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debaucheries, the lies, the pain of exile and solitude, the dealings with whores and money-lenders and
pukka sahibs.
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 me Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost. Amen.’
‘Cut it short, for Christ’s sake,’ murmured Ellis.
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——
Hullo! What was happening?
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.
‘Pike-san pay-like! Pike-san pay-like!’
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.
‘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?’
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.
‘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——’
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.
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.