h that he had not the most
shadowy-outlined idea of what was required of him.

Nevertheless they bound about his legs a frilled armour, ingeniously
fashioned to represent the ribbed leanness of the insect's shank,
encased his hands and feet in covers to a like purpose, and pressing
upon him a wooden club indicated that the time had come for him to
prove his merit by venturing alone into the midst of the eleven brown
adversaries who stood at a distance in poised and expectant attitudes.

Assuredly, benignant one, this sport of contending locusts began, as one
approached nearer to it, to wear no more pacific a face than if it had
been a carnage of the hurl-headlong or the curved-hook varieties. In
such a competition, it occurred to him, how little deference would be
paid to this one's title of "Established Genius," or how inadequately
would he be protected by his undoubted capacity of leaping upwards,
and even in a sideway direction, for no matter how vigorously he
might propel himself, or how successfully he might endeavour to remain
self-sustained in the air, the ill-destined moment could not be long
deferred when he must come down again into the midst of the eleven--all
doubtless concealing weapons as massive and fatally-destructive as his
own. This prospect, to a person of quiescent taste, whose chief
delight lay in contemplating the philosophical subtleties of the higher
Classics, was in itself devoid of glamour, but with what funereal
pigments shall he describe his sinking emotions when one of his own
band, approaching him as he went, whispered in his ear, "Look out at
this end; they kick up like the very devil. And their man behind the
wicket is really smart; if you give him half a chance he'll have
your stumps down before you can say 'knife.'" Shorn of its uncouth
familiarity, this was a charitable warning that they into whose
stronghold I was turning my footsteps--perhaps first deceiving my
alertness with a proffered friendship--would kick with the ferocity of
untamed demons, and that one in particular, whose description, to my
added despair, I was unable to retain, was known to possess a formidable
knife, with which it was his intention to cut off this person's legs at
the first opportunity, before he could be accused of the act. Truly, "To
one whom he would utterly destroy Buddha sends a lucky dream."

Behind lay the pagoda (though the fact that this one did admittedly turn
round for a period need not be too