very fine," said Santvoort. "But those two rascals of ours did no worse than the padre with his dirty lies. He started it, Mitsu—and yet they, you say, have been done for."
"In the padre's conduct," said Mitsu, "there was policy. In theirs was nought but fear and greed."
"Call it spite, not policy," said Santvoort. "For why, in God's name, should he have wanted us stuck up and spiked on those crosses of yours?"
"He is a priest, not a soldier," Mitsu spoke now as though merely making a suggestion and not quoting obvious truth, or a rule. "Priests think deviously and not straight. It may have been because, though even whiter and hairier than himself, you do not believe in his God. Priests give great importance to such matters; but he had neither enmity nor greed nor fear."
"And who told you we do not believe in his God?" demanded Adams.
"It is well known," was the answer. "It is given out by him and all of the Portingals. Spaniards, too, say that in your country and the Hollander's you have denied the God, and burnt up his temples and destroyed his images; stealing the gold. So they have declared you pariah; and you, in your turn, have turned to sea-robbery and murder for a living."
"God Almighty!" said Adams. "And you believe any of that? You and the Emperor?"
"How should a man believe or disbelieve what is of no consequence? But remember this, my friends——" He grinned as he remembered the way these two had exploded at the padre in the chamber of leyasu. "Remember this. The Law is law for all—even for his Lordship's friends. The penalty for a sword drawn with any purpose but the cleaning or the testing of the blade, is death. His Lordship's guests must have no brawls. If they seek justice against another they must seek it from his Lordship himself, not by means of enmity and personal quarrel."
"Justice!" said Adams. "Is it justice to make prisoners of honest men with letters of friendship to him from their nation?"
"How prisoners?" the Jap demanded a little peevishly. "Have I not said 'guests'—and again 'Guests,' and—'Guests'? You have safety and food; and money now, and entertainment even by women."
"Let his Lordship keep his money and his entertainment and his women," said Adams. "We'd have money of our own—and entertainment—and women—if you had not made prisoners of us—you with your bellyful of sword-hilts and your cant of friendship and justice. If there is any justice, let us see the Emperor again and have it. Let us tell him our case and make him let us go."
"When his Lordship has leisure again for such matters you shall indeed see him," said the other. "In the meantime let not your necks grow heated."
"In the meantime," said Adams, "if there is any way of going, we will go."
With this defiance he snapped the conversation to an end and stumped off to tell the Captain that they had got no further.
CHAPTER X
AFTERRWARDS the Jap could get no more than a mumble or a grunt in answer to his cheery greetings of the Pilot. He shrugged his shoulders; for to him, by his own statement, the incomprehensible was inconsequent. To him a day, a week— or a month or a year—were all one. His possessions were in his girdle. He had little to do, and his chief concern was the temper of his heart. The fuming and freeting of a man over something that was neither here nor there were quite beyond him.
Adams challenged him two or three days later. "Where's all this money of ours?" he said. "I want to buy a sword."
"The money, An-jin, is with the Daimio's clerk," he answered. "We will go to him. But no man but a soldier may carry swords. It is the law."
"Oh, is it?" said Adams. "I did not say I wanted to carry swords. Carrying is another matter. I want to buy one."
"If any man sold you a sword," said Mitsu very calmly and very cheerfully, "or gave you one, I would cut him from neck to navel. Even him——" he nodded towards the shore.
Adams could only grunt again before following his gaze; but when he had done so he snorted.
It was the padre at whom Mitsu now grinned.
"It is perhaps as well, An-jin," he said, "that you have no sword. It would go against my stomach in our friendship. I would be constrained to call some other to execute you."
The padre had apparently concluded his bargain with a fisherman; for he was putting off in the little skiff with an attendant who carried a great bundle on his shoulders.
Adams again, scarcely believing his eyes, called down the companion to Santvoort, "Bring the hook, Melchior"; for one boat-hook was among the treasured relics of the ship's smaller loose furniture. "We'll show him who can come aboard!"
They stood at the side, amidships where the freeboard of the Liefde was scarcely more than the height of a man, and where a square port was left open for the easier getting into, and out of, the ship's dinghy.
"Aye, we'll show him," said Santvoort, and he spent a moment or two in thoughtful consideration of the rival merits of the pole's steel-shod end, and its butt. The latter seemed to carry the day, for he leaned the butt over the side.
He said, "Half way through the port would leave his great behind sticking well out for a drubbing. You could hold him from below, Will. Then shove him out again—into the boat or the water."
Any criticism from Adams of this simple scheme was postponed by Mitsu, who said quickly from the poop: "An-jin, no bloodshed. No violence . . ." Then he disappeared. They heard him quickly collecting the other two soldiers who had squatted on the afterdeck, and taking them away with him out of sight, behind the wreck of the deck-house.
In this time the skiff had come to within a dozen yards of the ship's side where the fisherman backed with his solitary oar.
"Good-day, my sons," said the padre, and made the sign of the cross. It would have surprised the others less if he had raised an arquebus and emptied it at them.
"Good indeed!" said the Dutchman, caressing his boat-hook; and Adams mumbled, "It will be an awkward hold on the rascal from two foot below the level of him."
"It is as your friend that I come," the priest said quietly. "See!" He indicated the bundle held on the low thwart by his attendant. "A present. Food and wine."
"And d'you think we want for food?" said Adams. "We who are the friends of the Emperor himself?" A swagger came into his attitude.
"I too am your friend, my son," the priest said quietly.
"Friend-" said Adams to Santvoort. "Friend means many things in this country, Melchior. You can clap a man in gaol, and be his friend. You can cut him from neck to navel and be his friend. You can tell the black lies that will bring him to be crossed and stuck like a pig—and be his friend . . ." He was thoughtful as he said this, not simply cantankerous, for he had been thinking deeply upon this very puzzle—the puzzle of Ieyasu's smile, and the ring he had made about them of swords; the puzzle of Mitsu with his cheerful, irrepressible amiability, and his brief gesture and big talk of cleaving one from neck to navel.
"I know it is hard, my sons," the priest went on, and he sat down wearily beside the bundle.
They saw now that he was an old man and tired. "Nevertheless I am your friend. You shall hear me—if you will soften and listen. You shall also see, if you will take this package."
