The rattan about my ankles was slashed apart, and I was jerked to my feet. Though weak and unsteady, I was able to stand unaided. Prodding dirks drove me across to the front of the torture chamber, where a frame with curtains of split bamboo had been set up on the matting of the raised floor. Keiki stepped up and kowtowed beside the frame. I heard no sound, but presently he turned and addressed me with mock courtesy: “The tojin sama is requested to exhibit to august eyes the manners of his people.”
I stared at the centre of the curtain, through which I fancied that I saw the outline of a seated figure.
“The Prince of Mito is said to regard tojins as midway between beasts and demons,” I replied. “He will have ample opportunity to judge of tojin manners when the black ships of my people return to Yedo Bay.”
“Woroto Sama will not be so unkind as to compel the august one to wait an uncertain event,” purred Keiki. “Request is made that he show the behavior of a tojin of low birth who has been overcome with drink.”
“It is evident that Rekko Sama seeks to ape the tricks of the shoguns with the Dutchmen,” I rejoined. “There is this difference—Rekko Sama is not yet Shogun, and I am not a Dutch tradesman.”
Keiki’s smile deepened, and he murmured imploringly: “Yet will not the American lord condescend to exhibit the manner in which a daimio of his people salutes his bride?”
Had my hands been free I must have leaped upon the raised floor and throttled him or been killed in the attempt. I bowed over and waited until I had regained my self-control. My reply was uttered as suavely as his jeer: “In my land there is an inferior people, smooth-faced and not white-skinned. They are a race of base savages, who, until conquered and subjected by my people, delighted in the torment of their captives.”
Across Keiki’s face flitted a look that might have done credit to an Iroquois or Sioux warrior dancing before the stake of a burning enemy. He was defeated on his own ground. There was a short pause. I fancied that I heard a murmur. Keiki signed with his fan, and waved me aside.
Behind where I had been standing was a post similar to the one in the torture chamber of the High Court. A screen slipped open, and two etas appeared with a woman between them. As they crossed to the post the woman raised her head. It was Kohana San. She smiled and bowed to me as if I had been seated before her in the state audience hall of Owari Yashiki. She would have kowtowed had the pariahs loosened their brutal grip of her rounded arms. Keiki looked at her with a devilish smile.
“The complicity of the geisha in the crimes of the barbarian is established,” he said. “She may yet win the mercy of a swift death by confessing her knowledge of the barbarian’s intent to betray Nippon to his countrymen.”