The Chinago
Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, veryweary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now oneofficial and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah Cho,and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long to findout the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all. The fivehundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the killing,and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all the coolieshad agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but then, it was sosimple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover that Ah San was theman. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in thekilling. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the overseeron the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately afterward andcaught him there, along with four or five others; but what of that? ChungGa had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that five or six mencould not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man had struck butonce, only two men could have done it.So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the courtconcerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the killing,and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got there beforeSchemmer--that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that, attracted bythe sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had stood for atleast five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he found theprisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just before,because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks. But what ofthat? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified that Schemmer wasmistaken. In the end they would be let go. They were all confident ofthat. Five men could not have their heads cut off for two stab wounds.Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing. But these Frenchmen wereso stupid. In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the magistrate would order allof them to the torture and learn the truth. The truth was very easy tolearn under torture. But these Frenchmen did not torture--bigger foolsthey! Therefore they would never find out who killed Chung Ga.But Ah Cho did not understand everything. The English Company that ownedthe plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five hundredcoolies. The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and the Companyhad not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its costlycontract labourers to start the practice of killing one another. Also,there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the Chinagos thevirtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing like setting anexample once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia exceptto send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of thepenalty for being frail and human?Ah Cho did not understand all this. He sat in the court room and waitedfor the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to goback to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts. Thisjudgment would soon be rendered. Proceedings were drawing to a close. Hecould see that. There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues.The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the judgment.And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time when he hadsigned the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti. Times had beenhard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured himself to labour forfive years in the South Seas at fifty cents Mexican a day, he had thoughthimself fortunate. There were men in his village who toiled a whole yearfor ten dollars Mexican, and there were women who made nets all the yearround for five dollars, while in the houses of shopkeepers there weremaidservants who received four dollars for a year of service. And here hewas to receive fifty cents a day; for one day, only one day, he was toreceive that princely sum! What if the work were hard? At the end of thefive years he would return home--that was in the contract--and he wouldnever have to work again. He would be a rich man for life, with a house ofhis own, a wife, and children growing up to venerate him. Yes, and back ofthe house he would have a small garden, a place of meditation and repose,with goldfish in a tiny lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in the severaltrees, and there would be a high wall all around so that his meditation andrepose should be undisturbed.Well, he had worked out three of those five years. He was already awealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two yearsmore intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the meditationand repose that awaited him. But just now he was losing money because ofthe unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of Chung Ga. Hehad lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those three weeks hehad lost fifty cents. But now judgment would soon be given, and he wouldgo back to work.Ah Cho was twenty-two years old. He was happy and good-natured, and it waseasy for him to smile. While his body was slim in the Asiatic way, hisface was rotund. It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a gentlecomplacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual among hiscountrymen. Nor did his looks belie him. He never caused trouble, nevertook part in wrangling. He did not gamble. His soul was not harsh enoughfor the soul that must belong to a gambler. He was content with littlethings and simple pleasures. The hush and quiet in the cool of the dayafter the blazing toil in the cotton field was to him an infinitesatisfaction. He could sit for hours gazing at a solitary flower andphilosophizing about the mysteries and riddles of being. A blue heron on atiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery splatter of flying fish, or asunset of pearl and rose across the lagoon, could entrance him to allforgetfulness of the procession of wearisome days and of the heavy lash ofSchemmer.Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute. But he earned hissalary. He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundredslaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up. Schemmerworked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating bodiesand to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export. Hisdominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to effectthe transmutation. Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt, threeinches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and which, onoccasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping coolie with areport like a pistol-shot. These reports were frequent when Schemmer rodedown the furrowed field.Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had killeda coolie with a single blow of his fist. He had not exactly crushed theman's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been sufficient to addlewhat was inside, and, after being sick for a week, the man had died. Butthe Chinese had not complained to the French devils that ruled over Tahiti.It was their own look out. Schemmer was their problem. They must avoidhis wrath as they avoided the venom of the centipedes that lurked in thegrass or crept into the sleeping quarters on rainy nights. The Chinagos--such they were called by the indolent, brown-skinned island folk--saw to itthat they did not displease Schemmer too greatly. This was equivalent torendering up to him a full measure of efficient toil. That blow ofSchemmer's fist had been worth thousands of dollars to the Company, and notrouble ever came of it to Schemmer.The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childishplaygame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad tosee the English Company succeed. What matter of Schemmer and hisredoubtable fist? The Chinago that died? Well, he was only a Chinago.Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested. True,in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke. But it wasthat, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago unique. Thedoctor said as much in his report. He was very candid. Dividends must bepaid, or else one more failure would be added to the long history offailure in Tahiti.There was no understanding these white devils. Ah Cho pondered theirinscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment. Therewas no telling what went on at the back of their minds. He had seen a fewof the white devils. They were all alike--the officers and sailors on theship, the French officials, the several white men on the plantation,including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways there was nogetting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and their anger wasalways dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such times. They worriedabout little things, and on occasion could out-toil even a Chinago. Theywere not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they were gluttons, eatingprodigiously and drinking more prodigiously. A Chinago never knew when anact would please them or arouse a storm of wrath. A Chinago could nevertell. What pleased one time, the very next time might provoke an outburstof anger. There was a curtain behind the eyes of the white devils thatscreened the backs of their minds from the Chinago's gaze. And then, ontop of it all, was that terrible efficiency of the white devils, thatability to do things, to make things go, to work results, to bend to theirwills all creeping, crawling things, and the powers of the very elementsthemselves. Yes, the white men were strange and wonderful, and they weredevils. Look at Schemmer.Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man ontrial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San haddone it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his queue,and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving the knifeinto his body. Twice had he driven it in. There in the court room, withclosed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again--the squabble, thevile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult flung uponvenerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten generations, the leapof Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the knife that sank twiceinto his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the irruption of Schemmer,the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the flying belt of Schemmerthat drove the rest into the corner, and the firing of the revolver as asignal that brought help to Schemmer. Ah Cho shivered as he lived it over.One blow of the belt had bruised his cheek, taking off some of the skin.Schemmer had pointed to the bruises when, on the witness-stand, he hadidentified Ah Cho. It was only just now that the marks had become nolonger visible. That had been a blow. Half an inch nearer the centre andit would have taken out his eye. Then Ah Cho forgot the whole happening ina vision he caught of the garden of meditation and repose that would be hiswhen he returned to his own land.He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive. And theyremained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them hadbeen found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow should havehis head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New Caledonia,Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years. There was no use in gettingexcited about it. Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as a mummy, thoughit was his head that was to be cut off. The magistrate added a few words,and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face having been most severelybruised by Schemmer's strap had made his identification so positive that,since one man must die, he might as well be that man. Also, the fact thatAh Cho's face likewise had been severely bruised, conclusively proving hispresence at the murder and his undoubted participation, had merited him thetwenty years of penal servitude. And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, theproportioned reason for each sentence was explained. Let the Chinagos takethe lesson to heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that thelaw would be fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell.The five Chinagos were taken back to jail. They were not shocked norgrieved. The sentences being unexpected was quite what they wereaccustomed to in their dealings with the white devils. From them a Chinagorarely expected more than the unexpected. The heavy punishment for a crimethey had not committed was no stranger than the countless strange thingsthat white devils did. In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho oftencontemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity. His head was to be cut off bythe guillotine that was being erected on the plantation. For him therewould be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity. Ah Chophilosophized and speculated about life and death. As for himself, he wasnot perturbed. Twenty years were merely twenty years. By that much washis garden removed from him--that was all. He was young, and the patienceof Asia was in his bones. He could wait those twenty years, and by thattime the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be better fittedfor that garden of calm delight. He thought of a name for it; he wouldcall it The Garden of the Morning Calm. He was made happy all day by thethought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on the virtue ofpatience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially to Wong Li and AhTong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim. His head was to beseparated from his body in so short a time that he had no need for patienceto wait for that event. He smoked well, ate well, slept well, and did notworry about the slow passage of time.Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in thecolonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those twentyyears had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as slow-wittedand stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He knewdiscipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant ofgendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish obediencewhich he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked bigger in hismind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces had their say. Godwas usually very remote, while the sergeant was ordinarily very close athand.Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the jailercommanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person of AhChow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the nightbefore to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war. His hand wasshaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so dreadfullythat he did not read over the order. It was only a Chinago's life he wassigning away, anyway. So he did not notice that he had omitted the finalletter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho," and, when Cruchotpresented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of Ah Cho.Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind twomules, and drove away.Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme andbeamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headedsouth toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be broughtback. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work well.Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day. There hadbeen a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and AhCho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern.He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation. He beamed andbeamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind wasstirred to wonderment."You are very funny," he said at last.Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchotspoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and allforeign devils, Ah Cho understood."You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of tearson a day like this.""I am glad to get out of the jail.""Is that all?" The gendarme shrugged his shoulders."Is it not enough?" was the retort."Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?"Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer.Are you not taking me to Atimaono?"Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. "Well, well," he saidfinally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?""Know what?" Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. "Won't Schemmerlet me work for him any more?""Not after to-day." Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. "Yousee, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off can'twork, eh?" He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then hespoke: "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?"Cruchot grinned as he nodded."It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely. "I am not the Chinago that is tohave his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has determinedthat I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia."The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying tocheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and forhalf a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again."I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that myhead was to go off.""Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of makingit easier for his prisoner. "It is not difficult to die that way." Hesnapped his fingers. "It is quick--like that. It is not like hanging onthe end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five minutes. It islike killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head off, that is all.And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It doesn't hurt. Youdon't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head is gone, so youcannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to die--quick, ah,quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the leprosy and fallto pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again a thumb, also thetoes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It took him two days todie. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But you? Ah! so easy!Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is finished. The knife mayeven tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way ever came back tosay."He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself to beconvulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was assumed,but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago."But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted. "I don't want my headcut off."Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far."I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began."That will do," the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks andstrove to appear fierce."I tell you I am not--" Ah Cho began again."Shut up!" bawled Cruchot.After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete toAtimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the Chinagoagain ventured into speech."I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after ourguilt," he began. "Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whosehead is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man?Look at me."He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just assuddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and inthat picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked alike.One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he coulddifferentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on theseat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead ofthem, elevating their collars."You see, it was a mistake," said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.But Cruchot was thinking. Already he regretted that he had stopped thewagon. He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had no wayof working it out; but he did know that he had been given this Chinago totake to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to Atimaono. What ifhe was the wrong man and they cut his head off? It was only a Chinago whenall was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway? Besides, it might not be amistake. He did not know what went on in the minds of his superiors. Theyknew their business best. Who was he to do their thinking for them? Once,in the long ago, he had attempted to think for them, and the sergeant hadsaid: "Cruchot, you are a fool? The quicker you know that, the better youwill get on. You are not to think; you are to obey and leave thinking toyour betters." He smarted under the recollection. Also, if he turned backto Papeete, he would delay the execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrongin turning back, he would get a reprimand from the sergeant who was waitingfor the prisoner. And, furthermore, he would get a reprimand at Papeete aswell.He touched the mules with the whip and drove on. He looked at his watch.He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to beangry. He put the mules into a faster trot. The more Ah Cho persisted inexplaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became. The knowledgethat he had the wrong man did not make his temper better. The knowledgethat it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the belief that thewrong he was doing was the right. And, rather than incur the displeasureof the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a dozen wrong Chinagos totheir doom.As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with thebutt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, thereremained nothing for him to do but to shut up. The long ride continued insilence. Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils. Therewas no explaining them. What they were doing with him was of a piece witheverything they did. First they found guilty five innocent men, and nextthey cut off the head of the man that even they, in their benightedignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty years'imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only sit idlyand take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he got in apanic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way outof it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by remembering andrepeating certain passages from the "Yin Chih Wen" ("The Tract of the QuietWay"); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden of meditation andrepose. This bothered him, until he abandoned himself to the dream and satin his garden listening to the tinkling of the windbells in the severaltrees. And lo! sitting thus, in the dream, he was able to remember andrepeat the passages from "The Tract of the Quiet Way."So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules trottedup to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the impatientsergeant. Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold. Beneath himon one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the plantation. Schemmerhad decided that the event would be a good object-lesson, and so he calledin the coolies from the fields and compelled them to be present. As theycaught sight of Ah Cho they gabbled among themselves in low voices. Theysaw the mistake; but they kept it to themselves. The inexplicable whitedevils had doubtlessly changed their minds. Instead of taking the life ofone innocent man, they were taking the life of another innocent man. AhChow or Ah Cho--what did it matter which? They could never understand thewhite dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them. Ah Cho wasgoing to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years ofservitude were up, were going back to China.Schemmer had made the guillotine himself. He was a handy man, and thoughhe had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained theprinciple to him. It was on his suggestion that they had ordered theexecution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete. The scene ofthe crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for thepunishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence upon thehalf-thousand Chinagos on the plantation. Schemmer had also volunteered toact as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold,experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana tree, of the sizeand consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine. Ah Cho watchedwith fascinated eyes. The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the bladeto the top of the little derrick he had rigged. A jerk on a stout piece ofcord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing thebanana trunk."How does it work?" The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, hadasked the question."Beautifully," was Schemmer's exultant answer. "Let me show you."Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and sentthe blade crashing down on the soft tree. But this time it went no morethan two-thirds of the way through.The sergeant scowled. "That will not serve," he said.Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead. "What it needs is moreweight," he announced. Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he calledhis orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron. As hestooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Choglanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity."The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off," hebegan.The sergeant nodded impatiently. He was thinking of the fifteen-mile ridebefore him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and ofBerthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader, whowas waiting for him at the end of it."Well, I am not Ah Chow. I am Ah Cho. The honourable jailer has made amistake. Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short."The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. "Schemmer!" hecalled, imperatively. "Come here."The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk of ironwas lashed to his satisfaction. "Is your Chinago ready?" he demanded."Look at him," was the answer. "Is he the Chinago?"Schemmer was surprised. He swore tersely for a few seconds, and lookedregretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and which hewas eager to see work. "Look here," he said finally, "we can't postponethis affair. I've lost three hours' work already out of those five hundredChinagos. I can't afford to lose it all over again for the right man.Let's put the performance through just the same. It is only a Chinago."The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader'sdaughter, and debated with himself."They will blame it on Cruchot--if it is discovered," the German urged."But there's little chance of its being discovered. Ah Chow won't give itaway, at any rate.""The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway," the sergeant said. "It musthave been the jailer's mistake.""Then let's go on with it. They can't blame us. Who can tell one Chinagofrom another? We can say that we merely carried out instructions with theChinago that was turned over to us. Besides, I really can't take all thosecoolies a second time away from their labour."They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it,nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny. He knew, also,that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon thatofficial's lips."All right," announced the sergeant. "Go ahead with it. He is only aChinago.""I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure." Schemmer moved thebanana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top ofthe derrick.Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from "The Tract of the Quiet Way." "Livein concord," came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going tolive. He was about to die. No, that would not do. "Forgive malice"--yes,but there was no malice to forgive. Schemmer and the rest were doing thisthing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that had to bedone, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and planting cottonwere pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked the cord, and AhCho forgot "The Tract of the Quiet Way." The knife shot down with a thud,making a clean slice of the tree."Beautiful!" exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting acigarette. "Beautiful, my friend."Schemmer was pleased at the praise."Come on, Ah Chow," he said, in the Tahitian tongue."But I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began."Shut up!" was the answer. "If you open your mouth again, I'll break yourhead."The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained silent.What was the good of protesting? Those foreign devils always had theirway. He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that was thesize of his body. Schemmer drew the buckles tight--so tight that thestraps cut into his flesh and hurt. But he did not complain. The hurtwould not last long. He felt the board tilting over in the air toward thehorizontal, and closed his eyes. And in that moment he caught a lastglimpse of his garden of meditation and repose. It seemed to him that hesat in the garden. A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in the severaltrees were tinkling softly. Also, birds were making sleepy noises, andfrom beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village life.Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscularpressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back. He openedhis eyes. Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in thesunshine. He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one ofSchemmer's knots had slipped. Then he heard the sergeant's voice in sharpcommand. Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily. He did not want to see thatknife descend. But he felt it--for one great fleeting instant. And inthat instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said. But Cruchotwas wrong. The knife did not tickle. That much he knew before he ceasedto know.
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