the silent streets dense and heavy.  Usually there was a police guard at the corner where Paradise Street met the Colonnade, but that night Hartley considered the police would be more necessary in the neighbourhood of the Pagoda.  Mhtoon Pah did not think of this.  His conscience was easy, he had propitiated the Nats.

The Pagoda was one blaze of light, and a thousand candles flamed before every shrine; even the oldest and most neglected had its ring of light.  Small coloured lamps dotted the outlines of some of the booths, and the whole spectacle presented a moving mass of brilliant colour.  Sahibs had come there.  Hartley Sahib had agreed to appear for half an hour, and he too looked at the crowd with curious, travelling eyes.  Coryndon might be among them, and probably was, he thought, but in any case there was little chance of his recognizing him if he were.

Mhtoon Pah had not spared magnificent display, and the crowd told each other that it was indeed a night to remember in Mangadone.  Whispering winds came out and rang the Temple bells, but even when the breeze strengthened, the rain-clouds held off.  It became a matter for compliment and congratulation, and Mhtoon Pah accepted his friends’ flattery without pride.  He was a good man, a benefactor, a shrine-builder who followed “the Way” with zeal and fervour, and besides, he had propitiated Nats; Nats who blew up storms, caused earthquakes and were evilly disposed towards men.