---
title: "Burmese Days"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 24 of 25
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/24/
cite: "George Orwell, Burmese Days, section 24. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/24/"
---

# Burmese Days

*George Orwell*

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> _Title:_ Burmese Days
_Date of first publication:_ 1934
_Author:_ Eric Blair (as George Orwell) (1903-1950)
_Date first posted:_ May 21, 2018
_Date last updated:_ May 21, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180520

> This ebook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> [Cover Illustration]

> GEORGE  ORWELL

> Burmese  Days

> This desert inaccessible
               Under the shade of melancholy boughs.

> _As You Like It_

> First published in the USA by Harper & Brothers, New York 1934
           Published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz 1935

> Copyright 1934 by Eric Blair

> [Illustration: Map of Kyauktada]

> TRANSCRIBER NOTES

> Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

> Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.

> [The end of _Burmese Days_ by Eric Blair (as George Orwell)]

## 24. XXIV

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/24/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/24/#p-N

[¶0] It was nearly six o’clock in the evening, and the absurd bell in the
six-foot tin steeple of the church went clank-clank, clank-clank! as old
Mattu pulled the rope within. The rays of the setting sun, refracted by
distant rainstorms, flooded the _maidan_ with a beautiful, lurid light.
It had been raining earlier in the day, and would rain again. The
Christian community of Kyauktada, fifteen in number, were gathering at
the church door for the evening service.

[¶1] Flory was there already, and Mr Macgregor, grey topi and all, and Mr
Francis and Mr Samuel, frisking about in freshly-laundered drill
suits—for the six-weekly church service was the great social event of
their lives. The padre, a tall man with grey hair and a refined,
discoloured face, wearing pince-nez, was standing on the church steps in
his cassock and surplice, which he had put on in Mr Macgregor’s house.
He was smiling in an amiable but rather helpless way at four
pink-cheeked Karen Christians who had come up to make their bows to him;
for he did not speak a word of their language nor they of his. There was
one other Oriental Christian, a mournful, dark Indian of uncertain race,
who stood humbly in the background. He was always present at the church
services, but no one knew who he was or why he was a Christian.
Doubtless he had been captured and baptised in infancy by the
missionaries, for Indians who are converted when adults almost
invariably lapse.

[¶2] Flory could see Elizabeth coming down the hill, dressed in lilac-colour,
with her aunt and uncle. He had seen her that morning at the Club—they
had had just a minute alone together before the others came in. He had
only asked her one question.

[¶3] ‘Has Verrall gone—for good?’

[¶4] ‘Yes.’

[¶5] There had been no need to say any more. He had simply taken her by the
arms and drawn her towards him. She came willingly, even gladly—there
in the clear daylight, merciless to his disfigured face. For a moment
she had clung to him almost like a child. It was as though he had saved
her or protected her from something. He raised her face to kiss her, and
found with surprise that she was crying. There had been no time to talk
then, not even to say, ‘Will you marry me?’ No matter, after the service
there would be time enough. Perhaps at his next visit, only six weeks
hence, the padre would marry them.

[¶6] Ellis and Westfield and the new Military Policeman were approaching from
the Club, where they had been having a couple of quick ones to last them
through the service. The Forest Officer who had been sent to take
Maxwell’s place, a sallow, tall man, completely bald except for two
whisker-like tufts in front of his ears, was following them. Flory had
not time to say more than ‘Good evening’ to Elizabeth when she arrived.
Mattu, seeing that everyone was present, stopped ringing the bell, and
the clergyman led the way inside, followed by Mr Macgregor, with his
topi against his stomach, and the Lackersteens and the native
Christians. Ellis pinched Flory’s elbow and whispered boozily in his
ear:

[¶7] ‘Come on, line up. Time for the snivel-parade. Quick march!’

[¶8] He and the Military Policeman went in behind the others, arm-in-arm,
with a dancing step, the policeman, till they got inside, wagging his
fat behind in imitation of a _pwe_-dancer. Flory sat down in the same
pew as these two, opposite Elizabeth, on her right. It was the first
time that he had ever risked sitting with his birthmark towards her.
‘Shut your eyes and count twenty-five,’ whispered Ellis as they knelt
down, drawing a snigger from the policeman. Mrs Lackersteen had already
taken her place at the harmonium, which was no bigger than a
writing-desk. Mattu stationed himself by the door and began to pull the
punkah—it was so arranged that it only flapped over the front pews,
where the Europeans sat. Flo came nosing up the aisle, found Flory’s pew
and settled down underneath it. The service began.

[¶9] Flory was only attending intermittently. He was dimly aware of standing
and kneeling and muttering ‘Amen’ to interminable prayers, and of Ellis
nudging him and whispering blasphemies behind his hymn-book. But he was
too happy to collect his thoughts. Hell was yielding up Eurydice. The
yellow light flooded in through the open door, gilding the broad back of
Mr Macgregor’s silk coat like cloth-of-gold. Elizabeth, across the
narrow aisle, was so close to Flory that he could hear every rustle of
her dress and feel, as it seemed to him, the warmth of her body; yet he
would not look at her even once, lest the others should notice it. The
harmonium quavered bronchitically as Mrs Lackersteen struggled to pump
sufficient air into it with the sole pedal that worked. The singing was
a queer, ragged noise—an earnest booming from Mr Macgregor, a kind of
shamefaced muttering from the other Europeans, and from the back a loud,
wordless lowing, for the Karen Christians knew the tunes of the hymns
but not the words.

[¶10] They were kneeling down again. ‘More bloody knee-drill,’ Ellis
whispered. The air darkened, and there was a light patter of rain on the
roof; the trees outside rustled, and a cloud of yellow leaves whirled
past the window. Flory watched them through the chinks of his fingers.
Twenty years ago, on winter Sundays in his pew in the parish church at
Home, he used to watch the yellow leaves, as at this moment, drifting
and fluttering against leaden skies. Was it not possible, now, to begin
over again as though those grimy years had never touched him? Through
his fingers he glanced sidelong at Elizabeth, kneeling with her head
bent and her face hidden in her youthful, mottled hands. When they were
married, when they were married! What fun they would have together in
this alien yet kindly land! He saw Elizabeth in his camp, greeting him
as he came home tired from work and Ko S’la hurried from the tent with a
bottle of beer; he saw her walking in the forest with him, watching the
hornbills in the peepul trees and picking nameless flowers, and in the
marshy grazing-grounds, tramping through the cold-weather mist after
snipe and teal. He saw his home as she would remake it. He saw his
drawing-room, sluttish and bachelor-like no longer, with new furniture
from Rangoon, and a bowl of pink balsams like rosebuds on the table, and
books and watercolours and a black piano. Above all the piano! His mind
lingered upon the piano—symbol, perhaps because he was unmusical, of
civilised and settled life. He was delivered for ever from the sub-life
of the past decade—the debaucheries, the lies, the pain of exile and
solitude, the dealings with whores and moneylenders and pukka sahibs.

[¶11] The clergyman stepped to the small wooden lectern that also served as a
pulpit, slipped the band from a roll of sermon paper, coughed, and
announced a text. ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost. Amen.’

[¶12] ‘Cut it short, for Christ’s sake,’ murmured Ellis.

[¶13] Flory did not notice how many minutes passed. The words of the sermon
flowed peacefully through his head, an indistinct burbling sound, almost
unheard. When they were married, he was still thinking, when they were
married——

[¶14] Hullo! What was happening?

[¶15] The clergyman had stopped short in the middle of a word. He had taken
off his pince-nez and was shaking them with a distressed air at someone
in the doorway. There was a fearful, raucous scream.

[¶16] ‘_Pike-san pay-like! Pike-san pay-like!_’

[¶17] Everyone jumped in their seats and turned round. It was Ma Hla May. As
they turned she stepped inside the church and shoved old Mattu violently
aside. She shook her fist at Flory.

[¶18] ‘_Pike-san pay-like! Pike-san pay-like!_ Yes, _that’s_ the one I
mean—Flory, Flory!’ (She pronounced it Porley.) ‘That one sitting in
front there, with black hair! Turn round and face me, you coward! Where
is the money you promised me?’

[¶19] She was shrieking like a maniac. The people gaped at her, too astounded
to move or speak. Her face was grey with powder, her greasy hair was
tumbling down, her _longyi_ was ragged at the bottom. She looked like a
screaming hag of the bazaar. Flory’s bowels seemed to have turned to
ice. Oh God, God! Must they know—must Elizabeth know—that _that_ was
the woman who had been his mistress? But there was not a hope, not the
vestige of a hope, of any mistake. She had screamed his name over and
over again. Flo, hearing the familiar voice, wriggled from under the
pew, walked down the aisle and wagged her tail at Ma Hla May. The
wretched woman was yelling out a detailed account of what Flory had done
to her.

[¶20] ‘Look at me, you white men, and you women too, look at me! Look how he
has ruined me! Look at these rags I am wearing! And he sitting there,
the liar, the coward, pretending not to see me! He would let me starve
at his gate like a pariah dog. Ah, but I will shame you! Turn round and
look at me! Look at this body that you have kissed a thousand
times—look—look——’

[¶21] She began actually to tear her clothes open—the last insult of a
base-born Burmese woman. The harmonium squeaked as Mrs Lackersteen made
a convulsive movement. People had at last found their wits and begun to
stir. The clergyman, who had been bleating ineffectually, recovered his
voice. ‘Take that woman outside!’ he said sharply.

[¶22] Flory’s face was ghastly. After the first moment he had turned his head
away from the door and set his teeth in a desperate effort to look
unconcerned. But it was useless, quite useless. His face was as yellow
as bone, and the sweat glistened on his forehead. Francis and Samuel,
doing perhaps the first useful deed of their lives, suddenly sprang from
their pew, grabbed Ma Hla May by the arms and hauled her outside, still
screaming.

[¶23] It seemed very silent in the church when they had finally dragged her
out of hearing. The scene had been so violent, so squalid, that everyone
was upset by it. Even Ellis looked disgusted. Flory could neither speak
nor stir. He sat staring fixedly at the altar, his face rigid and so
bloodless that the birthmark seemed to glow upon it like a streak of
blue paint. Elizabeth glanced across the aisle at him, and her revulsion
made her almost physically sick. She had not understood a word of what
Ma Hla May was saying, but the meaning of the scene was perfectly clear.
The thought that he had been the lover of that grey-faced maniacal
creature made her shudder in her bones. But worse than that, worse than
anything, was his ugliness at this moment. His face appalled her, it was
so ghastly, rigid and old. It was like a skull. Only the birthmark
seemed alive in it. She hated him now for his birthmark. She had never
known till this moment how dishonouring, how unforgivable a thing it
was.

[¶24] Like the crocodile, U Po Kyin had struck at the weakest spot. For,
needless to say, this scene was U Po Kyin’s doing. He had seen his
chance, as usual, and tutored Ma Hla May for her part with considerable
care. The clergyman brought his sermon to an end almost at once. As soon
as it was over Flory hurried outside, not looking at any of the others.
It was getting dark, thank God. At fifty yards from the church he
halted, and watched the others making in couples for the Club. It seemed
to him that they were hurrying. Ah, they would, of course! There would
be something to talk about at the Club tonight! Flo rolled belly-upwards
against his ankles, asking for a game. ‘Get out, you bloody brute!’ he
said, and kicked her. Elizabeth had stopped at the church door. Mr
Macgregor, happy chance, seemed to be introducing her to the clergyman.
In a moment the two men went on in the direction of Mr Macgregor’s
house, where the clergyman was to stay for the night, and Elizabeth
followed the others, thirty yards behind them. Flory ran after her and
caught up with her almost at the Club gate.

[¶25] ‘Elizabeth!’

[¶26] She looked round, saw him, turned white, and would have hurried on
without a word. But his anxiety was too great, and he caught her by the
wrist.

[¶27] ‘Elizabeth! I must—I’ve got to speak to you!’

[¶28] ‘Let me go, will you!’

[¶29] They began to struggle, and then stopped abruptly. Two of the Karens who
had come out of the church were standing fifty yards away, gazing at
them through the half-darkness with deep interest. Flory began again in
a lower tone:

[¶30] ‘Elizabeth, I know I’ve no right to stop you like this. But I must speak
to you, I must! Please hear what I’ve got to say. Please don’t run away
from me!’

[¶31] ‘What are you doing? Why are you holding on to my arm? Let me go this
instant!’

[¶32] ‘I’ll let you go—there, look! But do listen to me, please! Answer me
this one thing. After what’s happened, can you ever forgive me?’

[¶33] ‘Forgive you? What do you mean, _forgive_ you?’

[¶34] ‘I know I’m disgraced. It was the vilest thing to happen! Only, in a
sense it wasn’t my fault. You’ll see that when you’re calmer. Do you
think—not now, it was too bad, but later—do you think you can forget
it?’

[¶35] ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. “Forget it?” What has it
got to do with _me_? I thought it was very disgusting, but it’s not _my_
business. I can’t think why you’re questioning me like this at all.’

[¶36] He almost despaired at that. Her tone and even her words were the very
ones she had used in that earlier quarrel of theirs. It was the same
move over again. Instead of hearing him out she was going to evade him
and put him off—snub him by pretending that he had no claim upon her.

[¶37] ‘Elizabeth! Please answer me. Please be fair to me! It’s serious this
time. I don’t expect you to take me back all at once. You couldn’t, when
I’m publicly disgraced like this. But after all, you virtually promised
to marry me—’

[¶38] ‘What! Promised to marry you? _When_ did I promise to marry you?’

[¶39] ‘Not in words, I know. But it was understood between us.’

[¶40] ‘Nothing of the kind was understood between us! I think you are behaving
in the most horrible way. I’m going along to the Club at once. Good
evening!’

[¶41] ‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Listen. It’s not fair to condemn me unheard. You
knew before what I’d done and you knew that I’d lived a different life
since I met you. What happened this evening was only an accident. That
wretched woman, who, I admit, was once my—well——’

[¶42] ‘I won’t listen, I won’t listen to such things! I’m going!’

[¶43] He caught her by the wrists again, and this time held her. The Karens
had disappeared, fortunately.

[¶44] ‘No, no, you shall hear me! I’d rather offend you to the heart than have
this uncertainty. It’s gone on week after week, month after month, and
I’ve never once been able to speak straight out to you. You don’t seem
to know or care how much you make me suffer. But this time you’ve got to
answer me.’

[¶45] She struggled in his grip, and she was surprisingly strong. Her face was
more bitterly angry than he had ever seen or imagined it. She hated him
so that she would have struck him if her hands were free.

[¶46] ‘Let me go! Oh, you beast, you beast, let me go!’

[¶47] ‘My God, my God, that we should fight like this! But what else can I do?
I can’t let you go without even hearing me. Elizabeth, you _must_ listen
to me!’

[¶48] ‘I will not! I will not discuss it! What right have you to question me?
Let me go!’

[¶49] ‘Forgive me, forgive me! This one question. Will you—not now, but
later, when this vile business is forgotten—will you marry me?’

[¶50] ‘No, never, never!’

[¶51] ‘Don’t say it like that! Don’t make it final. Say no for the present if
you like—but in a month, a year, five years——’

[¶52] ‘Haven’t I said no? Why must you keep on and on?’

[¶53] ‘Elizabeth, listen to me. I’ve tried again and again to tell you what
you mean to me—oh, it’s so useless talking about it! But do try and
understand. Haven’t I told you something of the life we live here? The
sort of horrible death-in-life! The decay, the loneliness, the
self-pity? Try and realise what it means, and that you’re the sole
person on earth who could save me from it.’

[¶54] ‘Will you let me go? Why do you have to make this dreadful scene?’

[¶55] ‘Does it mean nothing to you when I say that I love you? I don’t believe
you’ve ever realised what it is that I want from you. If you like, I’d
marry you and promise never even to touch you with my finger. I wouldn’t
mind even that, so long as you were with me. But I can’t go on with my
life alone, always alone. Can’t you bring yourself ever to forgive me?’

[¶56] ‘Never, never! I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.
I’d as soon marry the—the sweeper!’

[¶57] She had begun crying now. He saw that she meant what she said. The tears
came into his own eyes. He said again:

[¶58] ‘For the last time. Remember that it’s something to have one person in
the world who loves you. Remember that though you’ll find men who are
richer, and younger, and better in every way than I, you’ll never find
one who cares for you so much. And though I’m not rich, at least I could
make you a home. There’s a way of living—civilised, decent——’

[¶59] ‘Haven’t we said enough?’ she said more calmly. ‘Will you let me go
before somebody comes?’

[¶60] He relaxed his grip on her wrists. He had lost her, that was certain.
Like a hallucination, painfully clear, he saw again their home as he had
imagined it; he saw their garden, and Elizabeth feeding Nero and the
pigeons on the drive by the sulphur-yellow phloxes that grew as high as
her shoulder; and the drawing-room, with the watercolours on the walls,
and the balsams in the china bowl mirrored by the table, and the
bookshelves, and the black piano. The impossible, mythical piano—symbol
of everything that that futile accident had wrecked!

[¶61] ‘You should have a piano,’ he said despairingly.

[¶62] ‘I don’t play the piano.’

[¶63] He let her go. It was no use continuing. She was no sooner free of him
than she took to her heels and actually ran into the Club garden, so
hateful was his presence to her. Among the trees she stopped to take off
her spectacles and remove the signs of tears from her face. Oh, the
beast, the beast! He had hurt her wrists abominably. Oh, what an
unspeakable beast he was! When she thought of his face as it had looked
in church, yellow and glistening with the hideous birthmark upon it, she
could have wished him dead. It was not what he had done that horrified
her. He might have committed a thousand abominations and she could have
forgiven him. But not after that shameful, squalid scene, and the
devilish ugliness of his disfigured face in that moment. It was,
finally, the birthmark that had damned him.

[¶64] Her aunt would be furious when she heard that she had refused Flory. And
there was her uncle and his leg-pinching—between the two of them, life
here would become impossible. Perhaps she would have to go Home
unmarried after all. Black beetles! No matter. Anything—spinsterhood,
drudgery, anything—sooner than the alternative. Never, never would she
yield to a man who had been so disgraced! Death sooner, far sooner. If
there had been mercenary thoughts in her mind an hour ago, she had
forgotten them. She did not even remember that Verrall had jilted her
and that to have married Flory would have saved her face. She knew only
that he was dishonoured and less than a man, and that she hated him as
she would have hated a leper or a lunatic. The instinct was deeper than
reason or even self-interest, and she could no more have disobeyed it
than she could have stopped breathing.

[¶65] Flory, as he turned up the hill, did not run, but he walked as fast as
he could. What he had to do must be done quickly. It was getting very
dark. The wretched Flo, who even now had not grasped that anything
serious was the matter, trotted close to his heels, whimpering in a
self-pitying manner to reproach him for the kick he had given her. As he
came up the path a wind blew through the plantain trees, rattling the
tattered leaves and bringing a scent of damp. It was going to rain
again. Ko S’la had laid the dinner-table and was removing some flying
beetles that had committed suicide against the petrol-lamp. Evidently he
had not heard about the scene in church yet.

[¶66] ‘The holy one’s dinner is ready. Will the holy one dine now?’

[¶67] ‘No, not yet. Give me that lamp.’

[¶68] He took the lamp, went into the bedroom and shut the door. The stale
scent of dust and cigarette-smoke met him, and in the white, unsteady
glare of the lamp he could see the mildewed books and the lizards on the
wall. So he was back again to this—to the old, secret life—after
everything, back where he had been before.

[¶69] Was it not possible to endure it? He had endured it before. There were
palliatives—books, his garden, drink, work, whoring, shooting,
conversations with the doctor.

[¶70] No, it was not endurable any longer. Since Elizabeth’s coming the power
to suffer and above all to hope, which he had thought dead in him, had
sprung to new life. The half-comfortable lethargy in which he had lived
was broken. And if he suffered now, there was far worse to come. In a
little while someone else would marry her. How he could picture it—the
moment when he heard the news!—‘Did you hear the Lackersteen kid’s got
off at last? Poor old So-and-so—booked for the altar, God help him,’
etc. etc. And the casual question—‘Oh, really? When is it to
be?’—stiffening one’s face, pretending to be uninterested. And then her
wedding day approaching, her bridal night—ah, not that! Obscene,
obscene. Keep your eyes fixed on that. Obscene. He dragged his tin
uniform case from under the bed, took out his automatic pistol, slid a
clip of cartridges into the magazine, and pulled one into the breech.

[¶71] Ko S’la was remembered in his will. There remained Flo. He laid his
pistol on the table and went outside. Flo was playing with Ba Shin, Ko
S’la’s youngest son, under the lee of the cookhouse, where the servants
had left the remains of a wood fire. She was dancing round him with her
small teeth bared, pretending to bite him, while the tiny boy, his belly
red in the glow of the embers, smacked weakly at her, laughing and yet
half frightened.

[¶72] ‘Flo! Come here, Flo!’

[¶73] She heard him and came obediently, and then stopped short at the bedroom
door. She seemed to have grasped now that there was something wrong. She
backed a little and stood looking timorously up at him, unwilling to
enter the bedroom.

[¶74] ‘Come in here!’

[¶75] She wagged her tail, but did not move.

[¶76] ‘Come on, Flo! Good old Flo! Come on!’

[¶77] Flo was suddenly stricken with terror. She whined, her tail went down,
and she shrank back. ‘Come here, blast you!’ he cried, and he took her
by the collar and flung her into the room, shutting the door behind her.
He went to the table for the pistol.

[¶78] ‘Now come here! Do as you’re told!’

[¶79] She crouched down and whined for forgiveness. It hurt him to hear it.
‘Come on, old girl! Dear old Flo! Master wouldn’t hurt you. Come here!’
She crawled very slowly towards his feet, flat on her belly, whining,
her head down as though afraid to look at him. When she was a yard away
he fired, blowing her skull to fragments.

[¶80] Her shattered brain looked like red velvet. Was that what he would look
like? The heart, then, not the head. He could hear the servants running
out of their quarters and shouting—they must have heard the sound of
the shot. He hurriedly tore open his coat and pressed the muzzle of the
pistol against his shirt. A tiny lizard, translucent like a creature of
gelatine, was stalking a white moth along the edge of the table. Flory
pulled the trigger with his thumb.

[¶81] As Ko S’la burst into the room, for a moment he saw nothing but the dead
body of the dog. Then he saw his master’s feet, heels upwards,
projecting from beyond the bed. He yelled to the others to keep the
children out of the room, and all of them surged back from the doorway
with screams. Ko S’la fell on his knees beside Flory’s body, at the same
moment as Ba Pe came running through the veranda.

[¶82] ‘Has he shot himself?’

[¶83] ‘I think so. Turn him over on his back. Ah, look at that! Run for the
Indian doctor! Run for your life!’

[¶84] There was a neat hole, no bigger than that made by a pencil passing
through a sheet of blotting-paper, in Flory’s shirt. He was obviously
quite dead. With great difficulty Ko S’la managed to drag him onto the
bed, for the other servants refused to touch the body. It was only
twenty minutes before the doctor arrived. He had heard only a vague
report that Flory was hurt, and had bicycled up the hill at top speed
through a storm of rain. He threw his bicycle down in the flower-bed and
hurried in through the veranda. He was out of breath, and could not see
through his spectacles. He took them off, peering myopically at the bed.
‘What iss it, my friend?’ he said anxiously. ‘Where are you hurt?’ Then,
coming closer, he saw what was on the bed, and uttered a harsh sound.

[¶85] ‘Ach, what is this? What has happened to him?’

[¶86] ‘He has shot himself, sir.’

[¶87] The doctor fell on his knees, tore Flory’s shirt open and put his ear to
his chest. An expression of agony came into his face, and he seized the
dead man by the shoulders and shook him as though mere violence could
bring him to life. One arm fell limply over the edge of the bed. The
doctor lifted it back again, and then, with the dead hand between his
own, suddenly burst into tears. Ko S’la was standing at the foot of the
bed, his brown face full of lines. The doctor stood up, and then losing
control of himself for a moment, leaned against the bedpost and wept
noisily and grotesquely, his back turned on Ko S’la. His fat shoulders
were quivering. Presently he recovered himself and turned round again.

[¶88] ‘How did this happen?’

[¶89] ‘We heard two shots. He did it himself, that is certain. I do not know
why.’

[¶90] ‘How did you know that he did it on purpose? How do you know that it was
not an accident?’

[¶91] For answer, Ko S’la pointed silently to Flo’s corpse. The doctor thought
for a moment, and then, with gentle, practised hands, swathed the dead
man in the sheet and knotted it at foot and head. With death, the
birthmark had faded immediately, so that it was no more than a faint
grey stain.

[¶92] ‘Bury the dog at once. I will tell Mr Macgregor that this happened
accidentally while he was cleaning his revolver. Be sure that you bury
the dog. Your master was my friend. It shall not be written on his
tombstone that he committed suicide.’