Page "romance" Paragraph 1066

He left the pool and climbed the steep stone stairs to the temple, and the sense of familiarity with the place would not leave him.

Into a little well before the temple he dropped a hundred-yen coin and then he had an urge to sound the bell before the temple, to take hold of the rope and crash it against the circle of bronze ; ;

but the spirit he wished to call out would not, he knew, come in the person of the temple priest.

Instead, he walked around the temple and mounted still another flight of stairs and stood before the seated Fudo at their head.

The black Fudo seemed to stare rigidly back at him and Richard's eyes were caught by the Fudo's in fascination, and then Richard was shocked as, all at once, flames shot out from the sharp features of Fudo's face and there was a terrible metallic scraping sound, as if the large statue were about to burst from some pressure within it.

Then the flames were gone, the stillness fell upon the severe black face and Richard began to tremble violently.

Suddenly he emptied his pockets of all his coins and dropped them into the box before the seated Fudo and hurried back down both stairways and away from the temple, never looking back.

He walked all the miles back to his room.