Adventure Magazine Cover — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

More than Half a King “O torture of fire! stuttered with a finger on high see-sawing the rhythm. ‘‘O devils and seventy demons of hate!’’ He dropped plump in a fit, and they smothered him in a quilt, lest his voice be heard beyond the room. Toyotama looked about him grimly. “Well,” he said, ‘I thought I told you to be silent.” They had been, save the quilted priest, and said so bluntly. Seeing Clark watching alertly, Toyotama grinned. ‘‘We will speak in Chinese,” he said, in that language, “‘which, being priests, you all know. Thus the sezyo-jin will not under- stand.” He laughed as Clark attempted to follow the words, and gave himself up to a mo- ment of enjoyment watching the white man. Clark was aware of Toyotama’s scrutiny, and sat restless under it. He was unbound save about the mouth: here a thick piece of silk prevented him from making outcry. Hemmed in completely by priests, he sat as they did, on the matting; with Toyo- tama’s eyes on him he tried with difficulty to appear nonchalant, uninterested, at ease, but more than once he fidgeted nervously. The white man’s head ached, and every nerve jangled from the sudden assault and capture by ungentle hands; he knew where he was: the priests’ sleeping-rooms, and that none dared enter there; that whatever happened would be unprevented. That he had only himself as aid. Toyotama, still in Chinese, addressed the men: “We have C’ark-san. You, Tagahashi, together with Shiki here—”’ the priest who had been with him in the courtyard and at the hedge—‘‘will, when it darkens, go be- yond the great gate, on the far side of the hedge, to a place Shiki knows of, and dis- pose of what you find there in the simplest manner. Now we are all here. The abbot is—where?”’ | “He prays,” the spy assured. “The thousand words of Perfume, before the great altar.” “Excellent. We have ample time. Lis- ten, then. In the old days, when a priest was more than a prayer-machine—as is proper!—we would not need so much secrecy and so many words. We would go to the house of this foreigner, and take O horrible death!”’ he- I5I what we wanted. But to do it now is more difficult. He would complain, and sooner or later a word would come from Tokio, after which there might be trouble. ‘“‘So we must be crafty. Clever. Careful. What we will do is this: C’ark-san is to be asked to write a letter to his house-boy, who understands foreign writing. He is to write it in Japanese as well, so we may read what he has said. No—that will not do— he might say two very different things, and we never realize. He will write it all in Japanese, without another mark on the paper save his name, which must be in his own language, since that is how he always signs it. Then we take the message to his house. It says, ‘I desire the girl. Send her with the bearer.’ Nothing more.”’ “How would you know his name?”’ from one of the priests. ‘‘He might write a word or so of warning in his own writing, and say it was his signature.”’ Toyotama scratched his head. “T have seen notes of his to Kagamo, and will recognize it. To be doubly certain, we will search his pockets, and find handwriting of his own, and doubtless his name at the end of it. And—” grimly—“for that mat- ter, if he will not sign, we will do it for him. Have we not duplicated signatures for the pottery works that even experts could not detect?” “Why not detain him, and write all of this note ourselves?” They divided into two camps on. this and Toyotama felt his control over them slipping, a control but newly won. “Hail” he shouted, and instantly lowered his voice. ‘“There are objections! Who is leader here? Had I not spoken, you would have done nothing at all, save talk, talk, talk. I say mine is the better way—” louder—‘“‘and that is the way it is to be done!”’ He waited for nothing more, but faced Clark, explaining in a dozen words wnat was wanted. “You will write this letter, and sign it as well. We will verify the signature.” To a priest— “Get pen, for this fool can not use a brush, and grind ink for him.” “No,” Clark said huskily, speaking through the silken gag. “You will not?” “J will not do for you what T have refused. your abbot.” cCOmiclbook (©