the thoughts of his four listeners there was a quick computation of chances; the computation of chances had for long been the habit of their daily life.
"And then," said Adams, "what happens?"
"Another boat," said the priest, "and other boatmen will take you by water to Nagasaki. In Nagasaki we have craft of our own, and a certain freedom. Here there is a tally of all the boats that can float; but in Nagasaki brothers of mine will see to it that you board a soma for the Moluccas."
"And in the Moluccas," suggested Adams, "the cutting of our throats would be a simple, harmless matter; there is no Emperor to protect us in the Moluccas."
"My son," said the priest, sadly shaking his head. "I am no murderer. I seek only to do the work before me."
"The work before you was once to get us stuck up on crosses."
"My work," said the priest, "was to remove you from blocking the way of the faith."
"Throat-slitting would surely achieve that, as Mr. Adams suggested." It was the Captain who spoke this time. "You cannot get away from that."
"If you would understand," said the priest, "I will explain to you. My sons—if you would only see-" He was the old man again, tired and a little frail for all his bulk, appealing to them so humbly and so earnestly that they listened.
"Here, in this field," he went on, "you are the enemies— not of me, for you also are men and the children of God—but of the faith, for you are blind. I speak plainly that you may believe. For half a century we have laboured in this field; and our labours have been blessed. The seed of truth has prospered and the harvest has been great. But you, in your blindness . . . My sons, if you, too, had the faith-"
"Perhaps," said Adams, "but we have not." He so plainly saw the sly old dog working round again to his conversion-talk that he lost sight of the tired old man with a possibly reasonable argument.
The tired old man came back again with a gesture of resignation and a gently spoken "Exactly. You have said it. And so, what was for me to do? If thine eye offend thee— pluck it out. ... I was even willing to put you—brothers of mine and children of God—on the crosses of thieves and house-burners. But that way was denied. I am willing now to risk much to set you away from here towards your own country."
"And what is to prevent our coming back?" said Adams. It seemed a good question for purposes of sounding. "Alive we could always come back—with a better ship, better charts and a better cargo."
"Come back?" said the priest, and the smile he now smiled was a very wise one. "Do you think that men who have once broken faith with their Lord in this country ever come back? No, my sons. Such men are called 'ronin' thereafter. Exiles and wanderers with every loyal door and mat and brazier forbidden them. It is only darkly as thieves that such men could return, or openly as enemies. I am not afraid of your coming back."
"And so," Adams said, "you have nothing to fear. Even if we would we could not harm you, while to us you can give no surety. If we should get to the Moluccas and if we were lucky we should find only Portingals. Unlucky we should fall in with Spaniards; throats cut or backsides lashed to galley-thwarts."
"Even Spaniards dare not molest a Japan vessel in the Japan Sea," said the priest.
"But it is a voyage," said Adams. "A mischance could take us to the Philippines instead of the Moluccas." It was the way of Adams to pursue an argument when an argument was offered.
"Of mischances I can say nothing," said the priest. "I can only give you the most that any layman can rely on in the face of mischances. In the boat that comes for you to-morrow night will be four pistols and four knives. They will token my good faith to you. If there should be not knives and pistols you can call your guard who are the trustiest of Ieyasu's men and denounce my men who will have stayed aboard and so—me."
He rose to his feet, the ceiling's lowness compelling him to stoop. Yet there was dignity in him, the dignity of the bargainer who is open in has bargaining.
"And when do we decide?" asked Adams, whose aim now was to be rid of him so that the four might consider.
"By noon to-morrow," he answered. "If at noon to-morrow the Captain's coat is hung at the taffrail with a white shirt on either side of it, at the earliest full darkness of night the boat will be here."
CHAPTER XI
HE cheerily shouted his farewell to them when he had scrambled down from the port into his skiff, smiling and waving his great hat, then making the sign of the cross. They called back from the deck waving their hands in ostentatious friendliness, mindful of the soldiers who stood at the rail above them, watching.
Santvoort went back with the captain and the surgeon to the cuddy; Adams took his straw hat from its peg by the cuddy door and went up on the poop. He looked, casually, for Mitsu, but did not see him.
Wherever he looked he saw a detail of the ship's familiar helplessness. The hole in the deck at his feet had only the bent pin of the pivot sticking out, rusty, from its iron collar; for the steering whip-staff—a comely and handy and detachable piece of timber—had gone the way of other comely, handy and detachable things. He sat on a water-breaker from which one hoop had gone and which, until a cooper had spent half a day upon it, could hold not a pint of water; and he stared at the binnacle.
There was irony in his thoughtful gaze, for he—An-jin as they called him, Contemplator of the Needle—now contemplated only an emptiness where there was no needle. The card had gone, and the binnacle might have been another leaky keg for all the use it was.
The pitch oozed out of seams and wriggled into blisters even as he watched it.
The broad, hunched shoulders of the padre rose and lurched as the skiff was grounded. He stepped out of it, gathering up the skirts of his cassock into the hands that fumbled also with destinies.
He had explained himself. Even Adams believed that he had told the utmost truth; but in believing him he distrusted him the more. The explanation was Popery. . . . And at that point the mind of Adams stuck.
Before going down to the others in the cuddy he looked once more for Mitsu, but still did not see him.
"A pistol and a knife," the captain was saying—"All very well; but it would require more than a pistol and a knife for the sinking of a Spaniard, if matters came to it."
"Nevertheless," said Santvoort, "a pistol and a knife would be more comfortable than no pistol and no knife."
They discussed it all in the sombre, considerate manner of directors of an insolvent company. There was no emotion in their talk, just the consideration of liabilities, speculation as to assets. Assets resolved themselves into the promised knife and pistol. The thought of meat again—regular or even occasional meat—may have played some part in their estimates. Also they may have had thoughts of drink that was not brewed from rice; but whatever thoughts they may have had, their words were of the pistol and the knife.
"And, Will?" said Santvoort, "what does Will say?"
"Yes," said the surgeon. "What does Mr. Adams say?" For Adams had so far said nothing.
"What I say," said Adams, "is that he can fill his pistol with balls and swallow it, and sit on his knife. To hell with him."
They laughed first; and then they stared at Adams.
