INTERNATIONAL News from other countries; trans-

lations and selections from homofile magazines abroad.

THE FIREWALKER

Keola THE

As our steamer drew near the pier at Singapore, Ned Kerley appeared very anxious and excited. For a few moments I had been enjoying an idle conversation with this likeable Englishman whom I had met on board, but during the brief second I lowered my eyes to light a cigarette he maneuvered away from me, and as I looked up I saw him standing at the rail searching the faces on the pier below. I smiled to myself, sensing that he expected to find someone who meant very much to him among the waiting crowd. All that I knew about him from our casual meetings was that he held a responsible position in the British government's foreign office in Singapore and that he was unmarried. He did not seem to find the face he watched for, and his excitement changed to a tense disappointment.

He

Before we left the ship he appeared at my side again and invited me to dine with him at his home the following evening. opened his wallet to give me his card and I noticed a picture of a handsome young Malayan.

Very early the next morning I hurried to join the crowds at the temple grounds to observe a strange ceremony about which I had become

by Harry Otis

very curious. I had heard that some of the participants walked barefoot on burning coals and nothing could have kept me from seeing it for myself. As I edged into the crowd I saw Kerley standing among them. It was obvious that he hadn't slept. He was unshaved, he chewed nervously. upon his lower lip, and he was lighting one cigarette from the butt of another.

It was the Ninth Month of the Moon and the priests were preparing to honor their Emperor God, Kow Ong Yeah. The burning of great piles of wood had begun before dawn. By now they were evenly glowing embers and had been raked into a flat bed about ten feet wide and sixty feet long. Beyond the fiery strip was an elaborately carved altar holding a jewelled image of the Taoist God. Six priests knelt on the ground before it, chanting in a high, piercing falsetto. They stopped only long enough to chew betel nuts and spit carelessly at some nearby brass spittoons. A haze of acrid smoke hung above an urn filled with smoldering coconut shells. This urn stood before the altar and was surrounded by numerous sticks of incense and fluttering candles.

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