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prevail once more. There may again be kings and princes aplenty in the years
to come. But I may never know them. You may, Remo, but I will not. Not that I
am old."
"No, not you."
"But I live a dangerous life. And the future is unknowable, even to a Master
of Sinanju."
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"But you've got the past locked down tight."
"The High Moo may be the only true emperor my Mastership will know. I have a
month. A month to savor true service. Would you begrudge me that month,
Remo?"
"No. But we both have to answer to Smith. And he pays better. He pays in gold.
Not silver or platinum or whatever those coins are."
Chiun separated his sleeves to reveal the coin Remo had found in the ground.
"This is more precious than silver. Rarer than platinum. Any patch of dirt
will yield those metals. But coins such as these were thought lost when Moo
was lost."
"I'll bet we have a time figuring out the exchange rate when we get back,"
Remo joked.
Chiun regarded his wavering reflection in the coin's polished surface.
"Come," he said abruptly.
"Where?"
"I must compare this coin to those in the High Moo's treasure house."
"Why not? It'll kill an afternoon."
As they picked their way inland, they passed the mines.
Men were hauling coconut shells heaping with dirt out in fire-brigade fashion
and making a pile. In the fields, the children toiled. No one looked happy,
and Remo remarked on that observation.
"For islanders, they're a pretty morose lot."
"You first saw them at their best. At the feast. Do you really believe your
fantasies of happy brown people basking in the sun indulging in free love all
day and night?"
"Oh, I don't know," Remo said airily, rubbing the red marks on his arms. "Some
myths might have a kernel of truth."
Chiun eyed him doubtfully. He went on: "You see the Moovians as they are in
their ordinary life. Would you judge Americans by their behavior during the
festival of the Nazarene?"
"I might if I knew what that was."
"The feast's name escapes me. Jesus Time, I think it is called. "
"You mean Christmas?"
"Possibly. The exact names of unimportant pagan festivals are not worth
memorizing. "
"That sounds really convincing coming from someone whose national holiday is
the Feast of the Pig," Remo said dryly. "Where are we going, by the way? I
don't remember having the treasure house pointed out to us."
"It is no doubt in a secret location. But we will find it. We have only to go
to the source."
Chiun led Remo into the village proper. He walked with his head cocking to
each side, listening. Chiun homed in on the sound of metallic clickings and
hammerings. It came from a one-story stone hut behind the palace.
Chiun entered.
"Greetings, metalsmiths to the High Moo."
A circle of bronze faces looked up from their work. The men squatted before a
stone oven. They were beating lumps of coin metal into the proper shape. In a
corner one man, with skin like dried and stretched beef, was etching the High
Moo's profile into the finished coins. A neat stack of newly minted coins sat
beside him.
No one reacted to Chiun's intrusion. Their faces were sullen.
"By order of the High Moo, I have come to escort the newest coins to their
proper place," Chiun said in an important voice.
The old man gathered up his coins in a square of cloth. He tied the four
corners into a knot and presented himself to Chiun, the coins clinking in the
makeshift sack.
"I will be your guard," Chiun told him.
The old man muttered something out of the side of his mouth that Remo didn't
catch.
"What did he say?" Remo asked in English.
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"Something about foreigners taking away all the coins."
"Meaning?"
"I think he resents that we will one day leave Moo with some of the fruits of
his labors."
"What's it to him?" Remo asked. They followed the men into the forest. "The
coins all belong to the High Moo anyway. "
"Some people grow intolerant as they get along in years."
"No!" Remo said in a mock-aghast voice.
Chiun nodded sagely. "Indeed. Wisdom is not always the end result of long
life."
"My last illusion is shattered. I have met my first emperor-in-the-raw and he
looks like a Hawaiian wrestler, and his wise subjects aren't wise at all, only
bigoted."
"Do not judge all Moovians by one cranky example," Chiun warned.
The old man brought them to the center of a cleared area. Lightning had
blasted a banyan tree and it had toppled across the stump of another tree that
had been leveled by hand. The old man set down his bag of coins and pushed the
tree aside. The easy way in which he accomplished that feat indicated that it
was hollow.
The old man took a bone knife and inserted it into the tree stump. He levered
the flat top upward and set it aside.
Remo and Chiun gathered around. As they had expected, the stump had been
hollowed out. Coins glinted in stacks directly beneath the opening. They stood
in nearly three feet of water.
"Some treasure house," Remo said. "A tree stump."
"Which coins are mine?" Chiun asked anxiously.
The old man shrugged. "Whichever the High Moo decrees."
"But the coins presented me by the Low Moo are special coins."
"They are all the same. I know. Of all others, I know."
"No. Those are historic. They are artifacts of the first contact between our
two houses in generations."
The old man shrugged as if to say that Chiun's excited protestations were as
important as the distinction between grains of beach sand.
"What's the big deal, Chiun?" Remo asked. "Gold is gold. Silver is silver."
"They were special coins," Chiun squeaked, peering intently. The stacks were
closely packed. None stood apart from the others.
The old man knelt beside the stump and lowered his arms into the water,
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