ive.
In the name of Kwannon the Merciful, to whom my Ume used to pray, do
not bind me again upon the wheel of life!" Although he fought against
it with all the will power left to him, strength brightened in his
veins. Stung into new anguish he prayed more fervently, "Let me pass
now! I cannot bear more pain. I 'll die in spite of you. Oh, icy men
of science, you but give me the means with which to slay myself! I
warn you, at the first chance I shall escape you all!"

"Mad youth, it is my duty to give you back your life even though you
are to use it as a coward," said the chief physician.

Once when his suffering had passed beyond the power of all earthly
alleviation, and it seemed as if each moment would fling the shuddering
victim into the dark land of perpetual madness, Kano urged that the
venerable abbot from the Shingon temple on the hill be summoned. He
came in full regalia of office,--splendid in crimson and gold. With
him were two acolytes, young and slender figures, also in brocade, but
with hoods of a sort of golden gauze drawn forward so as to conceal the
faces within. They bore incense burners, sets of the mystic vagra, and
other implements of esoteric ceremony. The high priest carried only
his tall staff of polished wood, tipped with brass, and surmounted by a
glittering, symbolic design, the "Wheel of the Law," the hub of which
is a lotos flower.

Tatsu, at sight of them, tossed angrily on his bed, railing aloud, in
his thin, querulous voice, and scoffing at any power of theirs to
comfort, until, in spite of himself, a strange calm seemed to move
about him and encircle him. He listened to the chanted words, and the
splendid invocations, spoken in a tongue older than the very gods of
his own land, wondering, the while, at his own acquiescence. Surely
there was a sweet presence in the room that held him as a smile of love
might hold. He was sorry when the ceremony came to an end. The abbot,
whispering to the others, sent all from the room but himself, Tatsu,
and the smaller of the acolytes, who still knelt motionless at the head
of the sick man's couch, holding upward an incense burner in the shape
of a lotos seed-pod. The blue incense smoke breathed upward, sank
again as if heavy with its own delight, encircling, almost as if with
conscious intention, the kneeling figure, and then moved outward to
Tatsu and the enclosing walls.

"My son," began the abbot, leaning gently over the bed, "I ha