When he had finished unpacking, he laid a faded strip of brightly-coloured cotton on the bed, in company with a soiled jacket and a tattered silk head-scarf, and, as Shiraz made these preparations, Coryndon, with the aid of a few pigments in a tin box, altered his face beyond recognition.  He wore his hair longer than that of the average man, and, taking his hair-brushes, he brushed it back from his temples and tied a coarse hank of black hair to it, and knotted it at the back of his head.  He dressed quickly, his slight, spare form wound round the hips with a cotton loongyi, and he pulled on the coat over a thin, ragged vest, and sat down, while Shiraz tied the handkerchief around his head.

The art of make-up is, in itself, simple enough, but the very much more subtle art of expression is the gift of the very few.  It was hard to believe that the slightly foreign-looking young man with Oriental eyes could be the pock-marked, poverty-stricken Burman who stood in his place.

Slipping on a light overcoat, he pulled a large, soft hat over his head, and walked out quickly through the veranda.

“Now, then, Shiraz,” he called out in a quick, ill-tempered voice.  “Come along with the lamp.  Hang it; you know what I mean, the butti.  These infernal garden-paths are alive with snakes.”

Shiraz hastened after him, cringing visibly, and swinging a hurricane lamp as he went.  When they had got clear of the house and were near the gate, Coryndon spoke to him in a low voice.

“Pull my boots off my feet.”  Shiraz did as he was bidden and slipped his master’s feet into the leather sandals which he carried under his wide belt.  “Now take the coat and hat, and in due time I shall return, though not by day.  Let it be known that to-morrow we take our journey of seven days; and it may be that to-morrow we shall do so.”

“Inshallah,” murmured Shiraz, and returned to the house.

By night the streets of Mangadone were a sight that many legitimate trippers had turned out to witness.  The trams were crowded and the native shops flared with light, for the night is cool and the day hot and stifling; therefore, by night a large proportion of the inhabitants of Mangadone take their pleasure out of doors.  In the Berlin Cafe the little tables were crowded with those strange anomalies, black men and women in European clothes.  There had been a concert in the Presentation Hall, and the audience nearly all reassembled at the Berlin Cafe for light refreshments when the musical programme was concluded.

Paradise Street was not behindhand in the matter of entertainment:  there was a wedding festival in progress, and, at the modest cafe, a thick concourse of men talking and singing and enjoying life after their own fashion; only the house of Mhtoon Pah, the curio dealer, was dark, and it was before this house, close to the figure of the pointing man, that the weedy-looking Burman who had come out of Hartley’s compound stopped for a moment or two.  He did not appear to find anything to keep him there; the little man had nothing better to offer him than a closed door, and a closed door is a definite obstacle to anyone who is not a housebreaker, or the owner with a key in his pocket; so, at least, the Burman seemed to think, for he passed on up the street towards the river end.