to the paste-pot. He slew another thus and another to show the hairy ones the stuff his august and honourable neighbour was made of; but Adams was more interested in the kites than in the historic exploits of his host. He could not see, with the things lying piled one upon another, how the tackle would be bent to them to give the control which steered them—rising, swooping, curving and diving through the air—as half a score could be seen doing in any patch of sky, for the festival was near. The grace and swiftness of them was a marvel as great as the waddling, lumpish clumsiness of the shutter-rigged junks in the harbour.
He went into the house to see Santvoort's room and then, having seen it and having smiled and mumbled syllables to an old woman, to young women and to children inside the house, he left the Dutchman at peace with himself and the world and went across the road to his own lodging.
The two girls peeped out at him, friendly and shy, from the living-room as he entered the house; so instead of going to his own room he left his sandals and went in to them. They were at work, sewing. The elder one—if it were possible to distinguish as elder, by some subtle air of greater seriousness, the one that had appeared first and carried away his bundle—was a little abashed by his entry. She moved as though to conceal the work she was doing upon Adams's breeches. They had been unpicked at every seam and washed, and were now being sewn together again (just as the younger one was sewing together a jacket of her father's which also had been unpicked for washing). Artist as she was at her work, she would have preferred its owner to have found it finished instead of still, as it were, on the bench or easel. For an instant Adams was as aghast as any man at the shock of any ruin; but after that instant he smiled down at the eyes that looked up at him; he realised that if the old breeches were done for utterly, it was no great matter.
He would outlive more in that country than a pair of threadbare worsted breeches.
"Thank you," he said as he had learned to say it from a people who seemed to use the word more than any other. With his great hand he patted, not the head, which looked too precarious a feat of hair-dressing to be tampered with, but the firm, round little shoulder.
Her eyes sank away from his; the ebony teeth appeared again between her parted lips as she assured him it was nothing; and the other one, having nothing in particular to be shy about, begged him to be seated.
He lowered himself to the vacant mat, still a little cow-like in his movements compared with the nimble grace of theirs.
The younger one said something involving the word "An-jin" and Adams shook his head. "Adams," he said, tapping his chest. "Adams. Will Adams."
They would not have it. "An-jin," they insisted—Contemplator of the Needle. And then said the elder one slowly, "An-jin Sama."
"Very well, then," said he; for that, too, was no particular matter any more than the ruined breeches. He shrugged his shoulders. "'An-jin Sama,' then. And you?" he looked from one to the other.
The younger one answered. The answer sounded very like Magdalena; and it was by the name of Magdalena that he thereafter called her.
The other, inclining her widely-sashed torso a little towards him and bowing her head, recited a name in which the sounds simplest for his ear were "Bikuni."
His ear and his intelligence had been enough in the last few months to have told him that in adding "Sama" to his name of "An-jin" they had shown him a courtesy. "Bikuni," he said, and smiled at the achievement of his ear and his intelligence— "Bikuni San."
His reward was a chuckle of laughter and smiling glances from one girl to the other.
The dissected breeches were not the only work that had been engaging Bikuni San. From the tools and materials at her side she handed to him a small bundle—jacket, tunic and drawers newly washed and neatly folded; ready for him when he should have bathed. This business of intermittent bathing was also, like destroyed breeches and the casual substitution of one name for another, no great matter. He could accept it as he had accepted the others.
He went out and took his bath and changed into the fresh garments, leaving the discarded ones by the tub. In the room he found that the girls had set a tray for him with cakes and thin biscuits and a draught of water. He sat down before it, gathering either that they had had theirs or else that they did not care for any. And it was thus that Magome returned to find them. The old man was as obviously pleased by the sight of the Pilot, bathed and combed and at ease, quietly eating cakes and biscuits while the two girls sewed, as he had been huffy at finding him squatted with the kite-maker.
In an instant Magdalena was gone from the room and in moments she was back again with another tray, for her father. He sat by Adams, adding to his smile the further geniality of telling the Pilot the names of the cakes and biscuits. Adams replied as genially by airing the knowledge he had gained without Magome's teaching.
"Magdalena," he said, and then "Bikuni San."
The old man was delighted. Geniality alone would not have accounted for the volume of his laughter. Behind it, as well as geniality, there was a pleasing secret of some small triumph.
CHAPTER XVII
MITSU arrived from the palace next morning with a troop of soldiers behind him, and behind the soldiers a score of workmen and coolies. From the bosom of his tunic he produced a document which he unrolled and expounded to Adams as a deed whereby the Pilot and the Captain of the Holland ship undertook to rent to the Shogun Ieyasu the ship's ordnance at a fixed rental per month to be paid to Adams and the Captain on the first day of each moon. Adams and the Captain were to supervise the removal of the pieces from the ship, responsibility for their safety to pass from them only when the guns had been landed.
The document was in Japanese.
Adams refused, flatly, to sign it.
If it had been written in Dutch which he could understand or in Portuguese of which he could understand as much as mattered, he would have signed; but as it was, he would not.
Did it matter, Mitsu asked, whether he could understand it or not? Were they not in all possible respects at the complete discretion of the General? Of what consequence was it whether he understood the paper, letter for letter? The word of a master was his only bond. Only the master's word was the reality. Writings, in one language or another, were only poor pictures of that reality.
Adams agreed. The signing of a document at all was foolery; but the signing by him of a picture where he could see neither head nor tail would be a foolery utterly beyond him.
Ruination of the last pair of breeches in the world did not particularly matter to Adams; taking his name from him and giving him another did not matter; smiling him off to a bathtub at odd moments in the day did not matter. But the signing of a document he could not understand went utterly against his grain.
"No, Mitsu," he said. "God damn me if I do it."
"Perhaps," said Mitsu quietly rolling up the document, "the Hollander will sign it, with the Captain. Perhaps, too, it would be more fitting. You are only their pilot."
"Perhaps," said Adams, seeing that it was bluff.
"The money would naturally go to them in such a case," said the Jap.
"Naturally," said Adams. "In such a case they would have earned it."
Magome stood watching it all with great interest. He knew that a bargaining was in progress. He was prepared for the process to cover any number of days up to a full week; for he could feel that the Englishman was a
