CHAPTER L
WHOM THE GODS DESTROY
There was one whose guilty eyes were closed to the red danger so near. In the house in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley, under the green mosquito netting, Phil lay in a log-like slumber. The soft light of the paper andon flowed over the gay wadded f'ton, the handsome besotted face with its mark of the satyr and, at one side, a little wooden pillow of black lacquer. There was no sound save the sweep of the wind outside and the heavy breathing of the unconscious man.
For three nights past, since his wild motor-ride from Nikko, he had not slept, save in illusory snatches, from which he had waked with the sweat breaking on his forehead. Short as were these, they had held horrid visions, broken fragments of scenes that waved and clustered about the lilied altar in the Ts'kiji cathedral, echoing to the solemn service of the dead. Again and again there had started before him the stolid ring of blue-clad coolie women, swaying as they had swayed to the straw-ropes of the pile-driver in the moat-bottom with their weird chant—
"Yó—eeya—kó—ra!
Yó—eeya—kó—ra!"
And now they chanted a terrible refrain:
"Thou—shalt—not—kill!"
To-night, however, deeper potations had done their work. He was dreaming—yellow dreams like the blackguard fancyings of the half-world—visions in which he moved, a Prince of Largesse, through unending pleasures of self-indulgence. He was on an European Boulevard, riding with Haru by his side in silk and pearls, and people turned to gaze as he went by.
But now, with sinister topsyturvydom, the dream changed. The cocher drove faster and faster, into a mad gallop. He turned his head and Phil saw that the face under the glazed hat was the face of his dead brother. The staring pedestrians began to pursue the carriage. They showered blow after blow on it, till the sound reverberated like thunder.