I
Weeks passed, and the opium harvest was in full progress.
Tsuda was everywhere, sweating, swearing in breezy English, heaving out torrents of instruction in Ainu, to which the sad parties to this “experiment in transplanting” would listen, though without taking the trouble to straighten out of the cramped posture that went with their task of scarifying the poppy capsules.
The new overseer, looking like a White Kami indeed in his gleaming tropical clothes and smart hat, eyed Tsuda sharply, his nostrils dilating a little.
“Things are going to be run here a little more scientifically than they have been in the past, Tsuda,” he said with dry briskness. “You’ve done very well with the Ainu—you understand their ways and their language; but the business itself is a little bit beyond your reach.”
It was a new aggressive way of speaking which had developed gradually with King’s adjustment to the conditions of his changed life. He had his bearings now, and enjoyed the tang of power.
But Tsuda, no longer accorded quite the old freedom, watched this development darkly. It was part of Tsuda’s cleverness to be as colloquial as possible with people: it gave him tone and status. However, of late King had taken to bringing him up a little short and reminding him there was only one boss on Hagen’s Island. This bothered Tsuda a great deal.
“By the way,” said King, a half deprecating smile on his lips, “it seems to me your people are beginning to sag a little. I don’t think it would be a good thing to let them come to feel that because I am about with them so much I’m less of a—well,” he flung in rather harshly, “the matter of morale has got to be looked after. For myself”—there was an impatient though not altogether convincing gesture—“I realize it’s rubbish—all your priest-stuff. But—well, you might let them know I’m not too well pleased.” He stood whipping at the top of an opium plant with his riding crop. “They’re inclined to be lazy, these long-haired devils. We ought to find a way to liven them a bit. Probably you’re too stingy with your saké. Loosen up, Tsuda. I think,” he drawled (and it amounted to a genuine little apogee of satisfaction with his prerogative here) “I ought to get more work out of all you people.”
The miserable Ainu prostrated themselves as he passed. It was overwhelming and a trifle touching at the same time.