Читать книгу Needle-Watcher - Richard Blaker - Страница 26

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 stout bargainer.

"I wonder that you have not made it clear to his Majesty that I am no more than the pilot," Adams said next. "Go to him, Mitsu. There is still time; but perhaps he would take it amiss that you have lodged the Captain with a merchant, the Hollander with a toy-maker and I, the mere Pilot, with a Cavalero."

Mitsu sulkily unrolled the document again and laid it on the writing-box. Magome hugged himself with fresh interest.

"Know that a maker of kites is no toy-maker, Pilot," said Mitsu. He said it because it was the only statement he could find at the moment with any dignity in it. "Know also that the choice of your lodging was made by the General himself."

"Thank you," said Adams. "It is my hand he wants, then, to the paper. Write his words in Hollands or in Portingal and I will sign."

"Write?" said Mitsu. "It is not for me to write."

"Let the Hollander write it then, or let the Captain write it in Portingal."

"And of what use is that?" asked Mitsu. "I cannot read it."

Adams shrugged his shoulders. "It is of equal use to that one, which we cannot read." He smiled at the pouting little soldier. "After all, Mitsu, they are only poor pictures of the same reality!—the word."

"I said it is the word of the master that is his sufficient bond," said Mitsu.

"But are we not all masters now?" asked Adams. "The old service that bound us was ended with our being cast away among you. We are masters—and all, equally, guests."

Mitsu swore darkly. Magome saw that the Englishman had done something rather neat; for he had seen few men who could set Mitsu to mumbling curses.

Adams made a concession. "We will sign that writing in your language, Mitsu. But we will sign it written out also in Hollands or Portingal; or both."

"You are talking to a soldier, Pilot," said Mitsu pompously. "Not to a chaffering huckster. I brought you one writing to sign. What sort of a law do you think would permit me to return to my General with three writings?"

"I do not yet know your law," said Adams. "But if that is unlawful, let us sign none of them. Let us go to the General with the three writings and ask him what he himself would have us do."

"He has already told me."

"He has not told me," said Adams.

"I have told you. I am his emissary."

"You are not my emissary," Adams said. "I, too, have words to say."

"Be careful, Pilot," said Mitsu. "You are dealing with the General."

"I am dealing also with a fair man," said Adams.

Magome saw that in this last bout Mitsu had fought well enough and steadily, but only as a man who had a stick or some blunt thing in his hand against a good sword.

Mitsu said, "I will bring the Hollander."

"And the Captain?" asked Adams.

"One extra document will be enough," said the other. "Two hidden writings would have no more use than one."

He stumped out of the room and Magome took the opportunity of reading through the short deed he had left on the box.

The soldiers and the workmen outside took no interest in the going of their leader into the house of the kite-maker, and his returning with the Dutchman. One day was as another for them; whether they trotted from one place to another to do the work, or squatted, waiting to trot, was all one.

Santvoort took a writing brush and a slab of ink and did the best he could with them to set down in Dutch the purport, which Mitsu gave him, of the deed. Adams had shaken his head and laid aside the sheet of paper produced by Magome, and the Dutchman got his writing into half a dozen lines at the bottom of the same sheet with the original.

It was the sum mentioned that had most impressed Magome in the document; and on seeing what could not be anything but an improvement being made in the bargain, he felt that the only safe thing for him to do was to go out of the room.

He hurried off.

When Mitsu told him in the hall-way that they were going, he and Adams, to seek an audience at the palace, he felt again that it was well for him to be alone—or in the company of the amiable Dutchman, who could neither comprehend his words nor read the delight in his features.

The two walked up to the castle, Mitsu showing that he had no urgent need for conversation by moving at a choppy, trotting pace with which it was impossible for Adams to keep step. Adams tried a while—losing a pace or two and grabbing up his distance again. Then, managing to keep his sandals, he discovered a slithering movement for a long stride that kept him abreast of the scurrying Jap.

"Take that, my lad—" he said, when a stretch of a hundred yards had shown him the success of this new method.

Mitsu was ready for jocularity again.

"With legs as long as yours," he said, "and as hairy, it is small wonder that you should keep pace with one who is made in the shape of a man. You do not walk on land, An-jin. You swim."

"And you do not walk," said Adams. "You dance."

"Dancing or swimming," said the other, "it is all one; for we shall both soon get to the General—who neither dances nor swims."

"You're not afraid, are you, Mitsu?" The whole affair seemed a not very difficult matter to Adams now; and he could not, in any case, see that Mitsu was responsible.

"Soldiers are not afraid," was the mildly pompous answer. "They sometimes fail to see—if they try to look so far—the outcome of events."

He was still a little uneasy, however, as Adams followed him into Ieyasu's chamber.

He made a considerable speech and unrolled the document, leyasu took it and examined it, peering at the Dutchman's diminutive scrawl. Then he spoke.

"He says that you have reason, An-jin," said Mitsu; but Ieyasu's expression indicated nothing. With a dreamy deliberation he moved his dirk a hand's-breadth out of its scabbard. To Adams, because of Ieyasu's dreaminess, the gesture meant nothing. To Mitsu it was no surprise, because anything at all that the General might do with his dirk in those or any other circumstances would have been no surprise. leyasu held the document's edge under the exposed edge of the dirk and slowly pulled it up—the blade cleaving it through. Again, again and once again he did this, smiling and speaking.

"Only the word is good, An-jin," Mitsu translated; "as between soldier and lord, friend and friend. And a full understanding of the word. A writing not understood is a word, even as you said, unspoken. But even as a soldier draws his sword only to use it, so he gives his word only to abide by it. Fairness breeds fairness. For, as his face seen in the mirror of water, so is the face of man to man. Your word is your bond—for yourself and your Captain and your Hollander-friend and the others; and his Lordship's word is his. Is it good?"

"Aye," said Adams. "It is good. But I can't speak for the Captain. He may think otherwise."

Mitsu translated again: "He will not; and if he does it is no matter. For it is with you that his Lordship deals. If you would have the hair shaved from off your face and head a barber will be caused to wait on you—weekly or daily—as you prefer."

"Thank you," said Adams. "But it is no matter. It can grow."