led that thin-lipped smile of his, and queried:

"How like you the Lady Om?"

"In such matters a cuny is naught particular," I temporized.

"How like you her?" he repeated, his beady eyes boring into me.

"Passing well, ay, and more than passing well, if you will have it."

"Then win to her," he commanded, "and some day we will get ship and
escape from this cursed land. I'd give half the silks of the Indies for
a meal of Christian food again."

He regarded me intently.

"Do you think you can win to her?" he questioned.

I was half in the air at the challenge. He smiled his satisfaction.

"But not too quickly," he advised. "Quick things are cheap things. Put
a prize upon yourself. Be chary of your kindnesses. Make a value of
your bull throat and yellow hair, and thank God you have them, for they
are of more worth in a woman's eyes than are the brains of a dozen
philosophers."

Strange whirling days were those that followed, what of my audiences with
the Emperor, my drinking bouts with Taiwun, my conferences with Yunsan,
and my hours with the Lady Om. Besides, I sat up half the nights, by
Hamel's command, learning from Kim all the minutiae of court etiquette
and manners, the history of Korea and of gods old and new, and the forms
of polite speech, noble speech, and coolie speech. Never was sea-cuny
worked so hard. I was a puppet--puppet to Yunsan, who had need of me;
puppet to Hamel, who schemed the wit of the affair that was so deep that
alone I should have drowned. Only with the Lady Om was I man, not puppet
. . . and yet, and yet, as I look back and ponder across time, I have my
doubts. I think the Lady Om, too, had her will with me, wanting me for
her heart's desire. Yet in this she was well met, for it was not long
ere she was my heart's desire, and such was the immediacy of my will that
not her will, nor Hendrik Hamel's, nor Yunsan's, could hold back my arms
from about her.

In the meantime, however, I was caught up in a palace intrigue I could
not fathom. I could catch the drift of it, no more, against Chong Mong-
ju, the princely cousin of the Lady Om. Beyond my guessing there were
cliques and cliques within cliques that made a labyrinth of the palace
and extended to all the Seven Coasts. But I did not worry. I left that
to Hendrik Hamel. To him I reported every detail that occurred when he
was not with me; and he, with furrowed brows, sitting darkling by the
hour, like a patient spide