illa."

Ancient history, all, told me by Kim on the long ride, and he struggled
with his face to hear me parrot his teaching.

"These," I said, when the Emperor had asked me about my company, "these
are my slaves, all except that old churl there"--I indicated Johannes
Maartens--"who is the son of a freed man." I told Hendrik Hamel to
approach. "This one," I wantoned on, "was born in my father's house of a
seed slave who was born there before him. He is very close to me. We
are of an age, born on the same day, and on that day my father gave him
me."

Afterwards, when Hendrik Hamel was eager to know all that I had said, and
when I told him, he reproached me and was in a pretty rage.

"The fat's in the fire, Hendrik," quoth I. "What I have done has been
out of witlessness and the need to be saying something. But done it is.
Nor you nor I can pluck forth the fat. We must act our parts and make
the best of it."

Taiwun, the Emperor's brother, was a sot of sots, and as the night wore
on he challenged me to a drinking. The Emperor was delighted, and
commanded a dozen of the noblest sots to join in the bout. The women
were dismissed, and we went to it, drink for drink, measure for measure.
Kim I kept by me, and midway along, despite Hendrik Hamel's warning
scowls, dismissed him and the company, first requesting, and obtaining,
palace lodgment instead of the inn.

Next day the palace was a-buzz with my feast, for I had put Taiwun and
all his champions snoring on the mats and walked unaided to my bed.
Never, in the days of vicissitude that came later, did Taiwun doubt my
claim of Korean birth. Only a Korean, he averred, could possess so
strong a head.

The palace was a city in itself, and we were lodged in a sort of summer-
house that stood apart. The princely quarters were mine, of course, and
Hamel and Maartens, with the rest of the grumbling cunies, had to content
themselves with what remained.

I was summoned before Yunsan, the Buddhist priest I have mentioned. It
was his first glimpse of me and my first of him. Even Kim he dismissed
from me, and we sat alone on deep mats in a twilight room. Lord, Lord,
what a man and a mind was Yunsan! He made to probe my soul. He knew
things of other lands and places that no one in Cho-Sen dreamed to know.
Did he believe my fabled birth? I could not guess, for his face was less
changeful than a bowl of bronze.

What Yunsan's thoughts were only Yunsan knew. But i