Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/21

Rh No sooner was the first seated than he launched into the most extraordinary performance I have ever beheld. With a spasmodic jerk, pointed by a violent guttural grunt, he suddenly tied his ten fingers into a knot, throwing his whole body and soul into the act. At the same time he began a monotonic chant. Gazing raptly at his digital knot, he prayed over it thus a moment; then, with a second grunt, he resolved it into a second one, and this into a third and a fourth and a fifth, stringing his contortions upon his chant with all the vehemence of a string of oaths. Startlingly uncouth as the action was, the compelling intentness and suppressed power with which the paroxysmal pantomime was done, was more so.

His strange action was matched only by the strange inaction of his vis-á-vis. The man did not move a muscle; if anything, he grew momentarily more statuesque. And still the other's monotoned chant rolled on, startlingly emphasized by the contortion knots.

At last the exorcist paused in his performance, and taking the gohei-wand from beside him on the bench, placed it between