"It is for a thing they call a 'window'," said Thorn. "After a time they will put therein an august abomination, representing sublimely hideous cloud-born beings and idiotic-looking saints in colored glass." The priest nodded his shaven head sagely. "It will, perhaps, deign to be a _gaku_ of the Christian God. I shall, with deference, study it. I have watered my worthless mind with much arrogant reading of Him. Doubtless He was also Buddha and taught The Way." An acolyte had come from the temple and approached the red bell-tower. Midway of the huge bronze bell a heavy cedar beam, like a catapult, was suspended from two chains. He swung this till its muffled end struck the metal rim, and the air swelled with a dreamy sob of sound. He swung it again, and the sob became a palpitant moan, like breakers on a far-away beach. Again, and a deep velvety boom throbbed through the stillness like the heart of eternity. "It is time for the service," said the priest, and turning, went into the temple, from whose interior soon came the woodeny tapping of a _mok'gyo_--the hollow wooden fish, which is the emblem of the _Mon-to_ sect--and the sound of chanting voices. * * * * * Thorn, the man with whom the priest had spoken, crossed the bridge to the other temple with a slow step. He passed between the scowling guardian figures, slid back a paper _shoji_ and entered. The room in which he stood had been the _haiden_, or room of worship. Around its walls were oblong carvings, marvelously lacquered, of the nine flowers and nine birds of old Japanese art. In one were set six large painted panels; the red seal they bore was that of the great Cho Densu, the Fra Angelico of Japan. In its center, under a brocade canopy, was a raised platform once the seat of the High Priest. It faced a long transept, like a chancel; this ended in a short flight of steps leading, through doors of soft, fretted gold-lacquer, to a huge altar set with carved tables, great tarnished brasses and garish furniture. The walls of the transept were done in red with green ornamentations. From the overhead gloom grotesque phoenix and dragon peered down and in the gathering dimness, shot through with the wan yellow gleam of brass, the place seemed uncanny. Thorn drew back a heavy drapery which covered a doorway, and entered a room that was windowless and very dark. He lit a candle.