After a while the man took from his pocket a little pouch of oiled silk and emptied the contents into his palm. There was some dusty tobacco, two or three matches, and a small object that caught the light as he moved his hand. This he retained, and put the pouch and the rest of its contents back into his pocket. "Click-click, click-click!" Light, metal-shod sandals were approaching from the direction of the village. A form fluttered towards him out of the darkness like a soft grey moth. "Have you waited long, Tani?" "So long, Su Su O, that the night had grown into Eternity, and the sound of my sighing checked the very lamentation of the frogs!" She laughed in her delicious gurgling way, and pressed her face against his sleeve. He slipped one hand beneath her chin, raising the flawless oval face to the full light of the moon. "Thou art very beautiful," he said, half below his breath. "A thousand men assuredly have loved thee since we bade farewell." Su Su O sighed. "But none have laid a finger on me in love, Tani--save one, and him I struck." The man smiled a little, and then his face grew grave. He fretted with the sling which supported his left arm. "What manner of man was he, this love-besotted fool?" "A German, Tani; a man of great stature, bearded, with a jewel set in the centre tooth of his upper jaw." Tani released her chin. "A diamond, belike, Little Flower?" She nodded assent. "And by force he kissed me--upon the mouth." "Ah!" For a moment the sandal-maker stared across the water, his eyes narrowed into slits, his face inscrutable. Then, with a sudden jerk of the wrist, he sent something spinning through the air--something that glittered like a point of flame in the moonlight. It fell with a splash, scaring the lazy carp that lay just beneath the surface. "He has paid his forfeit," said Tani grimly. All uncomprehending, Su Su O nestled against him and slipped her slender hand into his. Together they turned towards the temple. VI SUPPER BEER (1914) 1 With the turn of the tide the wind backed and swept a wet mist in from the sea. During the day promenaders had thronged the stone pier that partly encircled the deserted harbour; townspeople for the most part--stolid, sombre-clad folk, taking their constitutionals soberly, as if they formed part of some inflexible schedule that regulated their lives. In the afternoons a sprinkling of infantrymen from the fort intermingled with them; loose-limbed young conscripts in grey uniforms, with heads too small for their bodies--a phenomenon partly accounted for by the zeal of the garrison barber, and partly by the size of their grotesque boots.