“He speaks our language,” quoth the Emperor at the last; and I swear there was such a relinquishment of held breaths that the whole room was one vast sigh.
“I was born with this language,” I replied, my cuny wits running rashly to the first madness that prompted. “I spoke it at my mother’s breast. I was the marvel of my land. Wise men journeyed far to see me and to hear. But no man knew the words I spoke. In the many years since I have forgotten much, but now, in Cho-Sen, the words come back like long-lost friends.”
An impression I certainly made. The Emperor swallowed and his lips twitched ere he asked:
“How explain you this?”
“I am an accident,” I answered, following the wayward lead my wit had opened. “The gods of birth were careless, and I was mislaid in a far land and nursed by an
