Hearing this, Chiun wept and brought the girl to his bosom.
"Know you now, Child, all you and your family have suffered will be but memories. Your family shall know glory. This I promise you with my life. The sun of this day shall not set without your exaltation. Be despised in the village no longer. For among all the people, you alone are pure and good."
And by way of a joke to ease the burden of the girl's heart, Chiun noted that usually "adoration" was forgotten.
And now the people of the village were upon them, and the man called Comrade Captain, who had been a fisherman, accosted Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, standing before his tribute in the cove. Surrounded by men and the armaments of war, Comrade Captain showed bravery.
"In the name of the people of Sinanju and for the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, I claim the tribute."
And behind the captain, people yelled and cheered and applauded and some raised guns above their heads and others banged on a large tank which they had brought with them to show their new power.
"If you claim it," said Chiun, "then who among you will lay hand on it? Who will be first?"
"We will all do it at one time."
And the Master of Sinanju smiled and said: "You think you will all do it at one time. But one hand will be the first and I will see that hand and then that hand will move no more."
"We are many and you are but one," said Comrade Captain.
"Hear you this. Cow dung is many but the cow is few, and who does not trample dung with contempt. This I feel for you. Yea, though the shores were covered with you, I would but tread distastefully through you. Only one among you is worthy. This child."
And they jeered the Master of Sinanju and cursed the granddaughter of the carpenter and called her all manner of unclean things. And Comrade Captain said unto the people of Sinanju, "Let us take his tribute for we are many and he is but one."
And they rushed forward with a joyous shout, but at the trunks which had floated in along with the Master, no hand moved to touch, for none wanted to be first. And the people were still. Then the captain said, "I will be first. And should I fall then all will descend on you."
And as he touched the first trunk of tribute, Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, said to the people he would also see who would be first to lay hand upon the Master and that person would perish.
And with that, he slew the captain before the trunks, and Comrade Captain was still in death, and the people moved not. Then an old woman, from north of the village where the tradesmen lived, said they had more power than Chiun, the Master of Sinanju. They had a tank which was all powerful. And the people made way for the tank, all but the granddaughter of the carpenter, who had been reviled. She alone stood with the Master of Sinanju.
But when the tank was upon the Master of Sinanju, his great hands moved with their awesome skill and one tread popped and then the other so that the tank was mired with its own weight and could not move, like a man numbed by wine.
And upon this helpless tank climbed Chiun and sealed the top hatch. And with such awesome leverage that no man had, he made the turret still and cracked from its front the guns that could kill many.
Now beneath tanks were other hatches, but this tank had settled into wet sand and the hatches could not open.
"Those in here I leave for the tide," said the Master of Sinanju, and there was moaning and crying from within the tank. For these soldiers, although they came from Pyongyang, knew the tide would soon be upon them and would drown them, and they begged for mercy.
But Chiun would hear none of it, and he called the people close around him and he said to them: "But for this child, none of you would see another day. You have made light of the tribute and desecrated the name of the House of Sinanju in its own village."
But the child begged that Chiun not be harsh with the people for they were in fear of the whore city Pyongyang and the evil ones who lived along the Yalu and the corrupt in the large cities like Hamhung where people wrote things on paper for common folk to perform. She begged him that he share the tribute with all, and the Master of Sinanju told her that even though none was worthy, they would share because she asked. And those inside the tank asked if they too could be spared.
But Chiun would hear none of it, and he called for them anyhow. The old woman from the tradesmen's quarters said if it were not for the evil ones in Pyongyang they would have greeted the Master properly in the first place. So it was agreed to leave them.
The granddaughter of the carpenter said those inside the tank were doing what they were told because of the same fear and that they should be allowed mercy also, but Chiun said "Pyongyang is Pyongyang and Sinanju is Sinanju."
All knew he meant that those in the tank did not matter, and upon reflection the granddaughter agreed that the Master of Sinanju was right. They were from Pyongyang.
So with many praises, the villagers carried the trunks back to the village with the girl high among them. And many said they had always loved her but were afraid of Pyongyang, and many offered marriage to her and placed her with great honor. All this before the sun rose.
There was great rejoicing in the village, but the Master of Sinanju showed no joy. For he remembered the white man, dead of the many blows of contempt, and he knew a great battle was yet to come in Sinanju, and the man who had to win it was another white man.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"No, no, no!"
The two men facing each other on the tumbling mats froze in place.
"You two shits are hopeless," bellowed the man who walked onto the mats between them. He was a burly man with lumps of muscle for shoulders and the bristly mustache of a British sergeant major. He wore a white karate uniform with a black sash that was slung low and tied down in the area of his groin. He raised his hand to his face and the overhead lights glinted off his manicured fingernails.
"This isn't a frigging dance," he yelled again. "You, Needham… you're supposed to be killing this man. Trying to choke him. You ain't squeezing with enough power to wrinkle a grape."
He turned around. "And you, Foster. He's supposed to be a killer and you're supposed to take him out. Fast. Christ help the public if you two ever get out on the street."
Needham, a tall thin man with a wiry brush-cut who looked like an upside-down broom, grimaced at the back of Lieutenant Fred Wetherby. He thought he had been squeezing hard enough to hurt. Foster, an athletically muscled black man, said nothing, but let his eyes bespeak his contempt for the mustached police lieutenant. A dozen police recruits, sitting on the floor around the mats waiting their turn to wrestle, saw the look. So did Lieutenant Wetherby, who turned back to Needham.
"Needham. Step forward."
The thin man moved forward, his slowness betraying his unsureness.
"Now try it on me," Wetherby said. Needham put his two hands up to Wetherby's thick sloping neck. As he was doing it, he decided that perhaps he was not really cut out to be a policeman. He was not happy with hand-to-hand combat.
He could not get his hands around Wetherby's neck, but he squeezed as hard as he could, keeping his muscles tensed for the throw he knew was coming.
"Squeeze, goddammit," Wetherby roared. "You don't have no more strength than a girl. Or a pansy."
Needham clenched the throat tightly. His thumbs found Wetherby's Adam's apple. He pressed in with his thumbs in a flash of anger. He felt a numbing blast hit his right forearm. He tried to keep squeezing but his fingers lost control. He knew that his right hand was slipping loose. He felt a duplicate of the first blow hit the inside of his left forearm. He willed himself to keep squeezing. Keep squeezing this bastard. Rip his throat out. He tried, but the left hand, too, slid loose, and then he felt a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. He had forgotten, in his anger, to keep those muscles tense to absorb the impact of the blow, and then he felt himself going over Wetherby's back and he hit hard onto the mat. Over his head he saw Wetherby's face, his long thin lips pulled tight in a grimace of hatred, and he saw Wetherby's foot raise up over his head and then come slamming down toward his nose. It was going to hit his nose. He knew it. It was going to mash his face in and make him bleed and shatter and blast his nose bones into his nasal passages.