Adventure Magazine Cover — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

1S Toyotama grinned. “Possibly not. But the abbot and I use very different methods.” Clark trembled. “Write it ourselves,” insisted the objector, but, sensing a climax from Toyotama’s working face, the others snarled him down. “You will write it,” Toyotama said very gently. The white man did not answer. “IT say you will write it!”’ Toyotama jumped to his feet, as the priests shifted their positions on the floor at Clark’s shaken head. He waved a hand to include them all. “You hear!” he said, in throaty Chinese. “Where, I ask, does much of the money go, that should come to our temple? To this fat little slug. See his paunch! Good food and drink from the money which is right- fully our own. Look at me—” banging his skinny chest—“‘empty, that this foreign skin may be plump. Is he content to take our money? Is he? Ye know best. Now he breaks our power, by taking a maid who should be our own! “The abbot is old. He is absorbed in the learning of years, and no longer cares. Are you as tired of this as I? It is not that I say to be reckless. If that were it we would take her bodily. But we must break the power of this foreigner to our will as well, or we have done nothing at all. “What we will do is this—” he looked about, and saw every face eager on his own—‘‘we will insist, as best we can, that C’ark write as we desire. I say, insist. Possibly he will do as we ask, being filled with fear. If he does, the matter ends. If he does not—insist we will—and he can have a sleeping-quarter beside the beggar in the hedge.”’ ‘“‘There will be questions!” “Questions? Yes, but what kind, wo- man-heart? The letter will cause any skeptic to believe that he has taken the girl away. That he has already departed. Depart he will, but alone.” Toyotama laughed. “Or possibly the beggar will wait . to keep him company.”’ ‘And then E ‘‘And then, fool? If the abbot wonders, he will do no more. Possibly bell-ringing, and praying, and bead-telling, but with what recompense at the end. Even the Buddhists will never doubt our power, after the sezyo-jin has bowed to it. The girl Adventure is a pot-cleaner’s daughter, and knows noth- ing; C’ark may tell much, if he becomes a god—but who listens to gods these days? And we have a new tea-server of grace, and also our power again, undisputed.”’ ‘‘Why not write the letter ourselves?”’ the objector repeated, but without his former emphasis. “And permit the white man—there is always a chance!—to prove that he did not write it? My way is the best. It is the best. I say it is the best!” And he was agreed with by excited eyes. Hai! but Toyotama was correct; it was permitted that foreigners took what they desired; C’ark-san was well fed with food that should have lined their own bellies. ee grew hungry from the very thinking of it. “Begin! Begin!’ they chorused, and, victorious, Toyotama nodded. “Brother,” he said to a short, fat priest, “brother, blow up the brazier.”’ The priest, his cheeks like bladders, blew the coals to a white heat. ‘“‘Now, then,” said Toyotama, “we are ready to begin.” Clark saw what was in the wind, saw also, and bitterly, what his own course must be. Whatever happened, he would not allow himself to be ridiculous; it would be ridicu- lous for a missionary to struggle with a half-hundred priests, but suffering was never ridiculous. He anticipated Toyotama’s in- tention; he was white enough now in the face, froze hard. He sat where he was, arms crossed, his wide blue eyes fearful and blinking, but firm, and as cold as his face. The moment they unbound his mouth: “I will not deny you your amusement,” he said slowly and steadily, “but I doubt if you can make me do what you ask.”’ Toyotama wrinkled his nose. “We will see about that,’”’ he said smooth- ly, ands largely from curiosity, did not order Clark’s limbs bound. The missionary kept his word. A red cinder hissed a moment later upon his lips; he shut his eyes, ground his teeth together, sweat beaded his forehead and glistened in his hair. Once he reeled over, and would have fallen if the watchful priests had not pressed closely (their breath hissing like the coal); he said nothing, and did not motion them to stop. Toyotama was annoyed. COmiclbooks (©