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XXIII
Next day the town was quieter than a cathedral city on Monday morning. It is usually the case after a
riot. Except for the handful of prisoners, everyone who could possibly have been concerned in the
attack on the Club had a watertight alibi. The Club garden looked as though a herd of bison had
stampeded across it, but the houses had not been plundered, and there were no new casualties among
the Europeans, except that after everything was over Mr Lackersteen had been found very drunk under
the billiard-table, where he had retired with a bottle of whisky. Westfield and Verrall came back early
in the morning, bringing Maxwell’s murderers under arrest; or at any rate, bringing two people who
would presently be hanged for Maxwell’s murder. Westfield, when he heard the news of the riot, was
gloomy but resigned. Again it had happened–a veritable riot, and he not there to quell it! It seemed
fated that he should never kill a man. Depressing, depressing. Verrall’s only comment was that it had
been ‘damned lip’ on me part of Flory (a civilian) to give orders to the Military Police.
Meanwhile, it was raining almost without cease. As soon as he woke up and heard the rain
hammering on the roof Flory dressed and hurried out, Flo following. Out of sight of the houses he took
off his clothes and let the rain sluice down on his bare body. To his surprise, he found that he was
covered with bruises from last night; but the rain had washed away every trace of his prickly heat
within three minutes. It is wonderful, the healing power of rain-water. Flory walked down to Dr
Veraswami’s house, with his shoes squelching and periodical jets of water flowing down his neck
from the brim of his Terai hat. The sky was leaden, and innumerable whirling storms chased one
another across the maidan like squadrons of cavalry. Burmans passed, under vast wooden hats in
spite of which their bodies streamed water like the bronze gods in the fountains. A network of rivulets
was already washing the stones of me road bare. The doctor had just got home when Flory arrived,
and was shaking a wet umbrella over the veranda rail. He hailed Flory excitedly.
‘Come up, Mr Flory, come up at once! You are just apropos. I wass on the point of opening a bottle
of Old Tommy Gin. Come up and let me drink to your health, ass the saviour of Kyauktada!’
They had a long talk together. The doctor was in a triumphant mood. It appeared that what had
happened last night had righted his troubles almost miraculously. U Po Kyin’s schemes were undone.
The doctor was no longer at his mercy–in fact, it was the other way about. The doctor explained to
Flory:
‘You see, my friend, this riot–or rather, your most noble behaviour in it–wass quite outside U Po
Kyin’s programme. He had started the so-called rebellion and had the glory of crushing it, and he
calculated that any further outbreak would simply mean more glory still. I am told that when he heard