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When
the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to decapitation Jijiji
Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after the hour appointed for
performance of the rite what was his Majesty's surprise to see calmly
approaching the throne the man who should have been at that time ten
minutes dead!
"Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!" shouted the enraged monarch.
"Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and have your head
struck off by the public executioner at three o'clock? And is it not
now 3:10?"
"Son of a thousand illustrious deities," answered the condemned
minister, "all that you say is so true that the truth is a lie in
comparison. But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and vitalizing wishes
have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I ran and placed my
unworthy body in the market-place. The executioner appeared with his
bare scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me
lightly upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I
was ever a favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own
dishonorable and treasonous head."
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled caitiff
belong?" asked the Mikado.
"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh -- I know the
man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."
"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an attendant, and a
half-hour later the culprit stood in the Presence.
"Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!" roared
the sovereign -- "why didst thou but lightly tap the neck that it
should have been thy pleasure to sever?"
"Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner, unmoved,
"command him to blow his nose with his fingers."
Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted like an
elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung violently from
him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered peacefully to the
close, without incident.
All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as white as
the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled and his breath
came in gasps of terror.
"Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried;
"I am a ruined
and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly because in
flourishing the scimetar I had accidentally passed it through my own
neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office."
So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and advancing
to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.
Ambrose Bierce
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