Part 18 (1/2)
Whereupon Cloots very quickly and expertly fired once froainst the eardruht have just sounded as a clap of hands, no louder But within these solid blank walls it multiplied like a volley, then dwindled and passed A weft of s across the taper, and that too passed The chapel fell quiet There had been no visible result
At one side stood the whitein the act, tense and expectant; and by the doorway stood the headman of Apyodaw, planted in the sale of fading daylight behind hiure in neutral tinted silks
”They do not strike the big bell until the last ray of the sun,”
explained Moung Poh Sin, without the least quiver of emotion, without the least break of intonation ”We have yet solared at hi the collapse, waiting from one tick of time to the next to see the fellow cru ca, compact fistful of steel, and this tiain the shot and sain the still pause
”They will bePoh Sin evenly ”They will be swinging out the striker of the big bell”
All shadows about the paGoda had run long and black like spurts of jet and its western edge was no ht a last radiance and spread and shed a faint ruddy glow and a patch of that lay on the threshold of the chapel
Cloots had fallen back to the ith sagging jaith eyes fixed and starting in their sockets He was stricken; he was beaten For he had cos known and conceivable He had reached the end of the white man's resource and had made the ultimate appeal of the white man's civilization--and had failed Beyond lay the incredible and the ialvanic iht up his weapon in both shaking hands, steadied an elbow against his side and fired a third and last despairing shot
From somewhere, fro vibration; the air fluttered to a single gigantic,Poh Sin moved at last and drew from the silken folds at his waist a broad, short-shafted knife and all with perfect precision and deliberation advanced to do what he was there to do
”The tione quite dark
Those two busy officials of colonial adather up and to sort out the threads of local crime in that far Eastern port wasted no time and feords about their work They had been on ether Moreover, this particular case offered a bare simplicity in its few apparent details Also, since it concerned the death of a white, it called for urgent action, and they went at it with precision and dispatch while the police guard held the entrance against a wondering throng
”How long has he been dead?” asked the assistant inspector
”Some ten minutes, I should say,” returned the medical examiner ”He's still warm”
”Instantaneous?”
”As nearly as possible His heart's been split in half, you ht say, with this _dah_” The doctor indicated a short iron dagger buried to its iron handle in the victi about it”
”Done by a native,” re over
”Evidently But what kind of a Buddhist was he, giving hi a life?”
”Not much of a Buddhist That's a hill weapon They're hardly what you'd call orthodox in the hills”
”Quite true,” agreed the doctor ”Buddhism is a modern novelty to the hills What's a ot a systeot a story here, if we could only read it, that's older than any system”
”But still--to kill a ood reason”
So in the other's tone made the doctor look up
”You knew this chap?”