Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/92

76 guess, but I can conceive the nightmares they may have had in consequence.

When he had thus successfully frightened off the evil spirits without, he entered within the staging, and before the arrow-stand further scared the imps. As the exorcism drew to an end and we began once more to wonder how he was going to mount his hobby-horse, the big drum was brought by somebody and set up beside the stand. This solved the enigma and enabled the Chief of God-Arts, with the help of a pole, to rise carefully to the ends of the posts and to place first one foot and then the other lengthwise upon the blades, the forward edges coming out between his great and second toes. He then discarded the pole, as I have seen more secular performers do, to the catch of an assistant, and stood poised upon the knife-edges. Not content with standing upon them, he must needs tilt himself up and down as one does in testing the breaking power of a plank. This, of course, merely showed how much at home he felt upon the blades. Then with due deliberation he fitted an arrow into its notch, raised the bow, and drew it to his