“Your kinsman?”
“My kinsman,” repeated Yoritomo, and he gave a terse account of Will Adams, his relations with the great Iyeyasu, and his descendants.
The magistrates listened with intense interest, but the recital, instead of softening them, seemed to quicken their suspicions. One of them signed to the torturers and commanded: “Bring the fumie.”
Again I gripped my revolver, certain that the time had come. My first ball should rid the world of the corpse-eyed Chief Counsellor Midzuano; after that as many of the perjured judges as there might be time to remove from office before the need of putting a ball through my own brain—How could Yoritomo stand so serene!
One of the torturers hastened across the pit, and returned with a bronze plate, which he cast down on the stone flagging before my friend.
“Tread!” commanded a judge.
Yoritomo smiled, and struck the face of the plate with one of his clogs. A slight smile gleamed across the heavy face of Satsuma. Midzuano betrayed no sign either of relief or disappointment. The magistrates conferred. The one who had spoken at the beginning of the trial nodded to the secretaries. “Make full note that the prisoner denies the third charge and has trod upon the image. He may step aside.”
As Yoritomo crossed to the far end of the pit, the judge signed to me with his fan to come forward. I advanced and stood facing the magistrates, with head high and arms folded. Little did they suspect that their fate was in my hands, not mine in theirs. Angered by the defiant stare of my blue eyes, the youngest judge commanded harshly: “Kneel down, white devil!”
“White lords do not kneel to the servants of a servant,” I rejoined, recalling to mind that in theory if not in practice the Shogun is the servant of the Mikado.
The man recoiled before my angry gaze, fearful of my “demon” eyes, while the magistrate next to him cried out his indignation at my insolence. But an elder judge quieted his colleagues with a gesture, and addressed me with calm severity: “The barbarian speaks with intolerable insolence to the high retainer of the Shogun.”