Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/219

 The Japanese was, or professed himself to be, greatly surprised at the result of his evening ramble. His answer to the inquiries of the council before whom he was brought was that his questions had been prompted by mere curiosity—"without any malicious intentions." This reply, though a natural one, was deemed so unsatisfactory that, in accordance with the establlshed practice of that barbaric judicial age, it was decided to put the man to the torture. He is said in the official Dutch record to have "endured pretty long," but ultimately under the extreme pain his stoicism broke down and he "confessed." His first statement was a bald one to the effect that the Japanese had resolved to make themselves masters of the castle. It was probably the first invention that came into his agonized mind. Instead of saving him from further unwelcome attentions it only stimulated the unholy zeal of his examiners. Once more the terrors of the torture chamber were exposed. Then, unable to bear the situation longer he declared that the English were his accomplices and that he had acted at the direct instigation of another Japanese, Cevice Michick by name, who had originally been in the pay of the English Company, but was now in the Dutch service.

"I was extremely surprised when I heard of this conspiracy," wrote Van Speult in his dispatch dealing with the episode. Well he might have been. The Japanese were an insignificant element of the population; the English were even less numerous—a mere handful scattered about the islands in positions which prohibited close communication. The ever present dread of revolt, however, lent a powerful stimulus to the official Dutch imagination. Van Speult saw things in a distorted perspective