One strapping Korean, all in pale-tinted silks of various colours, was surrounded by half a dozen obsequious attendants, also clad in silk.

Kwan Yung-jin, as I came to know his name, was a _yang-ban_, or noble; also he was what might be called magistrate or governor of the district or province.

This means that his office was appointive, and that he was a tithe-squeezer or tax-farmer.
Fully a hundred soldiers were also landed and marched into the village.
They were armed with three-pronged spears, slicing spears, and chopping spears, with here and there a matchlock of so heroic mould that there were two soldiers to a matchlock, one to carry and set the tripod on which rested the muzzle, the other to carry and fire the gun.

As I was to learn, sometimes the gun went off, sometimes it did not, all depending upon the adjustment of the fire-punk and the condition of the powder in the flash-pan.
So it was that Kwan-Yung-jin travelled.

The headmen of the village were cringingly afraid of him, and for good reason, as we were not overlong in finding out.