“It will soon be tough enough,” he muttered; while Tsuda kept a smile under judicious control. The overseer cleansed his finger slowly and meticulously on a cloth, studied his nails a moment with knit brow, drew out his little notebook and held a pencil poised above one page a long time; finally with a detached sigh he put it back into his pocket without having recorded anything at all. He looked about him, his round blue eyes staring, then strode abruptly out of the shed. Tsuda gazed after him with a yellowish light in his complex Asiatic face.
A moment later a young savage named Nipek-kem ran in. He had been chosen, because of superior attainments, as Tsuda’s special aid and lieutenant—a convenient go-between and secret informer. Out of breath, he was now the bearer of tidings: the man whose wife had buried the head-dress was dead.
“I expected it,” said Tsuda dryly.
Nipek-kem elaborated: When the man learned his wife had prayed the curse against him, he raised his arm to strike her dead; but it was already long that the symbol lay under ground, and his arm dropped; he could not lift it any more.
For a moment Tsuda’s eyes gleamed. It was a kind of miracle, and the priest in him would never die. For an instant the worldly side seemed crowded out, and he saw himself in the sacerdotal robes, in a temple all a-murmur with the breath of the eternal gods. But the vision passed. With a sudden cry, as actuated by some swift inner flash, Tsuda seized the fellow’s arm. He brought his lips close and murmured, trembling with an excitement of new purpose:
“You know the place in the rocks where the Wife-of-the-Kami sits much of late?”
Nipek-kem raised both hands to his chest, letting them wave gracefully downward. Yes, he knew.
“Go and see if she is there now, and come back quickly.”
The savage sped off.
When he was gone, Tsuda sat down beside the opium vat, a look of devious tenderness in his face.