wee pipe with
the bowl half-ways up it. The pipe was silver and all stem, and the
bowl no bigger than a ten-cent piece. His shoulders were very
powerful, so you'd know he was a man you should be polite to, and out
of that chest of his a great shout could come. He might have been a
working-man, only, when he fingered his pipe, you'd see his hands were
as well kept as a lord's lady's, fine as silk and polished to a degree.
And you'd think maybe a pleasant poet, which is a scarce thing, until
you looked at the brown face of him and big gold ear-rings. And then
you'd know what he was: he was a great sea-captain.

But where did he come from? You might know from the high cheek bones
and the eyes that were on a slant, as it were, that it was an Eastern
man was in it. It might be Java and it might be Borneo, or it might be
the strange country of Japan.

And there were a couple of strange occurrences in the wine-shop. The
Indian juggler was being baited by the fighting men, as people will be
after poking coarse fun at a foreigner. The slim Hindu fellow wasn't
taking it at all well. He was looking with eyes like gimlets at a big
bullock of a soldier that was leading the tormenters.

"Show me something would surprise me," he was ordering. "Be damned to
this old woman's entertainment!" says he. "As a magician," says he,
"you're the worst I ever saw. If you're a magician," says he, "I'm a
rabbit."

And there was a roar at that, because he was known to be a very brave
man.

"Show me a magic trick," says he.

Says the Hindu:

"Maybe you'd wish you hadn't seen it."

"Be damned to that!" says the big fellow.

"Look at this man well," the Hindu told the room. "Look at him well."
He throws a handful of powder in the fire and chants in his foreign
language. A cloud of white smoke arises from the fire. He makes a
pass before it, and, lo and behold ye! it's a screen against the wall.
And there's a great commotion of shadows on the screen, and suddenly
you see what it's all about. It's a platform, and a man kneeling, with
his head on the block. You don't see who it is, but you get chilled.
And suddenly there's a headsman in a red cloak and a red mask, and the
ax swings and falls. The head pops off, and the body falls limp. And
the head rolls down the platform and stops, and you see it's the head
of the fellow who wanted to see something, and it's in the grisly grin
of death...

"There's your latter end for you,