Adventure Magazine Cover — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

150 hand, showing that all of the priests had not departed, whipped him into the leaves and flat upon his back in utter concealment, to see—for a moment—ink and scarlet clouds, where none had been before. As the fellow gradually became conscious and aware of the green about him, aware of the legs of two men, he heard a voice also. “‘Now he can hear—’’ Toyotama’s voice— “and hearing, will understand. He has played at being blind, and blind he shall be. Then let him babble as he will—who will believe?” | The rest was lost. Neither Toyotama nor his fellow had realized that there could be such furious strength in the scrawny brown-leather body: the mendicant had thrown himself at them in a wild attempt at escape, understanding their purpose fully. Before the matter was over a knife slipped gently in and past the mendicant’s rags. The priests hurried back to the temple. Let the fellow stay where he was until night, when his body might be disposed of satisfactorily. Should he—or what was left of him—be accidentally found, what of that? There might be, true, early and long prayer-hours, to atone for the desecration to the temple gods through the shedding of blood at the very gate; there might (and doubtless would) be an intolerable burning of incense and ringing of bells and bowing until one’s back ached, but what of that, either? ‘There were other affairs ahead, after which the mendicant might be stuffed underground to join any ancestors his soul could remember. The two priests spat thrice as they crossed the courtyard, that the spirit of the beggar be prevented from pursuing them; this little ceremony complete, both strode along in high good humor toward the sleeping quar- ter: at a gay word from his brother priest Toyotama cackled shrilly. Possibly the abbot had completed his meditative devotion, possibly he had been alert with all the prayers; at all events he dropped the enormous Fourth Book which he was holding. He said nothing, but his brows drew together with annoyance; picked up a long-stemmed pipe and filled it with silky Japanese tobacco, lighted it, took the four puffs which consumed the contents of the bowl and, still frowning, drew his cord-girdle tightly about him and stepped swiftly from the room and down the corridor, as silent as a puff of smoke. Adventure A priest, hidden securely in a dark corner, watched him go, and sped after him; watched the abbot clear down the dim hall, past the series of short teakwood steps, through the door with its rearing animals and carved chrysanthemums, and at last into the altar-chamber itself. The priest worked his silent way close. He saw the abbot strike his hands together three times; sharp, dry, echoing sounds in the quiet room; saw him advance on hanils and knees to the table of offerings, heard the inhalation as the old man drank sacred wine from the unbaked earthen cup and, thus sanctified, bow before the gilded Nichi- rin of the Sun. He heard him recite the first of the intricate thousand words of Perfume, to reach the last of which, even for a hungry novice after a fast, takes two long and concentrated hours. The spying priest heard him through the First and into the Second, then grinned with satisfaction and fled as noiselessly as he had come, also seeking the sleeping-quarters. gauze burnt by the sun; even cicadas tired for once of their song; the fountain shone, the displayed Apes, jetted their crystal store; every panel was closed to the furnace-heat. Once geisha, a motley of orange and blue, carmine and yellow, massed in a hot spot of color as they met and wandered solemnly to the bath. Yet for all the heat, Hishiura was not to be guessed for the hot-bed it was: the very coolies in the fields stopped and talked, a thing that had not happened since the rice- riots. Yoh! but the sezyo-jin priests had set himself against the temple—and what would come of that? Some said that they had seen a bird as large as a horse, bearing sacred symbols, fly above the fields, but that was never proved. But something would hap- pen, although none knew just what, nor how. : The priests, awaiting the return of Toyo- tama, felt that something was about to happen also, nor did they know clearly what. But talk of it they did. They were haggard or laughing, according to how the matter hit them; one was inspired, he showed the whites of his eyes, spumed at the lips, began to mutter, with gurglings in the throat. As Toyotama and his fellow- priest entered the room, the fellow’s words burst strangling from him. LEAVES shimmered like brown COMmMiCbook ©