The doctor turned and rose. With his bulky physique and disheveled appearance, he looked not at all like the Japanese ideal of a refined, elegant scholar. His skin was very pink; his round nose and cheeks glowed like cherries. He must have passed his fortieth year, for white hairs streaked the long, coppery waves that receded at his temples. On the bridge of his nose sat a pair of clear glass circles, joined with a loop of gold wire: the famed barbarian eyeglasses that miraculously improved vision. From behind these, the Dutchman’s pale amber eyes regarded Sano with intelligent curiosity. His hands had thick, blunt fingers that seemed unsuited to delicate medical procedures. In the right one he held a small metal object. The sight of this raised an instinctive flare of alarm in Sano.

“Look out!” he shouted, drawing his sword. “He’s got a weapon!”

Dr. Huygens shrank against the desk, his large, pink face aghast, eyes frightened behind his glasses.

“Guards!” Ohira shouted.

They burst into the room. Dr. Huygens fell to his knees, babbling in Dutch.

“He says it’s not a weapon,” Iishino said. “It’s a scientific device. He begs permission to show you how it works.”

“He’s telling the truth,” one of the guards said. With a nervous glance at Ohira, he added, “I’ve seen it myself.”

Sano sheathed his sword, ashamed of his mistake and horrified at what had almost happened. Overreacting after too many unsettling encounters with barbarians, he might have slain an innocent man and provoked the war he was trying to prevent. Vowing to keep a tighter grip on his self-control, he nodded at Dr. Huygens.

“All right. Show me.”

The doctor got clumsily to his feet, cradling in his palm the strange device. It consisted of two rectangular brass plates, sandwiched together by rivets at each corner. A clamp at one end held a long, threaded bolt parallel to the plates along their lengthwise axis. The bolt ended at a flat metal crosspiece with a tiny screw at one end and a pointed probe sticking out of its center. An even smaller screw pierced the probe at a right angle. Directly opposite the probe’s tip, set into a hole in the plates, was a minute circle of glass. Sano almost forgot his troubles as he watched his first demonstration of foreign science.