Creaking began at the corners; and a wallowing as if from the father of all boars. Now the centre of the chair caught the strain in full and whipped forth its remonstrance. One after another the legs gripped the deck, each with a whimper of its own; and the air was filled with sharp singing tension which infected the nerves of the watcher. Suddenly the torso seemed to let go of itself; and from the canes of the huge central hollow came a scream in unison. By miracle the whole found itself once more and the breathing of Stackhouse subsided to a whine. “We are entering the latitude of rum,” said he. “Whoever you are, young man, drink the drink of nature, and you will brosper.” The west was just a shore-line, the dusk rising like a tide. The hand of the owner pressed the silks variously about his chest, and at last located a loose match. Nerves were sparsely scattered in these thick, heavy-fleshed fingers. He had to stop all talk and memory to direct his feeling. The match at length emerged from his palm, and slithered over the fine canes of the arm. It was damp. Stackhouse rubbed the sulphur delicately in the hair at his temple and tried again. Fire leaped to the tip, and poured out from the great hand which pressed it to the pipe and mothered it from the wind. From the gurgling passages, smoke now poured as the sweetness in Sampson’s riddle. Rum had come. The Japanese woman served them. The youth of her face chilled Bellair; the littleness of her, all the tints and delicacy of a miniature in her whitened face. Bright-hued silk, a placid smile, the _skuffing_ of her wooden sandals and the clock-work intricacy of the coils of her black hair--these were but decorations of the tragedy which came home to the American where he was still tender.... But why should he burn tissue? She seemed happy. He knew that the Japanese women require very little to make them happy; but that little was denied this maiden. An hour a day to giggle with her girl-friends behind a lattice, and she might have borne twenty-three hours of hell with calmness and cheer, not counterfeit like this. “You have no true drink of the soil in Ameriga,” said Stackhouse. “You do not make beer nor wine, so you make no music. The only drink and the only music that come from the States of Ameriga, are from the nigger-folk who do not belong there. They make music and corn whiskey. The rest is boison to the soul.”