Chapters 22, 23 and 24 Summary

The piano is strapped to a raft and sent down the river with Edgar and two boys called Seing To and Tint Naing. Nok Lek goes ahead in a dugout to scout the way. At first the trip is peaceful, then they hit rapids. Afterwards they stop at an abandoned and half-burnt village. Edgar asks the boys what they will do, and they say they will return to Mae Lwin to help the others rebuild or move on. This is the Shan way. Tint Naing thinks Edgar will also return to Mae Lwin because Khin Myo is his sweetheart. Edgar protests, and tells them about his wife Katherine back in London. Seing To, through Nok Lek's translation, tells Edgar about a Burman belief in which a person's soul, called a 'leip-bya', is like a moth; it flies around at night, making...