The bloodied man seems to have captured everyone’s attention, and Goto Dengo reckons that this will be his only chance to steal some food. He picks the longhouse farthest away from where the villagers have gathered, clambers up its ladder, and reaches for the bulging sack that hangs by the entrance. But the fabric is very old and it has rotted from the damp of the swamp, and maybe from the attacks of the hundreds of flies that buzz around it, and so when he grasps it his fingers go right through. A long swath of it tears away and the contents tumble out around Goto Dengo’s feet. They are dark and sort of hairy, like coconuts, but their shape is more complicated, and he knows intuitively that something is wrong even before he recognizes them as human skulls. Maybe half a dozen of them. Scalp and skin still stuck on. Some of them are dark-skinned with bushy hair, like the natives, and others look distinctly Nipponese.