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Coryndon avoided looking at him in return, and waited patiently until he went on. "Leh Shin remained with me. He never leaves the house whilst I am inside," continued Joicey. "I was there the night of the twenty-ninth and the day of the thirtieth.
Heyde went to the council and obtained his release. His house in Leh has been more than once burned by incendiaries.
Leh Shin had passed this last hour deliberately, so as to bring himself to some appointed place neither earlier nor later than he desired to get there, and Coryndon woke to the excitement of the chase again as he followed along the Colonnade.
After holding Leh in terror for some time the British Commissioner obtained their removal. It was, however, at the fort at the Indus bridge, as related before, that the crime of murder was committed.
Leh Shin, the Chinaman, was Bazaar dust to his dignity, and he knew naught of him, save only that the man had an evil name earned by evil deeds, and Shiraz, who was as crafty as Mhtoon Pah, saw that he had come to a "no thoroughfare" and turned his wits towards Leh Shin.
A picturesque fort guards the bridge, and there travellers inscribe their names and are reported to Leh. I camped at Khalsi, a mile higher, but returned to the bridge in the evening to sketch, if I could, the grim nudity and repulsive horror of the surrounding mountains, attended only by Usman Shah.
The people export apricot oil, dried apricots, sheep's wool, heavy undyed woollens, a coarse cloth made from yaks' hair, and pashm, the under fleece of the shawl goat. They complained, and I think with good reason, of the merciless exactions of the Kashmiri officials, but there were no evidences of severe poverty, and not one beggar was seen. It was not an easy matter to get back to Leh.
To entertain me, during my sojourn in Leh, the governor arranged, on the bazaar square, a game of polo the national sport of the Thibetans, which the English have adopted and introduced into Europe. In the evening, after the game, the people executed dances and played games before the governor's residence.
With a doggedness that is often part of some forms of mania, the Burman squatted in the dust, and under no provocation could he be induced to speak. After midday he indicated by lifting his fingers to his mouth that he intended to go in search of food; having worked Leh Shin's assistant into a state of perspiring wrath by the simple process of reiterating in pantomime that he was dumb.
"It is even so," agreed the proprietor, and he hurried away from the noose of talk that Leh Shin would have cast around him. The beggar, having followed Leh Shin as far as the opium den, returned along the Colonnade and knocked at the door of the house where Shiraz waited anxiously for his master. "Is my bath prepared, Shiraz? I must wash before I sleep, and I shall sleep late."
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