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It was life and death with them. They were all determined, no matter what the consequences, to smash Uematsu.

They strained themselves to the limits or their endurance.

But the strength of Uematsu’s side was greater far than theirs. “Tin-tailed” figures and a company of iron-shod putteed men appeared and ruthlessly crushed the strikers.

Two years passed.

The ceaseless noisy hammering of the coopers’ mallets ascended to the heavens with the dense smoke. The engine of the launch and the rumbling of the trucks added to the din.

The black sooty roofs of the shops had become still blacker. Every day they went on puffing out the steam from the boiling beans, fearful of the loss even a day’s rest would cause. The stench or boiling soy was everywhere. The farmers’ dwellings had been pushed back to the foot of the hills and to the slopes graded like steps. Handa had come out of prison and returned to this village of his, living in one of those shacks. The smoke, blown by the wind, came over towards it.

Uematsu’s square head seemed to have got two or three inches fatter. He must have been more