The Shogun's Daughter
by Robert Ames Bennet · English · Gutenberg #48615 · 532,476 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Shogun's Daughter
Author: Robert Ames Bennet
Illustrator: Walter Dean Goldbeck
Release date: March 31, 2015 [eBook #48615]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHOGUN'S DAUGHTER ***
THE SHOGUN’S DAUGHTER
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
A VOLUNTEER WITH PIKE: The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson
and his Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois. Illustrated in color
by Charlotte Weber-Ditzler.
Crown 8vo $1.50
INTO THE PRIMITIVE. Illustrated in color by Allen T. True.
_Third edition._ Crown 8vo $150
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
CHICAGO
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS AZAI]
THE SHOGUN’S
DAUGHTER
BY
ROBERT AMES BENNET
Author of “_For the White Christ_,”
“_Into the Primitive_,” etc.
_WITH 5 PICTURES IN COLOR
BY W. D. GOLDBECK_
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1910
Published October 1, 1910
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
[W·D·O]
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A
To
MY WIFE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I EASTERN SEAS 1
II IN KAGOSHIMA BAY 9
III THE GENTLEMAN WITH TWO SWORDS 22
IV YORITOMO’S BETROTHED 38
V THE COASTS OF NIPPON 44
VI A WILD NIGHT 55
VII ON THE TOKAIDO 71
VIII THE GEISHA 86
IX NIPPON’S GREETINGS 102
X THE PRINCESS AZAI 117
XI ROUT OF THE RONINS 129
XII ESCORT TO THE PRINCESS 143
XIII THE PRINCE OF OWARI 154
XIV BEFORE THE SHOGUN 168
XV REQUITAL 182
XVI MITO STRIKES 194
XVII IN THE PIT OF TORMENT 204
XVIII THE SHADOW OF DEATH 220
XIX THE GARDEN OF AZAI 235
XX LOVE LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS 250
XXI JARRING COUNSELLORS 262
XXII TEA WITH THE TYCOON 280
XXIII LESSONS AND LOVE 296
XXIV ENSNARED 310
XXV HARA-KIRI 320
XXVI HOVERING HAWKS 330
XXVII SON BY ADOPTION 344
XXVIII HIGH TREASON 352
XXIX INTRIGUE 366
XXX MY WEDDING EVE 373
XXXI IN THE POWER OF MITO 387
XXXII LED OUT TO EXECUTION 398
XXXIII BARED BLADES 407
XXXIV CONCLUSION 418
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Princess Azai _Frontispiece_
Page
She dropped her blue robe from her graceful shoulders 98
A row of little pearls gleamed between her smiling red lips 126
“Is this loyal service?” she asked 246
Gengo struck with deadly aim 360
THE SHOGUN’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER I--EASTERN SEAS
My first cruise as a midshipman in the navy of the United States began
a short month too late for me to share in the honors of the Mexican
War. In other words, I came in at the foot of the service, with all the
grades above me fresh-stocked with comparatively young and vigorous
officers. As a consequence, the rate of promotion was so slow that the
Summer of 1851 found me, at the age of twenty-four, still a middie,
with my lieutenancy ever receding, like a will-o’-the-wisp, into the
future.
Had I chosen a naval career through necessity, I might have continued
to endure. But to the equal though younger heir of one of the largest
plantations in South Carolina, the pay of even a post captain would
have been of small concern. It is, therefore, hardly necessary to add
that I had been lured into the service by the hope of winning fame and
glory.
That my choice should have fallen upon the navy rather than the army
may have been due to the impulse of heredity. According to family
traditions and records, one of my ancestors was the famous English
seaman Will Adams, who served Queen Elizabeth in the glorious fight
against the Spanish Armada and afterwards piloted a Dutch ship through
the dangerous Straits of Magellan and across the vast unchartered
expanse of the Pacific to the mysterious island empire, then known as
Cipango or Zipangu.
History itself verifies that wonderful voyage and the still more
wonderful fact of my ancestor’s life among the Japanese as one of the
nobles and chief counsellors of the great Emperor Iyeyasu. So highly
was the advice of the bold Englishman esteemed by the Emperor that he
was never permitted to return home. For many years he dwelt honorably
among that most peculiar of Oriental peoples, aiding freely the few
English and Dutch who ventured into the remote Eastern seas. He had
aided even the fanatical Portuguese and Spaniards, who, upon his
arrival, had sought to have him and his handful of sick and starving
shipmates executed as pirates. So it was he lived and died a Japanese
noble, and was buried with all honor.
With the blood of such a man in my veins, it is not strange that I
turned to the sea. Yet it is no less strange that three years in
the service should bring me to an utter weariness of the dull naval
routine. Notable as were the achievements of our navy throughout the
world in respect to exploration and other peaceful triumphs, it has
ever surprised me that in the absence of war and promotion I should
have lingered so long in my inferior position.
In war the humiliation of servitude to seniority may be thrust from
thought by the hope of winning superior rank through merit. Deprived of
this opportunity, I could not but chafe under my galling subjection to
the commands of men never more than my equals in social rank and far
too often my inferiors.
The climax came after a year on the China Station, to which I had
obtained an assignment in the hope of renewed action against the
arrogant Celestials. Disappointed in this, and depressed by a severe
spell of fever contracted at Honkong, I resigned the service at
Shanghai, and took passage for New York, by way of San Francisco and
the Horn, on the American clipper _Sea Flight_.
We cleared for the Sandwich Islands August the twenty-first, 1851.
The second noon found us safe across the treacherous bars of the
Yangtse-Kiang and headed out across the Eastern Sea, the southwest
monsoon bowling us along at a round twelve knots.
The double lassitude of my convalescence and the season had rendered
me too indifferent to inquire about my fellow-passengers. We were well
under way before I learned that, aside from the officers and crew, I
was the only person aboard ship. In view of the voyage of from five
to six months’ duration which lay before me, this discovery roused
me to the point of observing the characters of the skipper and his
mates. Much to my chagrin, I found that all were Yankees of the most
pronounced nasal type.
As a late naval officer no less than as a Southern gentleman, I could
not humble myself to social intercourse with the _bucko_ mates.
Fortunately Captain Downing was somewhat less unbearable, and had the
good taste to share my interest in the mysterious islands of Japan,
as well as my detestation of China. Even as the low, dreary coast of
Kiangsu faded from view in our wake, we attained to a cordial exchange
of congratulations over the fact that we were at last quit of the filth
and fantasies of the Celestial Empire.
As we wheeled about from the last glance astern, Downing pointed over
the side with a jerk of his thumb. “Look at that dirty flood, Mr.
Adams. Just like a China river to try to turn the whole sea China
yellow! Conceited as John Chinaman himself!”
“Give the devil his due,” I drawled. “Biggest nation on earth, and
close upon the biggest river.”
“Aye, and thank Providence, every last one of their three hundred
million pigtails lie abaft my taffrail, and every drop of that foul
flood soon to lose itself in clean blue water!” He stared ahead,
combing his fingers through his bushy whiskers, his shrewd eyes
twinkling with satisfaction. “Aye! blue water--the whole breadth of the
Pacific before us, and Asia astern.”
“Not all Asia,” I corrected. “We have yet to clear the Loo Choos.”
“The Loo Choos,” he repeated. “Queer people, I guess. They are said to
be a kind of Chinamen.”
“It’s hard to tell,” I replied. “They may be Chinese. Yet some say the
islands are subject to Japan.”
“To Japan? Then they’ve got good reason to be queer!” He paced across
the deck and back, his jaw set and eyes keen with sudden resolve. “By
ginger, I’ll do it this passage, sir, danged if I won’t! I’ve been
wanting to see something of the Japanese islands ever since I came out
to the China seas as a cabin-boy, and that’s fifty years gone.”
“You’d run out of your course for a glimpse of the Japanese coast?” I
exclaimed, no less incredulous than delighted.
“More than a glimpse, Mr. Adams. Van Diemen Strait is a shorter course
than the Loo Choo passage, and with this weather--”
“Midst of the typhoon season,” I cut in with purposeful
superciliousness of tone.
The captain of a clipper is as sensitive to any aspersions on his
seamanship as the grayest master of navigation in the navy. Downing bit
snappily. “Typhoon be damned! I navigated a whaler through uncharted
seas twenty odd years, and never lost my ship. I’ll take the _Sea
Flight_ through Van Diemen Strait, blow or calm, sir.”
“No doubt,” I murmured with ambiguous suavity.
He scowled, puzzled at my smile. “You naval officers! Commanded my
first ship before you were born--before I had need of a razor. What’s
more, I’m third owner in this clipper, and I’ve discretion over my
course. The skipper who carries the first cargo out of a Japanese port
is going to get the cream, and I’ve an idee the Japs are loosening up
a bit. I’m going to put into Kagoshima Bay, where the old _Morrison_
tried to land the castaway Japs in ’thirty-seven.”
“She was fired upon most savagely by the soldiers of the Prince of
Satsuma,” I replied. “Why not try Nagasaki?”
“Nagasaki?--Deshima!” he rumbled. “I’m no Dutchman or yellow Chinee,
to be treated like a dog. What’s more, it’s too far up the west coast.
No! I’ll chance Kagoshima. That Satsuma king or mandarin, whatever he
is, may have changed his mind since the _Morrison_, or there may be a
new one now, with more liberal idees.”
“Since you’re resolved upon it, skipper, I must confess I have reasons
of my own to be pleased with your plan,” I said, and at his interested
glance, I told him somewhat in detail of my daring ancestor Will Adams,
the first Englishman ever to reach the Land of the Rising Sun and the
only European ever made a Japanese noble.
“H’m. Married a Japanese wife, and left children by her,” commented
Downing, and he grinned broadly. “I must ask leave for you to land and
look up your heathen kin.”
“You forget yourself, sir,” I caught him up. “Be kind enough hereafter
to refrain from impertinence when speaking of persons related to me.”
He stared in astonishment. “Well, I’ll be durned! Two hundred years and
more since your forefather died, you said--”
“None the less,” I insisted sharply, “my cousins are my cousins, sir.
If there are any of my ancestor’s Japanese descendants now living, they
are related to me, however remote may be the degree. Therefore they
are entitled to be spoken of with respect.”
“Well, I’ll swan!” he muttered. “No offence, Mr. Adams.”
I bowed my acceptance of his uncouth apology, but maintained my
dignity. “As I have said, sir, my ancestor was ennobled by the great
Emperor Iyeyasu. Heathen or not, rest assured that his Japanese
descendants, if any survive, are at the least gentlefolk.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” he grunted. “You’ll soon have a chance to
inquire. I’m going to take my ship up Kagoshima Bay, fog, shine, or
blow.”
He turned on his heel, and ordered the helmsman to put the ship’s head
due east. I went below in a glow of pleasant anticipation. There was
no mistaking the look in Downing’s face. Nothing could now shake his
stubborn resolve. I was to see the mysterious Cipango of Marco Polo and
Mendez Pinto, the Iappan of my ancestor,--the land that for almost two
and a half centuries had shut itself in from all communication with the
wide world other than through the severely restricted trade with the
Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki.
CHAPTER II--IN KAGOSHIMA BAY
Dawn of the third day found us ten miles off the north shore of the
small volcanic island that stands second in the entrance to Van Diemen
Strait. The lurid glare reflected from its crater into the ascending
clouds of smoke had served as a beacon during the last hours of
darkness. Daylight confirmed the calculations of our position by the
sight of the beautiful smoking cone of Horner’s Peak, lying twenty-five
or thirty miles to the northeast on the southern extremity of Satsuma,
and the rugged peninsula of Osumi, ending in the sharp point of Cape
Satanomi, a like distance to the eastward.
The moment our landfall was clear in the growing light, the _Sea
Flight_ came around and headed straight between the two peninsulas. A
run of three hours before the monsoon, over the bluest of white-capped
seas, brought us well up into the entrance of Kagoshima Bay, with
Horner’s Peak a few miles off on the port beam, and the bold, verdant
hills of Osumi to starboard. Close along each shore the sea broke on
half-submerged rocks, but the broad channel showed no signs of reefs
or shoals, and Downing stood boldly in, without shortening sail.
Having none of the responsibility of navigating the ship, I was able
to loll upon the rail and enjoy to the utmost the magnificent scenery
of the bay. On either shore the mountainous coast trended off to the
northward, an emerald setting to the sapphire bay, with the lofty
broken peak of a smoking volcano towering precipitously at the head of
the thirty-mile stretch of land-girded waters. Far inland still loftier
peaks cast dim outlines through the summery haze.
Every valley and sheltered mountain-side along the bay showed heavy
growths of pines and other trees, among which were scattered groups of
straw-thatched, high-peaked cottages. Many of the slopes were under
cultivation and terraced far up towards the crests, while every cove
was fringed with the straggling hovels of a fishing village.
In every direction the bay was dotted with the square white sails of
fishing smacks and small junks,--vessels that differed from Chinese
craft in the absence of bamboo ribs to the sails and still more in the
presence of the yawning port which gaped in their sterns. I concluded
that this extraordinary build was due to the Japanese policy of keeping
the population at home, for certainly none but a madman could have
dreamed of undertaking any other than a coastwise cruise in one of
these unseaworthy vessels. Another peculiarity was that not one of the
craft showed a trace of paint.
The majestic apparition of the _Sea Flight_ in their secluded haven
seemed to fill the Japanese sailors with wildest panic. One and all,
their craft scattered before her like flocks of startled waterfowl, for
the most part running inshore for shelter at the nearest villages or
behind the verdant islets that rose here and there above the rippling
blue waters. A few stood up the bay, probably to spread the alarm, but
the clipper easily overhauled and passed the swiftest.
By noon, though the wind had fallen to a light breeze, we had sailed
some thirty miles up the bay and were within three miles of the
volcano, which stood out, apparently on an island, with a deep inlet
running in on either side. On the Satsuma shore, across the mouth of
the western inlet, our glasses had long since brought to view the
gray expanse of Kagoshima, rising to a walled hill crowned with large
buildings, whose quaint, curved roofs and many-storied pagoda towers
recalled China.
All along the bay shores, great bells were booming the alarm, and
crowds of people rushed about the villages in wild disorder, while the
junks and smacks continued to fly before us as if we were pirates.
Smiling grimly at the commotion raised by his daring venture, Downing
shortened sail and stood into the opening of the western inlet until we
could make out clearly with the naked eye the general features of the
city and its citadel.
So far the lead had given us from forty to eighty fathoms. When we
found thirty fathoms with good holding ground, Downing decided that
caution was the better part of curiosity, and gave orders to let go
anchor. Hardly had we swung about to our cable when a large half-decked
clipper-built boat bore down upon us from the city with the boldness of
a hawk swooping upon a swan. The little craft was driven by the long
sculls of a number of naked brown oarsmen in the stern. Amidships and
forward swarmed twenty or thirty soldiers, clad in fantastic armor of
brass and lacquered leather, and bearing antique muskets and matchlocks.
In the stern of the guard-boat fluttered a small flag with the design
of a circled white cross, while from the staff on the prow a great
tassel of silky filaments trailed down almost to the surface of the
water. Beneath the tassel stood two men with robes of gray silk and
mushroom-shaped hats tied to their chins with bows of ribbon. I should
have taken them for priests had not each carried a brace of swords
thrust horizontally through his sash-like belt.
At a sign from the older of these officers, the boat drove in alongside
the starboard quarter. As Downing and I stepped to the rail and gazed
down upon them, the younger officer flung aboard a bamboo stick that
had been cleft at one end to hold a piece of folded paper. Downing
spun about to pick up the message. But I, calling to mind the reputed
courtesy of the Japanese, was seized with a whim to test their
reputation in this respect, and bowed profoundly to the officers,
addressing them with Oriental gravity: “Gentlemen, permit me to request
you to come aboard and favor me with your company at dinner.”
Together the two swordsmen returned my bow, slipping their hands
down their thighs to their knees and bending until their backs were
horizontal. After a marked pause they straightened, their olive faces
aglow with polite smiles, and the younger man astonished me by replying
in distinct though oddly accented English: “Honorable sir, thangs, no.
To-morrow, yes. You wait to-morrow?”
Before I could answer, his companion muttered what seemed to be a grave
remonstrance. He was replying in tones as liquid and musical as Italian
when Downing swung back beside me.
“Look here, Mr. Adams,” he grumbled, thrusting out a sheet of crinkly
yellow paper. “Just like their heathen impudence!”
I hastened to read the message, which was written, in the Chinese
manner, with an ink-brush instead of a quill, but the words were in
English, as legible and brief as they were to the point:
“You bring our people shipwrecked? Yes? Take them Nagasaki. You
come trade? Yes? Go. Cannon fire.”
Downing scowled upon the bizarre soldiers and their commanders with
contemptuous disapproval, and pointing to the message, bawled roughly:
“Ahoy, there, you yellow heathen, this ain’t any way to treat a
peaceful merchantman. Must take us for pirates.”
The younger officer looked up, with his polite smile, and asked in a
placid tone: “You come why?”
“Trade, of course. What else d’ you reckon?”
“Trade? You go Nagasaki. Thangs.”
“Nagasaki!” growled Downing. “Take me for a Dutchman? You put back,
fast as you can paddle, and tell your mandarin, or whatever he calls
himself, that here’s an American clipper lying in his harbor, ready to
buy or barter for tea, chinaware, or silks.”
“Thangs. You go Nagasaki--you go Nagasaki,” reiterated the officer,
smiling more politely than ever, and signing us down the bay with a
graceful wave of his small fan. “No get things aboard. You go Nagasaki.
Ships no can load.”
“That’s easy cured,” replied Downing. “Tell your mandarin I’ll get
under way first thing to-morrow and run in close as our draught will
let us. If we can’t come ’longside his bund, we can lighter cargo in
sampans.”
The officers exchanged quick glances, and the younger one repeated his
affable order with unshaken placidity: “You go Nagasaki. Thangs.”
Without waiting for further words, both bowed, and the older one signed
to the scullers with his fan. The men thrust off and brought their
graceful craft about with admirable dexterity. Again their officers
bent low in response to my parting bow, and the long sculls sent the
boat skimming cityward, across the sparkling water, at racing speed.
Downing nodded after them and permitted his hard mouth to relax in a
half grin. “That’s the way to talk to heathen, Mr. Adams. No begging
favors; just straight-for’a’d offer to trade. You’ll see to-morrow,
sir.”
At this moment the impatient steward announced dinner, and we hastened
below with appetites sharpened by pleasant anticipations. The more we
discussed the courteous speech and manners of our visitors the more we
became convinced that they had meant nothing by their notice to leave,
but would soon return with a cordial assent to our proposals.
To our surprise, the afternoon wore away without a second visit either
from the guard-boat or any other craft. Junk after junk and scores of
fishing smacks sailed past us cityward, but all alike held off beyond
hail. Still more noteworthy was the fact that no vessel came out of the
inlet or across from the city.
At last, shortly before sunset, we sighted four guard-boats, armed with
swivels, bearing down upon us from the nearest point of the city. Our
first thought was that we were to be attacked as wantonly as had been
the _Morrison_ and other ships that had sought to open communication
with the Japanese. But at half a cable’s length they veered to
starboard and began to circle around the _Sea Flight_ in line ahead,
forming a cordon. It was not difficult to divine that their purpose was
to prevent us from making any attempt at landing.
That they intended to maintain their patrol throughout the night
became evident to me when, after lingering over two bottles of my
choice Madeira with the skipper, I withdrew from the supper-table to
my stateroom. The cabin air being close and sweltering and my blood
somewhat heated from the wine, I turned down my reading lamp and
leaned out one of my stern windows. Refreshed by the cool puffs of the
night breeze that came eddying around the ship’s quarters as she rocked
gently on a slight swell, I soon began to heed my surroundings with all
the alertness of a sailor in a hostile port.
The night was moonless and partly overcast, but the pitch darkness
served only to make clearer the beacon fires which blazed along the
coast so far as my circle of vision extended. No beacons had been
fired immediately about Kagoshima, but the city was aglow with a soft
illumination of sufficient radiance to bring out the black outlines
of the guard-boats whenever they passed between me and the shore in
their slow circling of the ship. The booming of the bells, however, had
ceased, and the only sounds that broke the hot, damp stillness of the
night were the lapping of ripples alongside and the low creaking of the
ship’s rigging.
An hour passed and I still lolled half out of my window, puffing a
Manila cheroot, when I heard a slight splash directly below me. It was
a sound such as might be made by a leaping fish, but in Eastern waters
life often depends on instant vigilance against treachery. I drew back
on the second to grasp a revolver and extinguish the lamp. Within half
a minute I was back again at my window, peering warily down into the
blackness under the ship’s stern. There seemed to be a blot on the
phosphorescent water.
“Whoever you are,” I said in a low tone, “sheer off until daylight, or
I will fire.”
The response was an unmistakable sigh of relief, followed by an eager
whisper: “_Tojin sama_--honorable foreigner, only one man come.”
Almost at the first word I knew that my visitor was the younger officer
of the guard-boat.
“You come alone?” I demanded. “What for?”
“Make still, honorable foreigner!” he cautioned. “_Ometsuke_ hear.”
“_Ometsuke?_”
“Watchers--spies.”
“You’ve slipped through the guard-boats on a secret visit!” I
whispered, curiosity fast overcoming my caution. “Why do you come?”
“To go in ship, honorable sir,--England, ’Merica, five continents
go--no stop. In boat to pay, gold is.”
For a moment astonishment held me mute. Who had ever before heard of a
Japanese voluntarily leaving his own shores? Many as had been picked up
by whalers and clippers in the neighboring seas, I knew of no instance
where the rescued men had not been either wrecked or blown too far out
to sea to be able to navigate their miserable junks into a home port.
The thought flashed upon me that the man might be a criminal. Only
the strongest of motives could have impelled him to seek to break the
inflexible law of his country against foreign travel. But the memory of
his smiling, high-bred face was against the supposition of guilt.
He broke in upon my hesitancy with an irresistible appeal: “_Tojin
sama_, you no take me? One year I wait to board a black ship and go the
five continents.”
“Stand by,” I answered. “I’ll drop you a line. But bear in mind, no
treachery, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!”
“Honorable sir!” he murmured, in a tone of such surprise and reproach
as to sweep away my last doubt.
Having no line handy, I whipped the bedclothes from my berth and
knotted the silken coverlet to one of the stout linen sheets. The
latter I made fast to a handle of my sea-chest, and lowered the
coverlet through the cabin window, exposing outboard as little as
possible of the white sheet.
“Stand by,” I whispered downward. “Here’s your line.”
In a moment I felt a gentle tugging at the end of the line, followed by
a soft murmur: “Honorable sir, pleased to haul.”
Though puzzled, I hauled in on the line, to which something of light
weight had been made fast. The mystery was soon solved. The end of the
line brought into my grasp two longish objects. A touch told me they
were sheathed swords. My visitor had proved his faith by first sending
up his weapons.
I cleared the line and dropped it down again, with a cordial word of
invitation: “Come aboard! Can you climb?”
“I climb, _tojin sama_,” he whispered back.
There was a short pause, and then the line taughtened. He came up with
seamanlike quickness and agility. His form appeared dimly below me as
he swung up, hand over hand. I reached out and helped him draw himself
in through the window. Pushing him aside, I sought to jerk in my line.
It taughtened with a heavy tug.
“What’s this?” I exclaimed. “You made fast to your boat. It should have
been cast adrift.”
“Boat loose is,” he replied, with unfailing suavity.
“The line is fast,” I retorted.
I felt his hands on the sheet, and he leaned past me out of the window.
“Your dunnage, of course!” I muttered, and, regretful of my impatience,
I fell to hauling with him.
One good heave cleared our load from the boat, which was left free to
drift up the harbor with wind and tide. The thought that it might be
sighted and overhauled by the guard-boat patrol quickened my pull at
the line. A few more heaves brought up to the window a cylindrical
bundle or bale, which the Japanese grasped and drew inboard before I
could lend a hand.
My visitor was aboard, dunnage and all, and, so far as I could tell, he
had not been detected either by the men of the guard-boats or the watch
above us on the poop.
CHAPTER III--THE GENTLEMAN WITH TWO SWORDS
For a full half-minute I leaned out, listening intently. No alarm broke
the peaceful stillness of the night. I closed the window and drew the
curtains. Having carefully covered the panes, I struck a lucifer match
and crossed over to light my large swinging lamp. Three more steps
brought me to the stateroom door, which I locked and bolted. Turning
about as the lamp flamed up to full brightness, I saw my guest standing
well to one side of the window, his narrow oblique eyes glancing about
the room with intense yet well-bred curiosity.
His dress was far different from what it had been aboard the
guard-boat. In place of the baggy trousers and flowing robes of silk,
his body was now scantily covered with a smock-like garment of coarse
blue cotton, and his legs were wound about with black leggings of still
coarser stuff. On his feet were straw sandals, secured only with a
leather thong that passed between the great and second toes. His bare
head gave me my first chance to view at close quarters the curious
fashion in which, after the manner of his country, his hair was shaved
off from brow to nape, and the side locks twisted together and laid
forward on the crown in a small gun hammer cue.
All this I took in at a glance as I turned back towards him. Meeting
my gaze, he beamed upon me with a grateful smile and bowed far over,
sliding his hands down his thighs to his knees in the peculiar manner I
had observed when he was aboard the guard-boat.
Not to be outdone in politeness, I bowed in response. “Welcome aboard
the _Sea Flight_, sir. Pray be seated.”
At the word, he dropped to what seemed to be a most uncomfortable
posture on his knees and heels.
“Not that,” I protested, and I pointed to a cushioned locker. “Have a
seat.”
He shook his head smilingly, and replied in an odd Dutch dialect,
as inverted as his English but far more fluent, that he was quite
comfortable.
“Very well,” I said in the same language. “Let us become acquainted. I
am Worth Adams of South Carolina, lately resigned from the navy of the
United States.”
“’Merica?” he questioned.
I bowed, and catching up from under the window his curved long
sword and straight short sword, or dirk, I presented them to him
by the sheaths. He waved them aside, bowing and smiling in evident
gratification at my offer. I insisted. He clasped his hands before him,
palm to palm, in a gesture of polite protest. I drew back and hung the
weapons on the wall rack that held my service sword. He flung himself
across, beside his bale of dunnage, and plucked at the lashings.
As I turned to him he unrolled the oiled paper in which the bundles
were wrapped. The contents opened out in a veritable curio shop of
Oriental articles. There were three or four pairs of straw sandals, two
pairs of lacquered clogs, a folding fan, a bundle of cream-colored,
crinkly paper, a tiny silver-bowled pipe, two or three small
red-lacquered cases, a black mushroom hat of lacquered paper, and a
number of robes, toed socks and other garments, all of silk and some
exquisitely embroidered in gold thread and colors.
From the midst of one of the silken heaps he uncovered a sword whose
silk-corded hilt and shark-skin scabbard were alike decorated with gold
dragons. Straightening on his knees, he held the weapon out to me,
his face beaming with grateful friendship. “_Wo--Wort--Woroto Sama_,
honorable gift take.”
“Gift!” I exclaimed. “I cannot accept so splendid a gift from you.”
“Exkoos!” he murmured in an apologetic tone, and holding the sword
with the edge towards himself and the hilt to his left, he slowly
drew it out until two or three inches of the mirror-like blade showed
between the twisted dragon of the guard and the lip of the scabbard.
Pointing first to the shark-tooth mark running down the length of
the blade and then to a Chinese letter near the guard, he explained
persuasively, “Good, Masamune him make.”
“The more reason why I should refuse such a gift,” I insisted.
He rose to his feet and bowed with utmost dignity. “You him take. Low
down Yoritomo me, honorable son high honorable Owari _dono_, same
Shogun brother.”
“What! Your father a brother of the Shogun--of your Emperor?”
He stood a moment pondering. “Shogun cousin,” he replied.
“You mean, your father and the Shogun are cousins?”
He nodded, and again held out the sword. “You him take.”
“With pleasure!” I responded, and I accepted the gift as freely as it
was offered. A cousin of the Emperor of Japan should be well able to
afford even such extravagant gifts as this beautiful weapon.
“My thanks!” I cried, and I half turned to bare the sword in the full
light of the lamp. Though of a shape entirely novel to me, the thick
narrow blade balanced perfectly in my grasp. Being neither tall nor
robust, I found it rather heavy, and the length of the hilt convinced
me that it was intended to be used as a two-handed sword by the
slightly built Japanese. I presented it, hilt foremost, to Yoritomo.
“Pray show me, sir, how you hold it.”
He stared at me in a bewildered manner. I repeated my request, and
thrust the hilt into his hand. After a moment’s hesitancy, which I
mistook for confusion, he reached for the scabbard as well, sheathed
the sword, and thrust it into his narrow cotton sash. When he turned to
kneel beside his dunnage, I flushed with anger at what I took to be a
deliberate refusal of my request.
He rose with a wooden chopstick in his hand. Politely waving me to
one side, he stepped out into the clear centre of the stateroom and
bent to set the chopstick upright on the floor. Even had the ship been
motionless, I doubt if he could have made the little six-inch piece of
wood stand on end for more than a fraction of a second. Yet, having
placed it in position, he suddenly freed it and sprang back to strike
a two-handed blow with the sword, direct from the sheath, with amazing
swiftness. The chopstick, caught by the razor-edged blade before
it could topple over, was clipped in two across the middle. In a
twinkling the blade was back in its sheath.
“_Mon Dieu!_” I gasped. “That is swordsmanship!”
I held out my hand to him impulsively. He bowed and placed the sword on
my palm. The splendid fellow did not know the meaning of a handshake.
Much to his astonishment I caught his hand and gave it a cordial grip.
I addressed him in my best Dutch, inverting it as best I could to
resemble his own dialect: “My dear sir! You wish to see the world? You
shall travel as my guest.”
He caught up one of his lacquer cases and opened it to my view. Within
it lay a few dozen oval gold coins, hardly more than enough to have
paid his passage to New York. There could be no doubt that he had
vastly underestimated the purchasing value of his coins in foreign
lands. He explained in his quaint Dutch: “The punishment for exchanging
money with foreigners is death. So also it is death to leave Dai
Nippon. I can die but once.”
“They will never kill a cousin of their Emperor!”
He smiled. “Death will be welcome if I can first bring to my country a
better knowledge of the _tojin_ peoples and their ways.”
Even an Adams of South Carolina might well be proud to act as cicerone
to an Oriental prince. Yet I believe I was actuated more by the subtle
sympathy and instinctive understanding that was already drawing me to
him, despite the barriers of alien blood and thought and language which
lay between us.
“Put up your gold,” I said. “You will have no need for it. I am wealthy
and free from all ties. You shall travel with me and see the world as
my guest.”
He caught my meaning with the intuition of a thorough gentleman, and
his black eyes flashed me a glance of perfect comprehension. He laid
down the box of coins and took up one of the silken garments, with an
apologetic gesture at the coarse dress he was wearing. I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “There’s been no outcry from the guard-boats, so I’m sure
I can stow you away until we are clear of your country. But it will be
best to disguise you, to guard against any chance glimpse. What’s more,
the sooner you don Occidental clothes the better, if you wish to avoid
annoyance from the rudeness of our shipmates. You’re perhaps an inch
the shorter; otherwise we are about of a build, and I’ve a well-stocked
wardrobe.”
While speaking I proceeded to haul out three or four suits from
my lockers, and signed him to take his pick. The gesture was more
intelligible to him than my words. He bowed, smiled, and chose
the least foppish of the suits. I laid out my lightest slippers, a
tasselled smoking-cap, linen, et cetera, and drew his attention to the
conveniences of a well-furnished washstand.
He took up and smelled the small cake of perfumed soap and was about to
try his flashing teeth upon it, when I showed him its use by washing my
hands. At this his smile brightened into delight, and, casting loose
his girdle, he dropped his short robe from him as one would fling off a
cloak. The leggings and sandals followed the robe, and he stood before
me nude yet unabashed, his lithe figure like a statue of gold bronze.
Fortunately I was too well acquainted with the peculiar variations of
etiquette and manners exhibited by the different peoples of the East
and West to betray my astonishment at this exposure. I poured him the
bath for which he seemed so eager, and politely excused myself with the
explanation that I must provide him with refreshments.
As I had my own private larder in the second stateroom, I had no need
to call upon the steward for a luncheon, having on hand various sweets,
potted meats, English biscuits, and Chinese conserves, in addition to
my wines. When I returned with a well-stocked tray, I found my guest
struggling to don his linen over his coat. His relief was unmistakable
when I signed him to lay aside everything and slip on a loose
lounging-robe.
Following my example, he seated himself at the little folding table.
When served, he waited, seemingly reluctant to eat alone. Accordingly I
served myself, and fell to without delay. At my first mouthful he also
caught up knife and fork and began to eat with undisguised heartiness
yet with a nicety and correctness of manners that astonished me. When I
expressed my surprise that our table etiquette should be so similar, he
explained with charming candor that he was but copying my actions.
I could not repress my admiration. “Here’s to our friendship!” I said,
raising my glass to him. “May it soon ripen to the mellowness of this
wine.”
I doubt if he sensed the meaning of the words, but he raised his glass,
and his face glowed with responsive pleasure as together we drank the
toast. The act of good-fellowship seemed to bring him still nearer to
me, and as I gazed across into his glowing face I could almost forget
our differences of race. In my robe and smoking-cap his color and the
obliqueness of his eyes appeared less pronounced, and I realized that
in all other respects his features differed little from my own. True,
my eyes were dark blue and his jet black, and though my nose was rather
low between the eyes, his was still flatter. But below their bridges
our noses rose in the same softly aristocratic curve. The outlines of
our faces were of a like oval contour, there was a close similarity
about our mouths and chins, and even our eyebrows curved with an
identical high and even arch.
“My friend,” I said, “do not answer unless you feel free to
explain,--but I wonder that you, a relative of the Emperor, should be
compelled to start your travels in this secret manner.”
“Shogun, not Emperor,” he corrected. “Law over Shogun, too. I travel
_naibun_--incognito. Shimadzu Satsuma-no-kami my friend. I teach
_Raugaku_--the Dutch learning,--war ways, history, engineering. No man
know real me at Kagoshima. Daimio of Satsuma gone Yedo. I steal aboard.
No man know. Shogunate no punish _daimio_, my friend.”
“They would punish even the Prince of Satsuma if they found you had
escaped from his province?”
My guest nodded. “Very old law.”
“Yet you would leave the country at the risk of death?”
His smile deepened into a look of solemn joy. I give his broken Dutch a
fair translation.
“My soul is in the eyes of Woroto Sama. There is trust between us. I
speak without concealment. The _tojin_ peoples of the west have dealt
harshly with the Chinese. The black ships have destroyed many forts and
bombarded great cities. I fear the black ships may come to devastate
Dai Nippon; yet my people know even less of your people than did
the Chinese. The Dutch of Deshima warn us to heed the demands of the
_tojin_ to open our ports. The officials in control of the Shogunate
shut their ears.”
My lip curled. “The English are a nation of shopkeepers, and our
Yankees are no less keen for bargains. They will never rest until they
have found a market for their wares in every country on earth. If they
cannot get into your ports peacefully, sooner or later they will break
in by force.”
“Such, then, is the truth,” he murmured. “_Namu Amida Butsu!_ I ask
only that I may live to bring back to Dai Nippon a clear report of the
power and ways of the _tojin_ peoples.”
“Nothing could please them more,” I replied. “Count on me to help you
fulfil your noble mission!”
He thanked me with almost effusive gratitude, yet with a nobility
of look that dignified the Oriental obsequiousness of his words and
manner. To cut short his thanks, I went out for a second bottle of
wine. He had drunk his share of the first with gusto. Returning
briskly, I caught sight of my guest’s face for the first time without
its pleasant smile. It was drawn and haggard with fatigue. Putting
aside the wine, I asked him if he did not wish to turn in. He signed
that he would lie down upon the floor. But I explained the use of a
bed, which seemed an absolute novelty to him, and bundled him into my
berth before he could protest. He fell asleep almost as his head sank
upon the pillow.
I stowed his dunnage in a locker, and hastened to extinguish the
lamp and open the window, for the room was suffocatingly hot. As I
leaned out of the window I caught a glimpse of one of the guard-boats
sculling leisurely across the belt of light between the _Sea Flight_
and Kagoshima. Yoritomo’s boat had evidently drifted away through their
cordon undetected. Five minutes later I was outstretched on a locker,
as fast asleep as my guest.
I awoke with what I took to be a crash of thunder dinning in my ears.
But the bright glare of sunshine that poured in through the stern
windows told of a clear sky. No less unmistakable was the loud shouting
of commands on the deck above me and the sharp heeling of the ship to
port. The _Sea Flight_ was already under way and her crew piling on
more sail as swiftly as Downing and his bucko mates could drive them
with volleying oaths and orders.
As I sprang to my feet the explanation of the situation quickly came in
the barking roar of an old-style twelve-pounder carronade. This was my
supposed thunder. During the night the Satsuma men had either brought
up a gun-boat or placed a battery on the nearest point of land, and now
they had at last opened fire on the _tojin_ ship that refused to leave
after due warning.
I stared out the nearest window, and sighted our guard-boats of the
night, sculling along in our wake, not a biscuit’s throw distant.
Their gunners stood by the little swivels, slow-match in hand, and the
soldiers held their antique muskets trained upon us. But the firing was
all from the shore. A puff of smoke showed me where the carronade was
concealed behind a long stretch of canvas upon a point near the lower
end of Kagoshima. The ball plunged into the water half a cable’s length
short of us.
Before the gunners could reload, the _Sea Flight_ drew off on the
starboard tack with swiftly gathering headway, and drew out of range.
The crews of the guard-boats were for a time able to keep their swift
clipper-built craft close astern, but the ship, once under full sail,
soon began to outdistance her pursuers.
The purpose of the Japanese became clear to me when I saw them lay
down their arms without giving over the pursuit. They had no desire to
harm us, but were inflexibly determined to drive us out of their port.
And follow us they did, though long before we had tacked down into the
mouth of the great bay they were visible only through a glass, as
little black dots bobbing among the whitecaps.
Yoritomo had roused from his profound sleep as we came about for
the first time to tack off the Osumi shore. When I had returned his
smiling salute, he listened to my account of our flight with quiet
satisfaction, and explained that, since we had not left peaceably,
the Satsuma men were compelled to resort to these forceful measures.
Otherwise their lord, though in Yedo, would be punished for permitting
our ship to remain in his harbor.
While my guest then took a morning bath, I closed the door between my
staterooms, and ordered the steward to serve me a hearty breakfast in
the vacant room. When he had gone, I locked the door and called in
Yoritomo, whom I had assisted to dress in his Occidental garments. Thus
attired, and with my smoking-cap over his cue, he might easily have
passed for an Italian or Spanish gentleman had it not been for the
slant of his eyes.
After we had breakfasted, we found seats beside one of the sternports,
and spent the morning viewing the receding scenery of the bay and
conversing in our inverted Dutch. Eager as I was to make inquiries
about my friend and his country, he showed still greater curiosity
regarding myself and the wide world from which his people had been
cut off for so long a period. The result was that by midday I had told
him a vast deal, and gathered in turn a mere handful of vaguely stated
facts.
Meantime the _Sea Flight_, having tacked clear of the mouth of the
bay, raced down to Cape Satanomi with the full sweep of the monsoon
abeam. No less to my gratification than my surprise, Yoritomo proved
to be a good sailor, and watched our swift flight along the coast with
wondering delight. The heavy rolling of the ship in the trough of the
sea affected him no more than myself.
Before long we cleared the outjutting point of Cape Satanomi and,
veering to port until upon an easy bowline, drove due east into the
vast expanse of the Pacific. I pointed to the craggy tip of the cape
where the breakers foamed high on the dark rocks, and rose, with a wave
of my hand. “Farewell to Dai Nippon! Come--Downing will be tumbling
below for dinner, now that we are clear of land--come and meet the
hairy _tojin_.”
Yoritomo bowed and, with a last glance at the fast-receding cape,
followed me out into the passage. We found Downing already at his pork
and beans. But he paused, with knife in air, to stare at my companion,
gaping as widely as did the steward.
“Good-day, skipper,” I said. “Allow me to introduce to you my Japanese
cousin Lord Yoritomo.”
“Cousin?--lord?” he spluttered. “Danged if he’s not the first danged
stowaway I ever--”
“You mistake,” I corrected, “I invited the gentleman aboard as my guest
for the passage. He will share my staterooms, and you are to look to me
for his passage money.”
“Well, that’s a different matter, Mr. Adams,” grunted Downing. “If
you’re fool enough to--”
“Mason,” I called sharply to the steward, “lay a plate for His
Lordship.”
CHAPTER IV--YORITOMO’S BETROTHED
As this is not an account of the travels incognito of my friend
Yoritomo, I do not propose to give even a _résumé_ of our trip to
America and our European experiences. Nor shall I give the particulars
of the family dissension that estranged me from home and, to a degree,
from my country.
Enough to say that, despite our incongruous and mutually
incomprehensible mental worlds, the Autumn of 1852 found me bound to
my Japanese _protégé_ and friend by indissoluble ties of sympathy
and love. Strange and inverted as seemed many of his ideas to our
western ways of thinking, he had proved himself worthy of the warmest
friendship and esteem.
Considering this, together with my longing for adventure, and my
freedom from all the ties of family, acquaintance, and habit that bind
a man to his country, it will not be thought extraordinary that I at
last determined to accompany my friend on his return to Japan. My
decision was made at the time when he was spurred to redoubled effort
in his studies of the Occident by the news that the proposed American
expedition to his country was at last approaching a consummation under
the vigorous superintendence of Commodore Perry.
It was then my friend told me, with his ever-ready smile, that, should
the law be rigidly enforced against him upon his return, he would be
bound to a cross and transfixed with spears. Yet under the menace
of so atrocious a martyrdom, he labored night and day to complete
his studies, that he might return to his people and guide them from
disaster upon the coming of the hairy _tojin_--the Western barbarians.
Few could have resisted the inspiration of so lofty a spirit, the
contagion of such utter devotion and self-sacrifice. When my friend was
willing to give all for his country, should not I be willing to do a
little for the constellation whose brightest star was my own sovereign
State, the great Commonwealth of South Carolina?
After all, though President Fillmore and Commodore Perry were Yankees,
the flag was the flag of the South no less than of the North, and I
had served under it. The purpose of the expedition was peaceful. There
flashed upon me a plan by which I might further the success of the
expedition and at the same time aid my friend in his purpose.
“Tomo!” I cried, “you insist that you must sail before the American
expedition,--that you must risk all to reach Yedo and advise your
government to welcome the fleet of my countrymen. Very well! I will no
longer seek to dissuade you. I will go with you and help you persuade
Dai Nippon to enter into friendly relations with America.”
He stared at me, startled and distressed. “Impossible, Worth! They
might regard you as a spy. You would be risking death!”
“In all the world I have one friend, and only one,” I rejoined. “The
thought of parting from him has been for months a constant source of
anxiety and pain. It is pleasant to be rid of such distress. I am going
with you to Yedo.”
His eyes widened almost to Occidental roundness, the pupils purpling
with the intensity of his emotion. “My thanks, brother! But it is
impossible--impossible!”
“At the worst they can only send me packing in a bamboo cage, to be
shipped out of Nagasaki by the Dutch.”
“That is the usual course with wrecked sailors, but should you go with
me, they might torture and execute you as a spy.”
“Not with Perry’s fleet in Eastern waters,” I replied. “I give your
government credit for at least a modicum of statesmanship. Yet even
supposing they lack all wisdom, I choose to take the risk. There is no
room for argument. You are going, so am I. Why, sir, it’s an adventure
such as I have been longing for all my life! You cannot turn me from
it.”
“If not I, others can and will. The _ometsukes_ are everywhere. You
could not so much as effect a landing.”
“And you?” I demanded.
“I am Japanese. There is a chance for me to slip through. But you--”
“Disguised in Japanese dress! Can I not talk good Japanese? Have I not
accustomed myself to your costume? A little more practice with the
chopsticks and clogs--”
“Your eyes! In all Japan there is to be found no one with round eyes of
violet blue.”
“I can learn to squint; and have you not told me of the deep-brimmed
hats worn by your freelances, the _ronins_? You have said that many
high-born Japanese have faces no darker than my own, and that brown
hair is not unknown.”
“You will risk your life to come with me!” he protested.
I laughed lightly. “You have so little to say of your Japanese ladies,
Tomo. Perhaps I wish to see what they are like.”
“That is a jest. I have told you that our women of noble families are
seldom to be seen by strangers.”
“There are those others,” I suggested.
He gazed at me in mild reproach. “Do not jest, Woroto. I have seen that
you have nothing to do with the _joro_ of the Occident. You are not one
to dally with those of the Orient.”
“But the _geishas_--the artists--they must be charming.”
“It is their art to charm.”
“Tomo,” I said, sobering myself, “I know it is a rudeness to ask, but,
pardon me, are you married?”
“No.”
“Is there no maiden of noble family--?”
“None,” he answered. “There was once a _geisha_--But we men of
_samurai_ blood are supposed to despise such weakness. Since then I
have devoted my life to that which you so generously have helped me to
attain.”
“You have no desire ever to marry?” I persisted.
“We hold it a duty to ancestors and families for every young man and
maiden to marry,” he replied. “It is not as we wish, but as our parents
choose. More than ten years ago His Highness the Shogun arranged with
my father that I should marry his daughter Azai.”
“You refused! But of course you were still a boy.”
“You mistake. The arrangement was for the future. The maiden was then
only six years of age.”
“Six? and ten years ago? Then she is now sixteen,--a princess of
sixteen! Tomo, you’re as cold-blooded as a fish! A princess of sixteen,
and you never before so much as hinted at your good fortune! Of course
she is beautiful?”
He gazed at me in patient bewilderment over the inexplicable romantic
emotionalism of the _tojin_.
“She is said to be beautiful,” he replied, calmly indifferent. “I
cannot say. I have never seen her. You know that Japanese ladies do not
mingle with men in your shocking _tojin_ fashion.”
CHAPTER V--THE COASTS OF NIPPON
At once I set about perfecting myself in certain practices which so far
had afforded me little more than idle amusement. The knack of holding
on a Japanese clog or the lighter sandal by gripping the thong that
passes between the great toe and its mate is not acquired at the first
trial or at many to follow. Still more difficult is the ability to sit
for hours, crouched on knees and heels, in the Japanese fashion. I
practised both feats with a patient endurance born of intense desire.
Yoritomo had suffered as great inconvenience while learning to wear
Occidental dress and to sit on chairs.
There were many other accomplishments, hardly less irksome, in which
I had to drill myself, that I might be prepared to play the rôle of
a Japanese gentleman. For recreation between times, I devoted my odd
hours to cutlass fencing with an expert _maître d’armes_ and to pistol
practice. For this last I purchased a brace of Lefaucheux revolvers,
which, though a trifle inferior to the Colt in accuracy, possessed
the advantage of the inventor’s water-proof metallic cartridges. The
convenience and superiority of this cartridge over the old style of
loading with loose charges of powder and ball only need be mentioned to
be realized.
Yoritomo was so desirous of witnessing the outcome of President
Bonaparte’s manipulation of politics that we lingered in Paris until
the _coup d’état_ which marked the fall of the French Republic and
the ascension of Bonaparte to the imperial throne as Napoleon III.
Confirmed by this event in his opinion of the instability, violence,
and chicanery of Occidental statesmanship, my friend announced his
readiness to leave Europe.
The American packets had already brought word of the sailing of
Commodore Perry from Newport News on November the twenty-fourth. As his
route to China lay around the Cape of Good Hope, there had been no need
to hurry away on our shorter passage by the Peninsular and Oriental
route across the Isthmus of Suez and down the Red Sea.
We sailed on January the third, 1853, and, confident of our advantage
of route, stopped twice on our way, that Yoritomo might study the
administration of the British East India Company in Ceylon and India
and the Dutch rule in Java. As a result, we did not reach Shanghai
until the end of April.
It is in point to mention that during the voyage I gave my friend
frequent lessons in Western swordsmanship and in turn received as many
from him in Japanese fence, using heavy, two-handed foils of bamboo.
Though the Japanese art is without thrusts, I was taught by many a
bruise that it possesses clever and powerful cuts.
At Shanghai, we found already assembled three ships of the American
squadron, including the huge steam frigate _Susquehanna_. The Commodore
was expected to arrive soon from Hong-kong in the _Mississippi_.
My plan had been to charter a small vessel, and run across to the
Japanese coast, where we hoped to be able to smuggle ourselves ashore,
and make our way to Yedo in the disguise of priests. Owing, however, to
the alarm of the foreign settlement over the victories of the Taiping
rebels in the vicinity of Shanghai, there were few vessels in port and
none open to charter.
We were already aware that, under the strict orders of the Navy
Department, we could not join the American expedition without
subjecting ourselves to the fetters of naval discipline. As a last
resort and in the hope of gaining the assent of the Commodore to land
us in disguise, we might have considered even this humiliating course.
But the very object of Yoritomo’s return to his native shores was to
reach Yedo and present his case to the Shogun’s government before the
arrival of the foreigners.
Fearful of delay, we hired a Chinese escort and rode south across
country to Cha-pu, on the Bay of Hang-Chow, the port from which the ten
annual Chinese junks sail to Nagasaki. Though our escort did not always
manage to prevent their bigoted countrymen from making the journey
disagreeable for the “foreign devils,” we reached our destination
without loss of life or limb.
The vile treatment of the Celestials was quickly forgotten in the
graciousness of our welcome by the little colony of Japanese exiles
whom we found located at Cha-pu. Careful as was Yoritomo to conceal his
identity from his countrymen, they at once divined that he was a man of
noble rank, and invariably knelt and bowed their foreheads to the dust
whenever they came into his presence.
The Cha-pu merchants were greatly impressed by such deference on the
part of the proud little men of Nippon, yet neither this nor my gold
enabled us to obtain passage on one of their clumsy junks. The five
vessels of the summer shipment to Nagasaki were not due to sail before
August, and the jabbering heathen refused point-blank to risk the
extinction of their Japanese trade either by advancing the date of
sailing or by chartering a separate junk. Their unvarying reply was
that no one could land anywhere in Japan without being detected by the
spies.
One merchant alone betrayed a slight hesitancy over refusing us
outright, and he, after dallying with my ultimate offer for a
fortnight, at last positively declined the risk. I next proposed to buy
a junk and man it with fishermen from the Japanese colony. But Yoritomo
soon found that not one of the exiles dared return to Dai Nippon, great
as was their longing.
Mid-May had now come and gone. Hopeless of obtaining aid from the
Chinese, we rode back overland to Shanghai, agreed that it would be
better to sail with Perry than after him. To our dismay, we discovered
that the American squadron had sailed for the Loo Choo Islands two days
before our arrival.
In this darkest hour of our enterprise we chanced upon our golden
opportunity. Shortly after our departure for Cha-pu a New Bedford
whaler, the _Nancy Briggs_, had put into Shanghai to replace a sprung
foremast. She was now about to sail for the Straits of Sangar, bound
for the whaling grounds east of the Kurile Islands. I met her skipper
upon the bund, and within the hour had closed a bargain with him to
land us on the Japanese coast within twenty miles of the Bay of Yedo.
For this I was to pay him a thousand dollars in gold, and pilot his
ship through Van Diemen Strait.
By nightfall Yoritomo and I were aboard the _Nancy Briggs_ with our
dunnage and had settled ourselves in the little stateroom vacated by
the first mate. We awoke at sunrise to find the ship under way down the
Whang-po to the Yang-tse-Kiang. Another sunrise found the whaler in
blue water, running before the monsoon out across the Eastern Sea.
Though far from a clipper, the _Nancy Briggs_ was no tub. We sighted
Kuro, the westernmost island of Van Diemen Strait, and its blazing
volcanic neighbor Iwogoshima, on June the second, eight days over a
year and nine months since the _Sea Flight_ bore me up the superb Bay
of Kagoshima. The interval had been crowded with events in our physical
and mental worlds scarcely less momentous to myself than to my friend.
But it was no time for me to indulge in retrospection. I had engaged to
navigate the _Nancy Briggs_ through the narrow waters of an uncharted
strait. The rainy season was well under way, with all the concomitants
of heavy squalls and dense fogs. As already mentioned, a lucky glimpse
of Kuro, soon confirmed as a landfall by the red glare of Iwogoshima,
enabled me to set our course to pass through the strait.
We ran in under reefed topsails, feeling our way blindly by compass
and log in true whaler fashion. The Yankees took the risk as a matter
of course, but I, between the difficulty of calculating the effects of
the capricious squalls on our headway and my ignorance of the set of
the powerful currents around this southern extremity of Japan, found
my responsibilities as pilot no light burden. I was correspondingly
relieved when a rift opened in the smothering masses of vapor which
shrouded all view of sea and land, and I saw looming up abeam the
well-remembered point of bold Cape Satanomi.
Once clear of the strait, out in the open waters of the Pacific, we
packed on all sail to outdrive the heavy following sea, and entered
upon the run of over five hundred miles along the southeast coasts
of Kiushiu, Shikoku, and Hondo, the main island. Though the weather
continued wet and foggy, we were favored by a half gale from the south
and by the drift of the Japan Current, which here flows little less
swiftly than does our Gulf Stream off Hatteras.
Regardless of the whales which we frequently sighted, our skipper, true
to his agreement, held on under full sail, night and day, until we made
a landfall of Cape Idzu, the southernmost point of the great promontory
which lies southwest of Yedo Bay. We could not have desired conditions
more favorable to enable us to approach the coast unobserved. Night
was coming on and the gale freshening, but there was no fog. Our
skipper shortened sail, and stood boldly in between the east coast of
Idzu and the chain of islands trending southward from the mouth of the
outer Bay of Yedo.
Had the gale fallen at sundown, I might have persuaded the skipper to
hold on across and land us on the west coast of Awa, off the mouth of
the inner bay. Unfortunately the wind moderated so little and the sky
became so overcast that he ran in under the lee of the great hulking
volcano laid down on the charts as Vries Island, but by Yoritomo called
Oshima.
We were here in the mouth of the outer bay, and the skipper stated that
he was prepared to fulfil his contract by landing us on the island.
When I protested against being thus marooned, he declared that he would
put us ashore on Vries Island or nowhere. At this I demanded that he
run up the outer bay and set us adrift in his gig. He declared that to
do so would be sheer murder, since no boat could outride the billows
in the open bay. However, an offer of half of Yoritomo’s Japanese gold
coins altered his opinion, and the appearance of the rising moon, which
began to glimmer at intervals through the scurrying clouds, enabled us
to persuade him that he could run up to within the southern point of
Awa and beat out again without endangering his ship.
The moment he ordered the ship brought about, Yoritomo and I hastened
to prepare ourselves for the landing by shifting into our _Yamabushi_,
or mountain-priest robes, which with other articles of costume we had
obtained from the Japanese at Cha-pu. We had been dressing each other’s
hair in the Japanese fashion and shaving clean ever since the passage
of Van Diemen Strait. Our dunnage was already lashed together in two
compact bundles, wrapped about with many thicknesses of waterproof
oiled paper.
To the outside of the bundles, I now tied my revolvers and Yoritomo his
sword and dirk, all alike wrapped in oil paper, together with two pairs
of straw sandals and black leggings and our deep-brimmed basket hats
of coarse-wove rattan. The night was far too wild for us to risk being
flung into the breakers with any unnecessary weight about us. That we
might not be hampered by our loose dress, we bound up our long sleeves
to our shoulders and tucked the skirts of the robes through the back of
our girdles.
When we went up on the deck with our dunnage, a gleam of moonlight
showed us the dim, smoking mass of Vries Island already a full two
leagues astern, while ahead, across eighteen miles or more of racing
foam-crested billows, loomed the mountainous coast of Awa. We made our
way along the pitching deck to where the skipper stood with a group of
sailors beside the gig. They were lashing down a number of empty water
breakers in the bow and stern and under the thwarts, and there was an
oil cask made fast to the bow with a five-fathom line.
“Ready, hey?” shouted the skipper, when I made our presence known by
touching his arm. “Well, it’s on your own head, sir. I’m doing my best
for you, as I’m a God-fearing Christian. But it’ll take a sight of
special providence to bear you safe into haven once you cut adrift.”
I pointed to the oil cask. “A drag?”
“Aye. Keep you from broaching. Best kind of drag. She’s three-quarters
full of oil, and the head riddled with gimlet holes. The oil will
spread and keep the waves from breaking over you.”
“I’ve heard of that whaler’s trick,” I replied, gripping his broad
hand. “And the gig is unsinkable with those breakers aboard. We’re
bound to win through. I’ll lash our dunnage in the sternsheets myself.”
The moon went behind a cloud, but one of the sailors raised the lantern
that he was holding beneath the bulwark and set it within the gig. Our
bundles were soon secured, and we had only to lean upon the bulwark and
gaze over the starboard bow towards the dim coast of Awa. Though under
shortened sail, the old _Nancy_ ran before the gale at so famous a rate
that within two hours the outpeeping moon showed us the furious surf
along the rocky coast, two miles on our starboard beam.
As agreed, the skipper now put the ship’s head to the northwest and
stood on across the mouth of the inner bay until we sighted the surf on
the western coast. Our time had come.
CHAPTER VI--A WILD NIGHT
The gig already hung outboard. At the word from the skipper, Yoritomo
sprang into the sternsheets and I into the bow, ready to cast off. Six
men stood by to lower away and one to cut loose our cask drag, which
had been swung outboard in a handy sling.
“Ready, skipper!” I called.
“Aye, aye--Good luck to you, sir!” he cried, and wheeling about, he
began bawling his orders to bring the ship about on the port tack.
I had chosen a moment when the moon was edging out through a cloud
rift, so that the deft-handed Yankees had ample light for their work.
Within half a minute the ship, already running close aslant the waves,
came around into the trough of the sea. Over she heeled, until she was
all but lying on her beam ends. A little more and she must have turned
turtle. The sea boiled up alongside until the water poured over the
bulwark. Yet our men stood coolly to their posts.
“Let go the falls!” I shouted, above the howl of the gale.
The gig splashed into the seething water. In an instant I had cast
loose the bow block.
“Clear!” cried Yoritomo from the stern.
“Cut!” I yelled.
The oil cask plunged from its severed sling as the gig swung swiftly
down the receding wave to the leeward of the _Nancy_. I caught one
glimpse of the gallant old whaler staggering up and swinging her stem
around into the gale. A faint cheer came ringing down the wind. Then we
were out from under her lee, in the full sweep of the gale.
Though I had always prided myself upon my skill in handling small
craft, I must confess that the narrow gig would have swamped or turned
turtle within the first minute had it not been for our drag and the
breaker floats. Before we had swung around to the drag, a comber broke
over us and filled our little cockleshell to the gunwales. As she came
out of the smother, still afloat but heavy as a log, we fell to with
our bailers like madmen. We now knew she could not sink, but without
freeboard she would not ride head on to the cask, and the first wave
that caught us broadside might roll us over.
Fortunately the oil oozing from the cask was already filming over the
surface around us, so that high as we were flung up by the racing
billows and low as we sagged into their troughs, no more crests broke
upon us. The moment the boat rode easier, I sprang upon a thwart and
gazed about for a parting glance of the _Nancy Briggs_. But the moon
was already covered by a wisp of the scurrying stormrack. When its
silvery rays again shone upon the wild sea, I fancied that I caught
a glimpse of the whaler standing out towards the open ocean on the
starboard tack.
The deep booming of surf on a rocky shore brought my gaze about, and
as we topped the next wave I saw that we were abeam the high cliffs of
Cape Sagami, at the western point of the entrance to the inner bay. I
swung aft into the sternsheets, where Yoritomo crouched ankle-deep in
the wash, still frantically bailing.
“Belay!” I shouted.
He dropped his bailer, and looked over the side at the surf-whitened
shore in blank astonishment.
“So swift!” he cried, “so swift!”
“Wind, wave, and tide,” I rejoined. “I’ve known a boat to make less
speed under sail. Only trouble, with our present bearings, we’ll pile
up on that outjutting point of the east coast.”
“Before that, Uraga,” he replied.
“According to chart, we’ll drift clear of the west coast, and there’ll
be no guard-boats out of harbor to-night.”
“But the moonlight; they may sight us,” he insisted.
“A mile offshore, among these waves! Even if they had night-glasses,
they could not tell the gig from a sampan, nor ourselves from
storm-driven fishermen. You say the bay swarms with fishers.”
“Then there is now only the danger of delay from being cast up on the
east shore.”
“A delay apt to prove permanent if we drift upon a lee shore in the
surf that’s running to-night,” I added.
“I know you fear death as little as I do,” he said. “We are brothers in
spirit. But that my message should be delayed or lost--the gods forbid!”
“We’re not yet on the rocks, Tomo. We’ve deep water and to spare for
a while,” I cried, springing up to take our bearings as the moon was
again gliding behind the clouds.
We were now well past Cape Sagami and opposite a bight whose southern
shore, lying under the lee of its hill-crowned cliffs, was free of all
surf. Leading down through the face of the cliffs from the terraced
hillsides above were many wooded ravines, at the foot of which villages
nestled upon bits of level ground near the water’s edge. Here was a
haven that might possibly be gained by casting the drag adrift and
rowing in aslant the wind. But it was below Uraga, Yedo’s port of entry
for the native craft, and Yoritomo had impressed upon me the great need
to win our way past that nest of government inspectors and spies. The
attempt to run under a lee would be no more desperate an undertaking
beyond Uraga than here.
I crouched down again beside my friend, and waited anxiously for the
next glimpse of the moon. But the weather had suddenly thickened.
Gusts of rain began to dash upon us out of the blackening sky. The
rifts closed up until there was not even a star visible, and the rain
increased until it poured down aslant the gale in torrents. The roar of
the pelting deluge drowned the boom of the surf and beat down the wave
crests. We had not even the phosphorescent foam of the combers to break
the inky darkness about us.
The rain was too warm to chill us, but the down-whirling drops struck
upon our bare limbs with the sting of sleet. We crouched together in
the sternsheets, peering westward into the thick of the aqueous murk in
search for the lights of Uraga. One glimpse would have given us fair
warning to prepare for my desperate scheme to work under the lee of the
point some two miles beyond.
Death was inevitable should we drive past that point, across the bend
of the bay, to the outjutting cape on the east shore. Nor was it enough
for us to clear the cape. Even should we escape destruction there, and
even should we drift on up into the northeast corner of the bay, across
from Yedo, we would no less certainly perish in the surf. On the other
hand, could I but win the shelter of the point above Uraga, out of the
full sweep of the in-rolling seas, I might be able to sheer over to the
west shore and gain the shelter of one of the capes shown on the chart
drawn for me by Yoritomo.
Failing to sight the lights of Uraga, I was in a pretty pickle. To
cut adrift from our drag was quite sufficiently hazardous without the
certainty that if we put in too soon we should go to wreck on the Uraga
cape, and if we held on too late, be cast up on the outjutting point
of the east coast. We were utterly lost in the dense night of whirling
wind and rain and swift-heaving waves. Without means to measure the
passage of time, I could not even reckon our position by estimating our
rate of drift.
“No use watching, Tomo,” I at last shouted. “We could not see even a
lighthouse so thick a night, and we’ve drifted past by now. Hand me
your dirk.”
“Aye,” he replied, and I felt him turn about to where his dunnage was
lashed down. In a few minutes he turned back and thrust the hilt of his
short sword into my hand. He asked no questions, but waited calmly for
me to direct him.
With a few touches of the razor-edged blade I cut loose the oars, which
had been lashed under the gunwales. As I pressed the dirk hilt back
into his hand, I gave him his orders: “Go forward and cut the line when
I say; then aft, and stand by to bail.”
Without a word he crept away towards the bows through the down-whirling
deluge and blackness. I followed to a seat on the forward thwart, and
waited while three of the great billows flung us high and dropped us
into the trough behind them. As we sagged down the slope of the third,
I dipped my oar-blades and shouted, “Cut!”
The fourth wave shouldered us skyward. As we topped the crest the feel
of the wind on my back told me that the gig’s head was falling off to
port. A quick stroke brought her back square into the wind. We shot
down the watery slope, but before we could climb to another crest
Yoritomo had crept past me to his post in the pointed stern.
With utmost caution I headed the boat a few points to westward, and
began to pull aslant the waves, with the wind on our port bow. It was a
ticklish moment, for I did not know how the gig would handle. Without
the drag of our abandoned cask, she might well be expected to fall off
into the trough of the sea.
The struggle was now on in desperate earnest. But as I bent to my oars
with all my skill and strength, I realized by the way the gig responded
to my efforts that we had at least a fighting chance. Yet it was no
easy matter to hold the bows quarteringly to wind and waves as we shot
up and down the dizzy slopes, and Yoritomo was kept busy bailing out
the water that all too frequently poured in over the rocking gunwales.
At last, through the howling of the gale and the slashing roar of the
rain on the waters, I heard a deeper note, the welcome boom of the surf
on the west shore. Whether we were as yet abreast the cape above Uraga
I could not tell, but I held on as before, regardless of whatever reefs
or shoals might lie off this rocky coast. Soon the surf roar, which had
sounded abreast of us, seemed to fall away. I gave a shout, and bent
to my oars with redoubled energy. We were drifting past the point, out
into the turn of the bay beyond.
After a quarter-hour or so, to my vast relief the force of the wind
lessened and the waves ran lower. We were edging around the cape, under
the high lee of the westerly trending shore. Another quarter-hour, and
we were in comparatively quiet water.
“Tomo,” I called, “shall we attempt a landing? We can make it with ease
under the shelter of the hills.”
“So near across the point from Uraga?” he answered. “Could we not coast
up the west shore? Every mile we float nearer to Yedo is two miles of
walking saved.”
“But what if we should fetch up on a lee shore? You’ve marked more than
one promontory on the west coast.”
“Hold farther out, then,” he said. “By morning we might drift all the
way up the bay and across the Shinagawa Shoals, into the mouth of the
Sumida River.”
“Clear to Yedo?” I cried. “Yet your chart makes it less than thirty
miles, and it’s only a question of holding the boat a few points aslant
the wind. We’ve seen how lightly the gig rides. There’s only the danger
of those promontories, and I’ve the wind to steer by. We’ll do it,
Tomo!”
“Commodore Perry may already be at Nagasaki,” he added, by way of final
argument for haste.
“Give me your robe,” I said.
He slipped off the loose garment without demur, and crept forward to
press it into my hand. We were now in water in which the boat could
be safely allowed to drift without guidance. I flung the oars inboard
and lashed the robe to one of them so as to make a small triangular
sail. While I worked I gave Yoritomo his instructions. Soon the sail
was ready. I handed it over to my friend, and with the second oar for
rudder made my way aft to the sharp stern. A few strokes brought us
around with the wind on our port quarter. Immediately Yoritomo stepped
his oar mast through the socket in the forward thwart, and set sail.
Though so small, the little cotton triangle drew well, as I could tell
by the ease with which the gig responded to her helm. Another proof was
the quickness with which we ran out from under our sheltering highland
into the full sweep of the gale and the high waves of the open bay.
Scudding aslant the wind as nearly north as I could reckon our bearings
from the drive of the rain torrents, we hurled along through the black
night, utterly lost to all sense of time and distance.
After what may have been two hours, or possibly three, the rain
slackened to a fine drizzle and the wind began to lull, blowing in
fitful gusts and veering about in a way that left me only the run of
the waves by which to shape my course. Soon after, to my surprise, the
great rollers began to lessen in height, clear proof that we had come
under the lee of a headland. Outwearied by the long struggle, I decided
to try for the shelter which it seemed to offer. But before I could
give the order to Yoritomo to shift sail, a roller broke aboard us,
filling the gig to the gunwales.
“Unship and bail!” I yelled.
“Bailer gone!” he shouted, and he crawled aft with his robe sail
wrapped about the oar.
A second roller broke over us. We were among breakers, either upon a
bank or a shoaling beach. As I labored to hold the gig stern on to the
waves, I cried out in anticipation of the coming shock: “Hold to your
oar! Cut loose the bundles. Stand by to pass me mine.”
“Ready!” he called back.
The gig struck softly on a mud bottom, and was instantly smothered
under a third breaker. But the impact drove her over the bank, and we
found ourselves afloat in fairly calm water. An attempt to pole with
my oar showed me that we were in water deeper than I could sound. A
last puff of the expiring gale caught the boat and swung her about
broadsides. Before I could bring her bows on again she struck bottom on
another mud bank.
Through the lessening drizzle I could see the outline of a rising shore
near at hand. The boat lifted in the low swell that rolled over the
outer shoal, drove forward a few yards, and stuck fast. A downward
thrust of my oar told me there was hard bottom a foot below the ooze.
“My bundle, and follow!” I cried.
Yoritomo thrust my dunnage into my hands, and leaped overboard after
me. Ten yards through knee-deep mud and water brought us to the foot
of a sloping embankment. We climbed up it and stretched out upon
its turf-covered crest, panting with the fatigue of our long battle
against wind and wave, yet aglow with delight at our victory.
“Come,” said Yoritomo, after a short rest. “The rain has ceased. I will
put on my robe and lead you to an inn or farmhouse.”
“Wait,” I replied. “The dawn must be near. We cannot leave the gig to
be found by the first man who comes this way. We must sink her.”
Lightened of our weight, the gig had cleared and drifted in almost to
the foot of the embankment. By rolling we sluiced enough water from
her to set her afloat, and I set about knocking out the bungs of the
breakers, while Yoritomo fetched heavy lumps of turf and clay from
a break in the face of the embankment. As the boat sank deeper into
the water with the filling of the breakers and the weight of the clay
ballast, we thrust off into deeper water. At last I was satisfied, and
shoving her out into the channel between the mud banks, I rocked under
the gunwales until she filled and sank.
A few strokes brought me back into shallow water, and I soon regained
the embankment. In the faintly gathering light I saw that Yoritomo had
already put on not only his robe but also his leggings and sandals.
He thrust my hat and revolvers into my hands and knelt to bind on my
sandals and leggings.
“The clouds break,” he exclaimed. “It is a good omen. Let us hasten on.”
“On?” I said. “We cannot go far without rest.”
“Until we find a farmhouse or inn,” he urged. Springing up, he swung
his dunnage upon his shoulder and led off inland.
A few steps brought us down the far side of the embankment into a
shallow swamp. As we splashed through the oozy slush I felt tufts of
soft grassy stems brushing against my ankles at regular intervals.
“Rice field,” muttered my friend before I could question him.
The stench of the strongly fertilized paddy swamp was almost
insufferable, and our discomfort was not lessened by the maddening
swarms of mosquitoes. We crossed a narrow dyke and splashed along with
quickened step through a second field worse than the first. Still
another dyke, and then, beyond the third field, we sighted higher
ground, above which loomed the dimly outlined tops of gigantic trees.
“The Tokaido!” cried Yoritomo.
A hundred yards across the last fetid swamp brought us up the bank and
into a broad smooth road beneath the dense gloom of a double row of
cryptomerias. We were upon the famed Tokaido, or East Sea Road, which
connects Yedo with Kyoto and the southwestern provinces of Japan. To
my surprise, Yoritomo crossed over, instead of turning along the road.
As I followed, he pointed to a wooded hill, upon which a group of lofty
trees and the black mass of a small peak-roofed building stood out
against the brightening sky.
Skirting the edge of the Tokaido, we soon came to a path that led us
windingly around through high coppices and up the far slope of the
hill. The last of the clouds were now sweeping away to the northward,
and the eastern sky was gray with the pallor of the false dawn. We
gained the round of the hill, and passed between a pair of heavy wooden
pillars, cross-tied with a square lintel-beam and a massive roof-beam,
or framework, with upcurving ends.
“A _torii_,” muttered Yoritomo. “We come to a temple, not an inn.”
Though I caught a hint of disappointment in his tone, he led on up the
bend of the hillcrest and across a shrubbery, to the front of the small
grass-thatched building in the midst of the towering pines.
“It is a _miya_--a Shinto temple,” he murmured. “Yet we need food as
well as rest.”
“They will give us no food, when we come as fellow-priests?” I
exclaimed in mock indignation.
“Even when a _miya_ is not deserted, the priests of Shinto seldom
dwell in or near it,” he replied, and I heard him sigh. He was as near
outspent as myself. But suddenly I saw his bent form straighten. He
faced about to the western sky, with upraised arms, and his voice rang
clear and strong in a salute of reverent joy: “_Fuji-yama! Fuji-san!_”
I turned to look. Far away to the west-southwest, beyond the black
silhouette of broken mountain ranges and lesser peaks, a marvellous
pyramid of rosy flame towered high aloft in the starry sky. Red dawn,
as yet unseen by us, had turned the snow-clad crest of the superb peak
into the likeness of a gigantic blossom, pendent from mid-sky.
“_Fuji-san!_” repeated Yoritomo, and he fell upon his knees and bowed
his forehead to the ground, overcome with rapture.
Swiftly the roseate effulgence brightened and shifted hue to a glorious
gold that shone with dazzling brightness against the blue-black sky.
The eastern sky was now flaming high with the red dawn. Lighter shone
the great peak-crest, its gold changing under the magic transmutation
of day into the cold, burnished silver of its glistening snows. The sun
leaped above the horizon, and the last shadow of night fled.
Yoritomo rose from his knees and caught up his bundle.
“Come within,” he said. “We can at least rest, and it is well we should
not be seen until we have arranged our dress.”
Caught in the midst of a yawn, I signed assent, and he led me past the
stone image of a sitting fox to the narrow entrance of the temple.
Pushing in after him with my bundle, I found myself in a gloomy
chamber, shut off from the rear half of the temple by a close wall.
There was no idol to be seen, and the only furnishing of the bare
little room was a small mirror of polished bronze hung about with
strips of white paper.
Yoritomo kowtowed before this curious symbol of Shinto, rose to his
knees, and waved me to lie down. I stretched out, yawning, and he sank
down beside me. In another minute we were both fast asleep.
CHAPTER VII--ON THE TOKAIDO
We wakened, stiff and sore, a full two hours after noon. Yoritomo, who
was first to rouse up, ran to the door to look out. He turned about,
with an urgent cry that cut short my yawnings in the midst: “Up! up,
brother! We’ve slept past midday. We must lose no time if we expect to
reach the heart of Yedo by nightfall.”
“Do you remember the two biscuits I wrapped in my bundle?” I demanded.
“I’m famished. A drink and a biscuit for me before I take to any road
race.”
“We must dress and eat. There is water outside,” he responded, and he
slashed open our bundles.
Not a drop of water had penetrated the oil-paper wrappings. We slipped
off our stained and tattered Yamabushi robes to put on the silken
garments which he had carried from his country all the long voyage
to Europe and back. First came a pair each of the gorgeous baggy
trousers, or _hakama_. They were provided with side slits, into which
we tucked the skirts of our silk _kimonos_. The narrow twisted _obi_,
or sash, served to hold my revolvers and the magnificent Masamune sword
presented to me by Yoritomo that eventful night in the cabin of the
_Sea Flight_.
My friend thrust his sword and dirk into his girdle, not in the
horizontal Japanese fashion, but vertically, as I wore mine, that the
scabbards might not show beneath our outer robes. His writing case
and the bag containing his smoker’s outfit were secured on the other
side by passing the carved ivory buttons of their cords through a fold
of the girdle. Inside, about my waist, I placed my twenty odd pounds
of metallic revolver cartridges, while he packed within his bosom a
lighter though bulkier load consisting of white silk foot-mittens,
extra sandals, a roll of crinkly writing paper, and the box with the
remainder of his gold coins.
Over all we drew our cloak-like coats, or _haoris_, of rich stiff silk,
upon which the circled mallow-leaf trefoil of the Tokugawa crest was
embroidered on back, breasts, and sleeves. These coats were in turn
covered with our dingy priest robes, and we were outwardly prepared
to take the road. There remained our inward preparation. We took our
ship’s biscuits and passed out the narrow entrance.
My first glance was directed towards Fujiyama. But the glorious peak
was shrouded from view by a bank of envious clouds. Yoritomo turned at
once to a hollowed stone from which trickled a rill of pure water. We
drank and crouched down beside the spring to gnaw at our biscuits. At
first I was too hungry to heed my surroundings. Yoritomo, however, soon
pointed southward, through a gap in the shrubbery, to where, some four
miles distant, a hilly promontory jutted out into the bay.
“That is the town of Kanagawa,” he said.
“Where?” I asked. “I see no smoke. Do you mean that little gray blotch
low down on the edge of the promontory?”
“No, that is only a small fishing village lying among the rice
swamps,--Yokohama, I believe, is its name. Kanagawa lies about two
miles to the west of it. You see no smoke because in Japan we use
charcoal only. Kanagawa is the last station on the Tokaido where the
_daimios_ stop over night before marching into Yedo.”
“But the sons of the _daimios_ repose amidst the splendors of the
temples,” I bantered him.
He glanced about reverently at the decaying little edifice. “The spirit
of Shinto is simplicity. Yet I wish I could have entertained you with
proper hospitality, and that we might enter Yedo in the manner to which
we are entitled by our rank.”
“Ours?” I questioned.
“Are we not brothers?” he countered.
“You know the position of my family at home,” I said. “But it is a far
cry from America to Dai Nippon. I have read what the Dutch writers tell
about the hauteur of your nobility. Even as a friend of a kinsman of
your Emperor, will I be received?”
“I am not the kinsman of the Emperor,” he replied.
“You’re not? Yet you said that your father, the Prince of Owari--”
“He and the princes of Kii and Mito are the heads of the August Three
Families, descendent from the three sons of Iyeyasu. He is the cousin
of the Shogun, not of the Emperor. One alone can be called Emperor of
Nippon. That is the Dairi--the Mikado, lineal descendant of Ama-terasu,
the Sun Goddess. The sacred Son of Heaven lives in awesome seclusion at
Kyoto.”
“Yet I am aware that your shoguns, whom the outer world has known as
the temporal emperors, have ruled Nippon with mailed fist since the
days of my ancestor, the English counsellor of Iyeyasu.”
He stared at me in blank astonishment. “The English counsellor of
Iyeyasu!--he your ancestor?--Anjin Sama your ancestor?”
“Will Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan,” I answered. “Surely
you have heard of him.”
“Adams! Was that the English name of Anjin Sama?--and he your ancestor?
You never told me!”
“How much have you told me of your family, Tomo?”
“But Anjin Sama, of all the _kami_--!” He gazed at me with a strange
glow in his black eyes. “You know our belief, Worth, that the dead come
back many times and are often born again.”
“The Buddhistic reincarnation,” I remarked.
“And the Shinto rebirth of the _kami_--the high ones,” he added.
“But what of Will Adams?” I demanded, aflame with curiosity. “I know
that he married a Japanese wife and left children by her. Have they any
living descendants?”
He looked away, with an enigmatic smile.
“You may learn more of your ancestor, brother, after we reach Yedo.
There is an Anjin Street, whose householders still hold a yearly
festival in his memory.--Come; it is time for us to be going.”
As he spoke, he rose and started around the corner of the temple. I
followed him to the corner and back along the side of the decaying
building, below the ragged thatch of the eaves. At the rear corner we
came to a narrow gap in the shrubbery looking down upon the Tokaido.
Yoritomo suddenly turned about, with his fingers to his lips, and drew
me down.
“Kwannon be praised!” he whispered. “They did not see us! For
common beggar-priests to be caught staring down upon a _daimio’s_
train--_Namu!_”
I peered forward and down into the Tokaido, which ran past less than a
hundred yards below us. Along the broad roadway was marching the most
curious and stately procession I had ever seen. It was the retinue of a
_daimio_ who was going up to Yedo for the half-year’s visit required by
law. By far the greater part of the procession was already strung out
Yedo-ward farther than the eye could see. But half a thousand of the
rearguard had yet to pass.
Used as I was to the sight of Yoritomo’s garments, there was much to
surprise and interest me in the appearance of the _daimio’s_ retainers.
Though as short as our women, they were of a more stalwart build than I
had expected, and the _samurais_, or two-sword men, carried themselves
with a proud assurance that went far towards offsetting their lack of
height. Among the loose ranks of these gentlemanly men-at-arms marched
lesser retainers,--grooms with grotesquely accoutred led-horses and
porters with rattan baskets and lacquered chests.
Yoritomo whispered that the box-like palanquin, or _norimon_, of the
_daimio_ had long since been carried past by its bearers. Yet this rear
end of the procession marched slowly along with a demeanor that could
not have been exceeded in solemnity and stateliness had the _daimio_
been present in its midst. The hush was almost oppressive. No man among
them called out or spoke or even whispered. The only sounds were the
scuffle of sandals in the dusty road and the muffled thud of straw-shod
horse hoofs.
“What is the crest?” I whispered, staring at the insignia embroidered
on the outer garments of every retainer and marked on every piece of
baggage. “It looks like a white cross in a circle.”
“A circled cross,” confirmed Yoritomo. “You saw it in Kagoshima
Bay,--the crest of my friend Nariakiri, Daimio of Satsuma.”
“The Prince of Satsuma!” I exclaimed. “Why not hasten down and join
him?”
“Hasten down, and be slashed or beheaded by the first _samurai_ we
passed!” rejoined Yoritomo, grasping my sleeve as I sought to spring
up. “Even without these tattered robes it would mean certain death.
Each _daimio_ is appointed a time for passing along the highroad. Any
one who breaks in upon the procession may expect to die without benefit
of medicine.”
“But he is your friend, and if you are so anxious to reach home by
nightfall--”
“There are no by-ways through the rice swamps,” he replied. “We must
trail after the rearguard.”
“They move at a snail’s pace!”
“It will bring them into Shinagawa, the southern suburb of Yedo, about
sunset. In Shinagawa I expect to find a friend with whom we can spend
the night. Meantime we may as well wait here until the cortege has gone
on four or five miles. I will take advantage of the opportunity to
write a petition asking permission to present a memorial to the Shogun.”
He crept back around the corner of the temple. I stretched out in
the balsamic shade of the pines, and watched the slow passing of the
procession. When the last strutting _samurai_ had marched on up the
road, I gazed around at the landscape. Across the full width of the
bay the mountains on the promontory of Awa loomed dimly through the
haze, while the blue waters between, already stilled from their night’s
turmoil, were dotted with the white sails of junks and fishing smacks.
Inland the golden sunlight streamed down out of the sapphire sky
upon a scene no less peaceful and charming. About me and far to the
northward the land lay in broad plain, for the most part cut up into
a checkerboard of rice fields. Here and there rose knolls and hills,
some terraced to the top for rice, others wooded, and the most eminent
crowned with temples that reminded me of China. In the rice swamps
naked peasants, knee-deep in the slush, were transplanting tufts of
young rice, while about them waterfowl waded or paddled, untroubled by
the presence of man. Above them soared numbers of eagles and hawks.
Birds were to be seen or heard on every side, but I noticed a marked
absence of animals from the landscape.
Some time after the rear of the procession had disappeared up the
Tokaido, Yoritomo came back around the temple, and said that we must
start. I pulled my hat brim low over my face, and swung after him down
the hillside to the smooth road.
For a time we met no other traveller. The road had been swept clear
by the procession. But we soon came to groups of odd little shops and
inns, strung along the roadside in almost continuous rows. Within
the open fronts of the shops cotton-robed tradesmen knelt on matted
platforms in the midst of their cheap wares, while from under the
shallow porticos of the inns quaint little maidens with powdered
doll-like faces and narrow skirts smiled at us invitingly and bowed
until we could see the great bows at the back of their sashes. But
Yoritomo kept on up the road at a fast pace, unmoved by the alluring
glances of these charming little waitresses.
Within the second mile we began to encounter a stream of travellers
released from the post town of Kawasaki by the passage of the
_daimio’s_ train. We were the first to come up from the south in the
wake of the _daimio_, but the people we met had no more than a casual
glance for a pair of dirty-robed Yamabushi priests.
As we swung along through their midst I peeped out at them between the
meshes of my loosely woven hat brim. My first observations were that
they averaged far below the height of Americans, and that clothing was
rather a minus quantity among all but the white-robed pilgrims and
the silk-clad _samurais_. The brown skins of peasants and fishermen,
porters, grooms, and beggars were either innocent of all covering
except narrow loincloths or at most limited to a shirt-like _kimono_ of
blue-figured cotton, a straw hat, and sandals.
Aside from the aristocratic swordsmen, these people were the merriest
I had ever met. When not smiling and chatting, they were laughing or
singing. Among the peasants and groups of pilgrims were several women,
the younger of whom possessed a buxom rural prettiness. The married
women looked aged and withered, and pleasant as were their smiles, my
Western eye was repulsed by their shaven brows and the gray-black teeth
which showed between their rouged lips at every smile.
At Kawasaki we swung briskly down to the bank of the Rokugu River,
where bronzed ferrymen, stripped to loincloths, stood waiting for
passengers in their big flat-bottomed punts. A boat in which the party
of a _samurai_ horseman had embarked was being thrust off. Before
Yoritomo could check me, I sprang forward to leap aboard. In a flash
the _samurai_ drew his two-handed sword and aimed a blow at me that
would have split my head in two had I not dropped backwards beyond
reach. Furious at the wanton attempt to murder me, I sprang up and
fumbled for a revolver as the boat shot out from the bank.
“Hold, brother!” warned Yoritomo, springing to catch my arm. “Remember,
we are only begging priests. He had the right to resent our company.
What’s more, he is a _hatamoto_, one of the Shogun’s _samurais_. If I
remember aright, he is Yuki, a captain of the palace guard.”
“He tried to cut me down in cold blood!” I protested.
“It is a right of all _samurais_ to kill lower-class men, and you
affronted Yuki by seeking to board the same boat. Here’s a smaller boat
putting off.”
We ran and leaped aboard the small boat as it swung into the stream.
For fellow-passengers we had a wealthy old merchant, dressed in plain
cotton robes, and the half-naked bearers of his narrow U-shaped
basket-litter. In paying our ferry fees, Yoritomo offered one of his
gold pieces, and the boat’s owner being unable to make full change, he
gave him the difference. As a result the polers bent to their work with
such hearty good-will that we reached the opposite bank a full three
lengths in advance of the _samurai’s_ boat.
We sprang ashore past a bevy of little brown children who were
paddling, stark naked, in the mud. Shortly beyond we met a pair of
neatly dressed girls, whose large mushroom hats rested upon black silk
skullcaps. They smiled and greeted us in a familiar manner. Yoritomo
muttered a hasty response, and pointed back at the _samurai_. The girls
hastened to advance upon that quick-tempered gentleman, with their
battery of charming smiles and alluring glances in full action.
“Courtesans?” I asked, as we swung on along the Tokaido.
“No, not _joros_, only _bikunis_--begging nuns, daughters of Yamabushi
priests. None would be quicker to penetrate our disguise,” replied
Yoritomo, and he quickened his pace.
After a mile or so we again met a crowd of southbound travellers,
people caught at Omuri by the closing of the highroad. We hastened
on to Omuri, the first post village out of Shinagawa. Recently as
the _daimio’s_ procession had passed, the place was already alert for
business, its shops wide open and teahouse girls standing coy-eyed in
the verandas. We hastened on through, pausing only to buy some large
dried persimmons that caught my eye.
A mile behind the town we came up with the rear of the Satsuma
procession, and were compelled by prudence to slacken our pace to a
tortoise-like gait. Making the best of the situation, I relished my
persimmons and viewed the scenery. There was much novelty and pleasure
in the sight of orange trees and bamboos and even an occasional banana
and palm growing in the same garden with pines and other evergreens,
while the deep-thatched roofs of the farmhouses were oddly attractive
with the beds of blue irises and vivid red lilies blooming on their
flattened ridges.
Above us towered the giant red-limbed cryptomerias of the Tokaido, with
their pine-like foliage, while on our right the road skirted along near
the sparkling blue waters of the bay, upon which sailed flotillas of
quaint fishing craft and high-sterned junks that might have served as
models for a painter of the sixteenth century.
Yoritomo touched my arm and pointed to something lying on the opposite
side of the road. I looked closer, and saw that it was the corpse of a
peasant, mangled by terrible sword cuts.
“A drunken fool,” he said, unmoved by the horrible sight. “No sober
man would have been found in the road after it had been sanded for the
passage of a _daimio_.”
Before I could reply, a little bell tinkled in the road behind us,
and Yoritomo drew me quickly out of the middle of the thoroughfare.
I glanced about and saw two runners racing towards us at headlong
speed. One carried the little bell I had heard, the other bore a small
bundle on a stick, across his shoulder. Both were stripped to their
loincloths, though at first glance I thought that they were clad in
tights, so completely were they covered with animal designs tattooed in
red, blue, and white.
In a moment the couriers had dashed past us and were flying on,
regardless of the stately cortege that barred the road. With the
murdered peasant fresh in mind, I looked to see the Satsuma men turn
about with sword and lance to avenge this outrage upon the dignity of
their lord. To my vast astonishment, the solemn ranks split apart all
along the centre of the road at the first tinkle of the little bell,
and the naked runners raced on without a check through the midst of the
procession.
“Carriers of despatches for the Shogun,” explained Yoritomo in response
to my look of amazed inquiry.
Here was food for thought to last me into Shinagawa, slow as was our
pace. Nowhere in the world had I witnessed such solemn state as was
exhibited by this _daimio_ cortege, a state so exalted that men were
killed for venturing within sword-sweep of the procession’s vanguard.
Yet at the tinkle of a bell, all had yielded the road to a pair of
naked, sweaty, unarmed postmen. What, then, must be the sublimity of
rank and state arrogated to himself by the master of this prince? Yet
the father of the quiet, mild-mannered gentleman trudging along in the
dust beside me was the blood kinsman of that Oriental lord of lords.
We were close upon Shinagawa before I realized that the sun was far
down the western sky and fast sinking behind a bank of black clouds. As
I looked up my eye fell upon a rude pillory, standing near the roadside
on ground raised above the level of the rice swamp. Along the top of
the rude structure sat five roundish objects sharply outlined against
the blood-red sky. Looking closer, I made out ghastly human faces--a
crow flapped up from the ground, with a hoarse cry, and began pecking
at one of the severed heads.
CHAPTER VIII--THE GEISHA
Day was fading into twilight as we trailed after the Satsuma men into
the heart of Shinagawa. On either side of the Tokaido extended rows
of handsome two-storied inns and teahouses, set one against the other
without a gap except where divided by narrow cross streets. The upper
windows and balconies of every building were sealed over with opaque
screens to prevent persons from looking down upon the _daimio_ and his
retinue, and across the entrances of the side streets were stretched
frail ropes of twisted straw, behind which kneeling crowds waited for
the passage of the last Satsuma man.
The street was guarded by wardsmen, or householders, bearing iron
staves with large rings at the top. We shuffled along between these
warders, with downbent heads, perilously close to the rear of the
procession. Three or four times the wardsmen seemed inclined to halt
us, but we passed by them with outward indifference, keeping well in
advance of the crowds that surged out behind us into the Tokaido from
the unbarred side streets.
Midway of the long suburb Yoritomo turned sharply into a narrow street
leading towards the bay. I stooped under the barring rope after him,
and found myself in the midst of a dense crowd of men, many of whom
were still kneeling. Packed side by side in the jam were cotton-clad
tradesmen and silk-gowned _samurais_, half-naked artisans and nobles
in lacquered _norimon_ palanquins. All alike were provided with paper
lanterns, round, square, or octagonal in shape, and inscribed with
crest or name in Chinese ideographs. These lanterns and the rows of
similar ones hung along the fronts of the houses were being lighted as
twilight deepened into darkness.
Suddenly the crowd through which we were attempting to pass swayed
forward and filled the air with the clash of their wooden clogs on
the hard ground. The rope had been taken down and the crowd permitted
to surge out into the Tokaido. While we worked our way in against the
outpouring stream, I was pleased to see that there were no women in
the jam. But on either side of the street wide-flung screens exposed
to view artistically decorated interiors where smiling young girls
in gorgeous dress knelt on the mats, twanging odd music on their
three-string _samisens_ or preening themselves before mirrors of
polished bronze. In other houses dainty waiting maids fluttered about
like butterflies, serving the hungry guests.
The crowd in the street was the sweetest one with which I had ever come
in contact, and this was no less true when we elbowed our way through
a band of breech-clouted porters. The explanation was not far off
when, with the breaking of the jam, we approached a building through
whose latticed front issued clouds of vapor and a babel of chatter and
laughter.
When opposite this house I glanced in through the wide spaces of the
lattice and was startled to see a large company of nude men and women
splashing about together in a great tank of hot water. It was a public
bath--public in all senses of the term! As we passed by, a dripping
nymph stepped up from the water within a foot of the lattice and gazed
idly out into the street, as naively unconscious in look and manner and
as innocent of costume as Eve before the Fall.
Yoritomo swung by unheeding, and hastened on to the open front of
one of the larger teahouses. A moment later we had entered a long
stone-paved passageway that ran back through the centre of the
building. On one side we looked in upon the charcoal ranges and sniffed
the savory odors of the inn kitchen, on the other we viewed through
half-closed screens the commoner guest-rooms of the house.
At sight of our tattered robes bowing waitresses sought to usher us
into one of these front apartments. Yoritomo thrust past them and
on down the passage, fifty paces or more, until we came out into a
veritable fairy garden, strung with myriads of painted lanterns. As we
seated ourselves on a low bench under a grape arbor, the host overtook
us and, bowing curtly, asked what we desired.
“Does Kohana, the free _geisha_, still live here?” asked Yoritomo.
“Kohana San, the artist patronized by princes, still honors my poor
establishment,” replied the man.
“We would speak with her,” said Yoritomo, pushing back his hat until
his pale aristocratic face could be seen in the soft lantern light.
The landlord, who had been about to turn us off, hesitated and answered
in a more respectful tone: “The most famous dancer of Yedo enjoys the
favor of _daimios_. How then can I bid her come to attend those who
seem no more than Yamabushi?”
Yoritomo drew a sheet of paper from his bosom, and taking his brush
pen from the case at his girdle, wrote a few small ideographs in the
classical Chinese character. Swift as were his strokes, the first
letter was scarcely drawn before the host was kowtowing, forehead to
earth. He rose, touched the finished writing to his brow, and clattered
off on his high wooden clogs across the fairyland of his garden.
“You have declared yourself!” I exclaimed.
“To him, no. My manner of writing convinced him that I am of high rank.
But I wrote only a quotation from one of the ancient poems. Even if he
is learned enough to read it--”
“Will this dancer then grasp your meaning?”
“Kohana is one of the higher class of _geisha_ called
_shirabyoshi_,--one of the superior artists. She is of _samurai_ blood,
and the old _geisha_ who bought her in childhood, and trained her after
the manner of _geishas_, gave her the highest of women’s culture.
Before I left Yedo I bought the girl’s freedom from service. She was
then in her eighteenth year.”
“You bought her freedom!” I murmured. “You who look so coldly upon
women!”
“I could do no more for her,--and no less. We loved, but love cannot
bind a true _samurai_ when duty calls. I vowed to give my life to the
service of the Mikado and Dai Nippon. To have lingered with her after
that would have been despicable.”
I sat silent, reflecting upon the strange customs of this queer people
and the hidden depths in the nature of my friend. All my intimacy
with him, backed by close study of Kämpfer and Siebold, had failed to
prepare me for the bizarre contrasts and impressions of the mysterious
land of Nippon.
In the garden about us pleasure-seekers strolled along the rough-paved
walks on lacquered clogs, but none disturbed our seclusion in the
arbor until the landlord came shuffling back. He kowtowed before us,
with loud insuckings of his breath. I could scarcely hear his murmured
words: “Kohana San sends humble greetings to the honorable writer, and
entreats him and his honorable companion to honor her lowly dwelling
with their august presence.”
“We need no guide,” replied Yoritomo, as the landlord rose to conduct
us.
The man again prostrated himself and held to the obsequious salute
until we had moved away. The moon gave no light through the curtain of
drifting cloud, but as we hastened along a winding path, in through
the gay rows of swaying paper lanterns, I made out amidst the graceful
trees and flowering shrubs grotesque bronze figures, odd shaped rocks,
and quaint pagoda-topped stone lanterns.
Soon the path led down along the shore of a tiny lake, whose still
surface glinted with the many-hued reflections of the lanterns. We
crossed over at one corner on a frail bamboo bridge, arched like a
quarter-round of hoop, and passed through a fern-set rockery, to
a gateless opening in a hedge of bamboos. Beside this entrance,
resplendent in a miniature _kimono_ of silver-wrought blue silk,
waited a doll-like little maiden of twelve, who, having duly kowtowed
to us, tottered ahead on her high clogs, to conduct us to the house of
her mistress.
A few steps brought us to a rambling red-tiled bungalow with broad,
low eaves and deep-set verandas. Mounting daintily before us up the
rough stone steps, the child knelt upon the polished planking of the
veranda, to remove our sandals. If she was astonished at our mudstained
leggings, she showed not the slightest sign, but bowed us into the
house with winsome smiles.
Though all the screens were open, the interior before us was dark as
midnight. The little maiden reached down one of the lanterns that hung
from the eaves among the tinkling wind-bells, and lighted us in across
two tiny rooms to a large apartment fronting on a miniature garden
court. All one side of the room was open to the court veranda, and two
of the other walls were formed of sliding screens, but the far end of
the room was closed with a solid partition containing a shallow double
alcove.
The little maid hastened to place two soft leather cushions for us,
hesitating just perceptibly over the second until Yoritomo indicated
that it was to be laid beside the first, close before the raised floor
of the larger recess. Having kowtowed while we reposed ourselves on
knees and heels, she pattered about the room with a taper, lighting
the pith wicks of several little saucer lamps that were set about the
room in square paper frames.
I glanced around the apartment in the increasing glow. The soft, thick
mats, all about three by six feet in size, were set in the floor
on a level with the slotted sill-beams of the wall-screens. Unlike
those I had seen in the front rooms of the inns, they were not only
immaculately white and clean but were bordered with strips of silk.
The sliding screens of the room were rimmed with gold leaf and painted
with exquisite landscapes in rich soft colors. The low ceiling and the
recessed wall behind us were finished in fanciful cabinetwork, and
the beautiful grain of the two woods used was polished without oil or
varnish to a surface that shone like satin.
The one side of the recess was an open closet, filled with shelves
and drawers; the other was the sacred _tokonoma_ mentioned by the
Dutch writers. Upon its wall hung a blue silk banner, painted with
a summer view of Fuji-yama. Below, on the polished floor, a vase of
plain earthenware held a single fragrant spray of Cape jasmine. Across
from the vase stood the bronze figure of a playful kitten, with paw
outstretched in graceful invitation. Before it were placed a few grains
of boiled rice, a tiny cup of amber liquid, and a stick of burning
incense. It was the emblem and godlet of the _geishas_,--a frolicsome
young cat, behind whose velvet touch lurked cruel claws, ever ready to
mangle.
Would the worshipper of this image meet her former lover with feline
treachery?
As I asked myself the question the room re-echoed with a ripple of
gentle laughter, melodious as the note of an Æolian harp, sweeter than
the tinkle of fairy bells. I faced to front, and saw floating towards
us a vision as wondrously beautiful as a Buddhist angel. Against the
jet blackness of her high coiffure glinted comb crests and pin heads
of amber and coral, while from slender throat to tiny feet she was
enveloped in a robe of scarlet silk, gorgeously embroidered with
flowers in gold thread, and her plump little hand fluttered a vividly
colored fan.
Like my friend’s, the girl’s face showed the _samurai_ type in its
oval contour, small mouth, and aristocratic nose,--features so
markedly different from the broad, flat faces of the lower classes.
The characteristic lack of prominence of her brows and the bridge of
her nose lent to the upper part of her face a mildness of expression
well in keeping with the inimitable gracefulness and gentleness of her
bearing, but her rosebud mouth and lustrous black eyes held all the
subtle allurement of a Spanish Carmen’s.
Bound about as she is by narrow skirts, modesty compels the Japanese
woman to assume in walking a short, scuffling, intoed gait, with
forward bent body and head. Yet even to this awkward movement Kohana
San, the dancer, contrived to give a semblance of grace as she hastened
forward to prostrate herself at the feet of my friend.
The little maid was tripping from the room. The _geisha_ sank down
before us, her forehead upon the mat between her little olive-hued
hands, and her body quivering with an excess of emotion which even a
lifetime of training could not enable her to repress.
Yoritomo gazed down upon her as serenely impassive in look as a bronze
Buddha. Yet beneath his placid tone even I could detect the hidden note
of tenderness: “Kohana, we have come to you from a long journey.”
“My lord!” she murmured, “to my lowly house first of all!”
She rose to her knees and gazed into his face with a look of such
radiant love and devotion that I forgot on the instant my suspicion
of her loyalty. And in the same moment I forgave the thick powdering
of rice flour upon her face, and the dark red stain of thistle juice
upon her lips, and the greasy pomade with which her hair was matted and
stiffened.
For a minute or more the lovers sat silent and motionless, gazing into
one another’s eyes, Yoritomo gravely smiling, Kohana melting to happy
tears. That was their greeting after three years of separation!
“Tomo,” I whispered in English, “do you not see how she has waited and
longed for you all the time since you left her? Console her for the
past! I will go out and leave you.”
“Do not trouble,” he replied. “Have I not told you that we Japanese
do not kiss and embrace?” He turned and spoke to the girl, who was
glancing at me out of the corners of her long eyes with intense
curiosity: “Kohana, my brother is weary, and we have not bathed in two
days.”
“My lord! no bath in two days!” she gasped, and she clapped her hands
sharply. There sounded an answering “_Hai!_” and the little serving
maid appeared at the end of the room--“Quick, girl! see that the bath
is heated.”
As the child trotted away, Yoritomo peered out through the open side of
the room into the dim garden. “Close the _shoji_,” he ordered.
Kohana hastened across, and from either end of the room drew white
paper screens out along the slotted sill and lintel-beams, until
the room was shut in from the garden. Within a minute she was again
kneeling before us. Yoritomo smiled into her beaming face, and said:
“You will now be honored by seeing the countenance of my august
brother. He is my friend and benefactor.”
At the word, I lifted off my deep-brimmed hat and looked at her,
smiling. What she had expected to see I cannot say. My oval face and
even my nose might easily have passed for Japanese, and my cheeks were
tanned almost to the darkness of Yoritomo’s. But the two days’ stubble
upon my lip and chin was very thick for the beard of an Oriental, and
my forehead much too white, while yet far more my round blue eyes spoke
of a terrifying world all unknown to this gentle girl. Before my look
her eyes widened and purpled with terror. She sank down at my feet in
speechless fear.
“Is it so Kohana welcomes my friend and brother?” asked Yoritomo in
quiet reproach. “There is nothing to fear.”
The girl straightened and gazed up at me, wide-eyed yet with a smile on
her trembling lips. “_Tojin sama!_ forgive the rudeness of one who is
foolish and ignorant! Accept the humble greetings of your servant!”
“Is the _tojin_ so fearful a beast or devil in the eyes of Kohana San
that she still trembles?” I asked.
“Woroto Sama is my friend and brother. He has been my benefactor during
all my travels among the _tojin_,” added Yoritomo.
“Among the _tojin_, my lord! You have travelled among the
barbarians?--beyond the sea?”
“To the five continents. I sailed away with Woroto Sama towards the
rising sun, and sailed back with him from the setting sun. The world
is an enormous ball, Kohana, and I have been around it as a gnat might
crawl around Fujiyama.”
“My lord is no gnat!” she laughed. “I do not understand. Even Fuji-san
rests broadly upon the back of Dai Nippon, and Dai Nippon upon the back
of the great fish. How then could my lord go beneath? Did my lord see
the great fish?”
“I saw greater things than the fish of our myth. Beyond the seas are
lands vastly greater than Nippon. I have sailed in the black ships and
seen the power of the _tojin_. Tell me quickly. Has word come of the
fleet from America?”
“No more, my lord, than a message from the _tojin_ at Deshima that the
black ships had sailed for Dai Nippon and would force the Shogunate to
open other ports than Nagasaki.”
Yoritomo’s eyes glowed. “We are in time, brother! All now turns upon
the wisdom or folly of the Elder Council.”
Kohana rose to her feet barely in time to mask my face from the gaze of
the child-maid. She had returned to announce that the bath was ready.
“Go bid the landlord prepare his best dishes for my guests. Then see
that no one enters unannounced,” said her mistress.
[Illustration: SHE DROPPED HER BLUE ROBE FROM HER GRACEFUL SHOULDERS]
The child turned away in smiling obedience. Yoritomo signed me to rise
and follow Kohana, who took up a lantern and thrust open one of the
screens of the inner wall. We walked along a smooth planked passage
twenty or thirty paces to a little room with sloping slatted floor.
Beside the door stood clothes-racks, on which hung thin towels of
cotton print. Three or four buckets of cold water ranged along the
wall, and at the lower end, half sunk below the level of the floor,
was a great tub, or wide-mouthed barrel, from which warm vapors were
beginning to rise.
The _geisha_ hung her lantern to a convenient hook, and unwrapped
her long crepe _obi_, or sash. In a moment she had slipped off her
gold-brocaded robe and disclosed a still more beautiful under _kimono_
of azure silk embroidered with gold dragons. Loosening the inner _obi_,
she dropped her blue robe from her graceful shoulders, and stood before
us as nude and as unconscious as the nymph of the public bath. Though I
was aware that she was a member of a profession that her people class
little above the courtesans, one look into her earnest, smiling face
convinced me that her thoughts were innocent of all immodesty.
“Our customs are not the customs of the Occident, but they are now your
customs, Woroto,” said Yoritomo, and he ungirt his priest robe.
There was no escape, and my hesitancy was brief. My friend had
submitted to many customs repugnant to him, in my country. Since this
was a custom of his country, I could do no less. His matter-of-fact
manner, taken with the girl’s naive unconsciousness of all wrong,
helped me to realize that true modesty and purity are of the spirit and
not of outward convention.
The ordeal was no light one, yet long before the bath was finished I
had begun to forget my embarrassment in the girl’s ecstasies of wonder
and delight over the whiteness of my skin. Though distinctly a brunette
in all else than the color of my eyes, I seemed marvellously fair to
this daughter of the Orient, whose own skin was of the olive tint of
southern Italy and Spain.
With strict impartiality she aided our ablutions with the cold water,
and then, at a sign from Yoritomo, led me first to the tub. It was
scalding hot, yet the girl betrayed surprise when I insisted upon the
addition of two cooling buckets before I would venture in. Even with
that I was almost parboiled before Kohana had finished shaving my
friend and dressing his hair.
When at last he came to take my place in purgatory, the girl deftly set
about drying and shampooing me, still exclaiming upon the fairness of
my skin, though it was now far other than “snow white.” Having dried
the “honorable _tojin sama_,” she proceeded to shave my face and crown
with her queer little razor and to reknot my cue. To my vast relief,
she then cast aside my Yamabushi robe and soiled leggings, and left me
to dress myself in the rich garments I had worn inside my tatters.
CHAPTER IX--NIPPON’S GREETINGS
Cleansed and refreshed, we returned to compose ourselves upon our mats
in the guest-room, while Kohana San, once more resplendent in gala
dress, hastened out for our dinner. We were not long kept waiting.
She returned with a lacquered tray, or rather, a low table, twelve or
fourteen inches high. This she placed before me, and was out and back
again in a few minutes with a similar tray for Yoritomo.
Each tray held many little bowls of steaming hot food and a pair of
plain chopsticks, cut from a single piece of wood and not yet split
apart at the upper end. At first I hesitated to begin eating under the
eyes of this most cultured of _geishas_, but my single biscuit and the
handful of persimmons had served only to whet my appetite, and the
savory odors of many of the dishes before me were very tempting.
After a thimbleful of hot _sake_, a curious bittersweet wine made of
fermented rice, we fell to on the dinner, which Kohana served with
utmost deftness and grace, ever alert to refill our porcelain _sake_
cups between dishes. The meal was odder than any I had eaten even
in China,--soup, omelet, fishballs, and sponge cake; soup, boiled
crawfish, lotus-root salad, and salted plums; thin soup, sweetmeats,
pickled bamboo shoots, and stewed cuttlefish; thick soup, sliced duck,
and stewed vegetables; sea slugs with soy sauce, loquats stewed with
sugar, soup, more soup, and last of all plain boiled rice, without
sugar--which is scarce in Japan,--and without milk--which is unknown.
Throughout the eating of this odd medley of exotic dishes, Kohana was
either pattering out to her kitchen, or back with trays held level with
her forehead, or replenishing our _sake_ cups from her heated flask of
the amber wine. The time came when we could eat no more. The last dish
was removed, and Kohana set before us a tray with smoking materials and
an embossed copper-lined brazier, or _hibachi_, in which a few twigs of
charcoal glowed upon a bed of ashes. I had smoked too often in Japanese
fashion with Yoritomo’s outfit not to know how to roll a pellet of
tobacco and fill the tiny silver bowl of the pipe now offered me.
As we settled back on our cushions and drew slowly at the silver
mouthpieces, our hostess rose and began to dance for our entertainment.
Well was she named the best dancer in Yedo! Unlike our Western
_artistes_, she did not glide about, but stood in one place, seldom
shifting her feet, yet swaying body and arms and head in movements of
enravishing grace and beauty. For one of the dances she withdrew, to
reappear in a _haori_ whose gorgeously embroidered sleeves, fluttering
from her extended arms, suggested to me the movements of a butterfly
even before Yoritomo explained that the performance was called the
Butterfly Dance.
My friend had, however, graver matters in mind than amusement. In
consideration of my pleasure, he had waited this long. Now he made a
slight gesture, and the girl sank down, flushed and smiling. He spoke
with austere abruptness: “Enough of play. When I went upon my travels,
Kohana said she would be my eye and ear in Yedo.”
“My lord knows that few things fail to reach the ear of the free
_geisha_.”
“Begin. Dai Nippon has been a sealed book to me since I sailed from
Kagoshima in the black ship with Woroto Sama.”
She kowtowed and whispered: “There has been no change at Kyoto.”
He bowed low at the veiled reference to the mysterious Mikado. “And
Yedo?” he demanded.
Again she kowtowed, though not so low. “His Highness, Minamoto
Iyeyoshi, is still Sei-i-tai Shogun. Iyesada Sama, his august son, is
no stronger either in head or body.”
“The Council of Elders?”
“Midzuano Echizen-no-kami is now head of the Council. He does not enjoy
the favor of the Household.”
Yoritomo nodded slightly. “The _Gosanke_?”
“My lord’s august father, Owari dono, enjoys excellent health. My
lord’s august elder brother, Mori--” she hesitated, “he is not so well.”
She said nothing as to his mother, and he did not inquire, but sat
silent, apparently meditating on her last words. I surmised that they
carried a meaning beyond my knowledge of the idiom. When, after a few
moments, he lifted his lowered lids, she went on without prompting:
“The Prince of Kii is still given over to the pleasures of his women,
the _No_ dances, and the exploits of his wrestlers. His august heir is
still a child, and Kii dono has not adopted an elder son to take over
the burden of the title.”
“The child may become a factor should Iyesada Sama depart this life
before his august father,” said Yoritomo.
“My lord!” exclaimed the girl, “the choice of the Mito faction is well
known to be set on Keiki, who has been adopted by the Hitotsubashi
family. He is the favorite of his father.”
“The former Prince of Mito!” muttered Yoritomo, his handsome face
distorted with the first look of hatred and anger I had ever known him
to betray. “Old Rekko, lord of the frogs in the well! When I left he
was still imprisoned in one of his secondary palaces.”
“His Highness the Shogun holds steadfast to the counsel of your august
father and of Ii Kamon-no-kami. Keiki has won over the Council of
Elders, but the Household is with my lord’s party.”
“Satsuma also is with us. He does not forget that my father brought
about the marriage of his adopted daughter to Iyesada,” said Yoritomo.
“Over-confidence is a traitor in camp, my lord. Always before this,
Kii has stood with Owari against Mito, until the saying has become a
proverb that no son of Mito can be chosen to sit on the stool of the
Shoguns. But now Kii swims in pleasure, and Owari stands alone against
Mito. Keiki aims high. My lord has read how Hideyoshi, though barred
from the title of Shogun, attained to the higher office of Kwambaku.”
“He would climb to greater power on the ruins of the Shogunate!”
muttered Yoritomo.
“Either Shogun or Kwambaku,” replied the girl. “And what chance has he
of the first as against my lord, should Iyesada Sama go from us and
leave the heirship in doubt?”
Yoritomo gravely shook his head. “My life is given. If I live, it will
not be to sit on the seat of Iyeyasu my forefather. Our choice is the
child of Kii dono. I have overcome passion. The thought of power does
not tempt me.”
Kohana prostrated herself at his feet, with a soft insucking of her
breath. “My lord has overcome all passion and desire! He has entered
upon his Buddhahood!”
“Far from it, foolish girl!” he exclaimed. “My heart is black with
hatred of my father’s enemies, the real enemies of Dai Nippon, and I
burn with desire to win glory in the service of the sacred Mikado. I am
far indeed from the blessed peace of Buddhahood.--Tell me, has Keiki
made any open move?”
“Not as yet, my lord,” she replied, straightening and glancing
apprehensively about the room, “not yet! But--” her voice sank to a
whisper--“his plans are laid to win the release of his father. With the
old Prince of Mito free and high in the favor of Iyeyoshi, my lord can
easily foretell--”
“The plans?” demanded Yoritomo.
The girl began to breathe quickly. “My lord has heard how it is said
that the Princess Azai holds the place that should be Iyesada’s in the
heart of their august father. It is unbelievable that a parent should
consider a daughter before a son, yet this has come to me in a way that
leaves no room for doubt. My lord, would a father turn his face away
from one who had saved his heir from the blades of drunken _ronins_?
The Princess Azai is more to His Highness than is his heir.”
“Keiki thinks to win favor by a trick!”
“To-morrow, after midday, when the Princess is returning from worship
at Zozoji, there will be _ronins_ waiting. Blows will be struck. They
will bear off the _norimon_ of the august lady. Keiki will rush to
the rescue. What wonder if a fond father soon signs the pardon of the
rescuer’s parent?”
“To-morrow, after midday,” repeated Yoritomo, in a voice still and
impassive as his face. He turned to me. “You will do well to get a full
night’s rest, brother. We have work before us.”
“But what’s in the wind, Tomo?” I demanded in English, as Kohana ran to
draw out a pair of silk quilts from a drawer in the lesser recess of
the _tokonoma_.
“There’ll be the devil to pay,” answered my friend, the glint in his
narrowed eyes boding ill for the “devil.” He nodded towards Kohana. “I
will tell you more fully in the morning.”
The hint was sufficient. I rose and followed the girl down a short
passage to a small room that was to be my sleeping chamber. She
prepared my bed by spreading the two quilts on the soft mats of the
floor and placing at the head a little lacquered box rounded on the top
with a small roll of soft paper. This was the pillow. Over all she
hung a large canopy of mosquito netting. There remained only for her to
light a tiny night-lamp, kowtow, and withdraw. Five minutes later I was
fast asleep, with my jaw upon the paper pad of my wooden pillow.
How soon my dreams began and how long they continued I have not the
slightest idea. But I had a prolonged succession of the most fantastic
visions imaginable, in which brown-skinned, slant-eyed elves and
gnomes, clad in outlandish costume, were ever committing _outré_ and
unexpected antics. Sometimes the performance was of grotesque horror,
as when severed heads, dripping blood, flew at me with malignant
ferocity. This must have come from a blending of Yoritomo’s Japanese
goblin tales with the ghastly spectacle of the execution-pillory
outside Shinagawa.
After a time I found myself sauntering through an Oriental Paradise in
company with a Buddhist angel, who bowed down and worshipped me as the
God of Snow. Immediately I became a snow image, fast melting to liquid
beneath the noontime sun. I melted and flowed away down through a fetid
rice field, into the blue Bay of Yedo. Too late I discovered that my
angel was none other than the beautiful Princess Azai, daughter of the
Shogun.
I was now aboard a Japanese junk, flying up the bay to save the
Princess from the guns of the American fleet. The giant steam frigates
were fast overhauling my slow craft, their decks cleared for action and
their gun-ports swung open, tier above tier, ready for the bombardment
of ill-fated Yedo. Suddenly the junk struck upon a shoal, over which it
was driven by the billows, only to strike again and again. As the mast
went by the board and the hull crunched to splinters under my feet,
the stately _Susquehanna_, flying the blue-starred broad pennant of
Commodore Perry, swung around and fired a thunderous broadside into our
shattered wreck.
With a shout of terror, I leaped up, and found myself reeling about a
matted floor, in the dim light of a tiny lamp. An instant later the
floor heaved and rocked under me with a sickening motion that flung me
to my knees. All around I could hear the creak and groan of straining
timbers. Above me my dizzy eyes made out a ceiling of odd-patterned
bamboo-work and swaying walls whose gilt panels glinted in the faint
light.
The screens of the end wall suddenly brightened, then shot open, and
through the gap Yoritomo came darting towards me, lantern in hand.
“Earthquake!” he cried, springing across to extinguish my little
night-lamp, which was on the point of jarring from its shelf.
The floor steadied with the passing of the shock. I crawled from under
the mosquito net and staggered to my feet. Yoritomo seized me by the
sleeve, and dragged me out the way he had come. I heard Kohana calling
to us to hasten. We turned a corner, and saw her dart towards us across
a room, beyond which gleamed a square of early daylight. Again the
floor lurched. We all three sprawled prone upon the mats, while about
us the rafters and beams creaked louder than before and the walls
seemed toppling to crush us.
“This way!--the shutters are open--this way, my lord!” shrilled Kohana.
She plucked at Yoritomo’s sleeve, and scrambled back, tossing about in
a manner that would have been irresistibly comic but for the terror of
the moment.
We followed as best we could, now crawling, now staggering half erect,
like drunkards. Through it all Yoritomo clung fast to his lantern, too
dazed to extinguish it, yet fearfully conscious of the peril of fire.
All around me things were reeling. I clutched at a swaying wall-post,
a few feet short of the gap in the wooden shutters that closed in the
outer side of the veranda. Before I could glance about, a fearful shock
flung me across the veranda and out into a bed of roses.
To my sorrow, I found that roses in Japan have thorns. Also I caught a
glimpse of the massive tiled eaves seemingly about to pitch upon me.
I leaped out of the roses, clear across a path, and fetched up with
a skip and a trip, coming down squarely in a bed of purple irises.
In perfect unison with my own arrival at stability, the earth spasms
ceased as suddenly as they had begun.
From behind a bush on my left a voice murmured in quavering, gurgling
delight: “My lord, you are safe, unharmed?”
“Unharmed,” answered Yoritomo, and he called in an anxious tone,
“Woroto!”
“All present and accounted for,” I replied, rising dizzily, to face
them across the bush in the red dawnlight. “You are not hurt, Kohana
San?”
“Nor my lord!” she cried, with a soft chuckle of delight. “After all it
was only a little wriggle of the fish’s tail.”
“Fish’s tail?” I inquired.
“The great fish upon whose back rests the land of Dai Nippon,”
explained Yoritomo, with a twinkle in his black eyes.
“If my lords will pardon the rudeness of their servant, she will go in
and prepare the morning bath for them,” said Kohana, and before I could
protest against such rashness, she hastened up across the veranda, into
the house.
“Tomo!” I exclaimed, “you let her go, when the house may fall any
moment! It must be shattered! That little wriggle was a cataclysm.”
“The shock was sharper than the usual weekly tremor,” he admitted.
“But the house is built to withstand all but the heaviest quakes. The
massive roof takes up the vibration of the shock, which is already
broken at the loose post joints.”
Following his gesture, I looked under the house, through the open
lattice-work, and saw that the house posts rested each with its hollow
foot perched upon the round point of a half-embedded boulder. He nodded
reassuringly, and led the way back into the house. Within I found the
mortised beams and panelled woodwork unharmed by the earthquake. Thanks
to the absence of plaster and standing furniture, the only result of
the shocks had been to fill the rooms with dust and upset the vase with
the jasmine spray in the _tokonoma_ of the guest chamber.
Yoritomo smiled and pointed to the undisturbed bronze kitten. “It is
hard to disconcert a _geisha_ or her god. Kohana will soon have the
bath heated. After that, breakfast and a morning of delight. No other
_geisha_ in Dai Nippon can dance as dances Kohana.”
“Morning?” I repeated. “But the feigned attack of Keiki upon the
daughter of the Shogun?”
“There is ample time, and the more we refresh ourselves the better.”
“Tell me more of the plot. Is it possible the government spies can be
deceived by such a farce?”
“Death is never a farce.”
“Death?”
“You have heard me speak of _ronins_,--_samurais_ who, because of their
own offences or the death of their _daimios_, have become masterless
men. Whether scholars, teachers, or criminals, all alike are men for
whose acts their former lords cannot be held responsible.”
“And who no longer owe loyalty to their lords,” I added.
“Not in law,” he assented. “But suppose certain loyal retainers became
_ronins_ at the bidding of their master? The _samurai_ code says that
a man shall serve his lord even to the death. What greater joy to the
Mito men than to give their lives for the freeing of their prince?”
“You should hasten to warn the Shogun!” I exclaimed.
He smiled in gentle reproof of my heat. “There are guards at the
gateways of all bridges across the inner moat, and within are officials
interested in barring out the bearer of a warning message. Remember,
Keiki has won the favor of Midzuano, chief of the Council of Elders.
Yet suppose the message should penetrate to the august ear of Iyeyoshi
Sama. What follows? The Princess does not go to worship at the
temple of Zozoji; no blows are struck; small credit accrues to the
tale-bearer.”
“You would risk the life of the Shogun’s daughter--of the princess to
whom you are betrothed!”
“There will be no risk of life--for her,” he replied.
“But the shock?--her terror?”
“The most delicate of our ladies are taught to withstand fear.”
“Consider the indignity to be suffered by a princess, your kinsman,” I
argued.
“What matters the terror or the death or even the dishonor of a woman,
weighed in the balance against that which I seek to accomplish? No;
whatever the cost, I must win a favorable audience with the Shogun, for
the sake of Dai Nippon and the sacred Mikado! It is a rare chance for
us, Woroto. We will take part in Keiki’s badger game.”
“And, like the fox, snap the game from between his paws,” I punned.
He nodded. “With the aid of Kohana, we are to become priests of the
official Jodo sect.”
“You said the Yamabushi are Buddhists. Why change?”
“Iyeyasu built Zozoji for the Jodo sect. They have charge of the
temple and the tombs of the four Shoguns who are buried at Shiba Park.
Therefore we go as Jodo priests, lately arrived from Kyoto.”
“With sharp arguments and loud words for the Mito _ronins_,” I added.
He caught at my sleeve. “Not that!--not your pistols, brother. To fire
a gun within the bounds of Yedo is certain death!”
CHAPTER X--THE PRINCESS AZAI
Noon found us ready for the start, our swords girt on under the flowing
priest robes, and hats drawn low to shade our faces. Upon our feet
iron-shod sandals were bound firmly over the white silk foot mittens,
in keeping with our role of monks of noble blood, vowed to a pilgrimage
to Zozoji and just in off the road. But the hilts of our swords were
within convenient reach inside the edge of our robes, and, despite
Yoritomo’s warning, my revolvers were no less ready. I assured him,
however, that they would not be used unless the occasion justified.
When it came to the parting, I looked to see Kohana protest or at least
shed a tear over this short ending of her lover’s visit. After three
weary years of absence he had come back to her for a single night, and
was now going from her again, it might be to his death. Yet she neither
wept nor betrayed any other sign of grief. Smilingly she conducted us
from her house and down the path to the gateway, where he signed her to
stop.
“If all goes well,” he said, “I will send for you or come again to
Shinagawa.”
She kowtowed, with a softly murmured word of parting, “_Saionara!_”
“Farewell, Kohana San,” I responded. “The _tojin_ carries away with him
grateful thoughts of his kind and beautiful hostess.”
“Gracious indeed is the condescension of the august lord in deigning to
overlook the conduct of one so rude and ignorant,” she said. Yoritomo
was swinging away at a rapid stride. She rose quickly, and held out
her hands, clasped palm to palm. Her eyes gazed up into mine, full of
timid appeal, and her lips quivered with a pitiful smile. “Woroto Sama
is a lord of the _tojin_, he is powerful. While he slept I looked at
the strange weapons he bears, and my lord told me their use. The _tojin
sama_ is a friend of Yoritomo Sama!”
“If they kill him, they kill me,” I answered.
With a swift movement she drew from her sleeve and pressed into my
hand a dirk whose richly ornamented hilt and sheath told of a precious
blade within. I would have sought to return the gift, but she sank down
and beat the ground at my feet with her forehead. I thrust the dirk in
beside my sword, and turned away, feeling that this girl of a despised
profession had honored me with her trust and gratitude. Indeed, I
might say she had ennobled me, since I had needed the dirk to become a
_samurai_, a two-sword gentleman.
With hat brim down, hands demurely folded within priestly sleeves, and
body waddling _samurai_-fashion from the weight of cartridges about my
waist, I followed after my friend across the beautiful little landscape
garden of the teahouse. There were many guests strolling along the
shaded walks or lunching in the little kiosks which from the crest of
a terrace looked out over the blue bay. But, unheeded either by guests
or attendants, we passed up the garden and out through a wicket gate in
the wall across from the teahouse.
As we came into the narrow alley upon which the gate opened, Yoritomo
warned me to keep my hand on my swordhilt. On either side, preening
themselves behind barred verandas, I saw rows of pretty young girls
clad in gorgeous robes. We had entered a street given over to the
_joro_, or courtesans. Throughout the length of the lane, _samurais_
flushed with _sake_ and evil-eyed _ronins_ swaggered aggressively up
and down, with swords cocked high in their girdles.
Twice we saw pairs of swashbucklers draw upon each other, but hurried
past while their blades were yet clashing together in furious cut and
parry. Without looking back or so much as glancing to right or left, we
swung ahead through the groups of cut-throats and drunkards, and our
steadiness, together with the priest robes, won us safe passage to the
Tokaido.
Along the highway vice was for the most part masked behind the disguise
of legitimate teahouse entertainment, and the rakes and ruffians bore
themselves with a less truculent manner among the light-hearted smiling
throngs of travellers and townfolk.
As we swung into the busy thoroughfare I caught my first view of Yedo,
a view impressive only in the vastness of the city’s extent. Built in
great part on low-lying ground, it stretched out along the curve of the
shallow bayhead and inland to the northward, in a sea of gray unpainted
roofs, partly relieved by an occasional temple or red-roofed pagoda
rising among groves of trees. In the midst of this dull expanse rose
an island of low hills, upon whose wooded crests the moated official
quarter was built about the citadel-palace of the Shogun.
A mile along the high embankment which guards all the upper curve of
the bay brought us to the black gate on the boundary between Shinagawa
and Yedo. A few steps beyond it Yoritomo significantly drew my
attention to a roofed notice-board, covered in large Chinese characters
with the ancient edicts against Christianity. Shortly after he pointed
out a temple in which were the tombs of the forty-seven loyal _ronins_
and the lord for whose sake they achieved vengeance and martyrdom.
Somewhat farther on we left the Tokaido and angled off inland from the
bay towards a great park called Shiba. It is formed of the grounds of
Zozoji and its many subsidiary temples, tombs, and monastery buildings.
A high-arched wooden bridge carried us over a canal, or tide-water
stream, whose waters swarmed with the sampans of fishermen and roofed
produce boats from up country.
A little beyond this muddy stream we entered the lovely cool glades of
Shiba. The place was an Oriental paradise of giant trees and blooming
shrubs, from which sounded the merry note of twittering birds, blended
and dominated by the flute-like song of the Japanese nightingale; while
about the smaller of the temples lotus leaves and blooming irises rose
above the still waters of ponds stocked with tortoises and goldfish.
Yoritomo gravely led the way across this rear portion of the sacred
park, along stately avenues of giant pines and cryptomerias and camphor
trees, between rows of stone lanterns, under _torii_ of wood and stone
and bronze, and past grotesque bronze images, to enclosures where
broad and massive temples shouldered up the ponderous weight of their
gray-tiled roofs. We came out into the main road and turned along it
a short distance to the entrance of Zozoji, a magnificent two-storied
gate guarded on either side by hideous red and green demons.
“_Namu Amida Butsu!_” chanted my friend, and mingling with a crowd
of worshippers, we passed through the ancient gateway into the great
courtyard about Zozoji.
The temple stood at the head of a flight of red steps, and, with its
huge red pillars and enormous Chinese roof of gray tiles, was by far
the most imposing edifice I had yet seen in Japan. A mighty sonorous
boom smote upon our ears. I looked to the right, and saw a priest
swinging a suspended beam against the rim of an immense bell.
Yoritomo turned across to a building on our left, and between the
thunderous peals of the great bell addressed a young priest who was
writing in the veranda. I could not follow their low conversation,
but presently I saw my friend hand the priest one of his gold coins,
in return for a slip of paper. After this we joined another group of
worshippers, climbed the temple stairway, and, transferring our sandals
to our bosoms, glided in upon the mats of the great hall. We stopped a
little way inside, between the great lacquered contribution-chest and a
superb dragon-wrought brazier from which was rising clouds of incense.
Yoritomo stared for some moments into the gloom of the vast interior,
shook his head slowly and edged about to watch the courtyard and
gate. My experience in China had already acquainted me with the many
startling resemblances between Catholic Christianity and Buddhism in
respect to priestly costumes, ceremonial, and houses of worship. Yet
I found much to interest me in the gorgeous panelled ceilings, the
carvings and arabesques and bronze-work of this grand temple.
At the far end, within the railed space that I might call the chancel,
appeared the high altar, crowded about with the shrines of various
images, colossal candlesticks and lotus blossoms of silver, bells
and drums for the use of the officiating priests, memorial tablets,
bronze offerings, and emblematic banners. All about the hall on the
soft matting moved crowds of priests and worshippers, tapping bells,
murmuring prayers, clapping hands, and bowing before the many shrines.
A touch from Yoritomo drew my gaze around. I looked out into the
dazzling sunlight of the courtyard, and saw the crowds falling back on
either side before a band of _samurais_. In the midst of the band was a
gilded _norimon_, beside which walked two silk-clad women.
“She comes. Follow,” whispered Yoritomo.
He led the way up the dim-lit hall to the chancel, and showed the
paper he had bought from the young priest to an old monk in chasuble
and stole. The priest eyed us sharply and stood hesitating until
Yoritomo slipped a gold piece into his itching palm. At that he led us
in behind the bronze screen, or rail, and left us bowing in a recessed
shrine before a huge many-handed image of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy.
Hardly had we gained this post of vantage when the sudden hush
throughout the temple told of the entrance of the Shogun’s daughter.
Though she had come incognito, a glance around the corner of our niche
showed me the mass of the worshippers kneeling with forehead to floor.
Through their midst advanced the cortege of the Princess, led by the
venerable abbot, who, according to my friend, was a blood kinsman of
the mysterious Mikado.
Fearful of discovery, Yoritomo drew me back into the denser shadow of
the shrine. Soon, however, I heard the soft rustling of silk garments,
followed by low murmurs and sibilant insuckings of breath. Aflame with
curiosity, I turned half about, and ventured to raise my hat brim for a
sidelong glance.
The lord abbot had passed on up to the high altar. But the Princess
Azai stood only a few paces distant, a little in advance of her
kowtowing women and _samurais_. She was looking up at the benevolent
features of Kwannon in the gloom above us. The outline of her dusky
hair blurred into the dark background, but her face, as if framed about
with black velvet, stood out distinct in all the pure loveliness of an
Italian Madonna’s.
Overlapping _kimonos_ of gold-wrought rose and azure crepes draped her
about in graceful folds from the base of her round white throat to her
tiny feet, and her hands were hidden in sleeves whose tips almost swept
the floor. Beautiful as was her dress, it won from me only a passing
glance. My eyes returned to feast themselves on the innocent tender
beauty of her face.
Her complexion, untouched by any cosmetic, was of an ivory whiteness,
slightly tinged on the cheeks with rose. The adorably curved lips
of her little mouth were of a clear coral red. Below her delicate
high-arched brows her black oval eyes gazed out between the long lashes
with the mildness of a young child’s and the divinely sweet artlessness
of budding maidenhood.
Forgetful of all else in my wonder and delight, I thrust my hat brim
higher and faced square about. A projecting corner of the shrine masked
me from the kneeling attendants, but not from the Princess. Drawn by
the intensity of my gaze, she lowered her glance and looked full into
my face. On the instant, I knew from the widening of her eyes and the
quick rise of her little bosom that she had made out my features
through the shadow of our dim niche.
Yoritomo’s voice breathed softly in my ear, “Do not move!”
I waited, breathless, expecting to see the Princess cry out or sink
down as had Kohana. Yet, great as was the awe and wonder in her dilated
eyes, she neither shrank away nor called upon the guard to protect
her from the blue-eyed apparition. Such perfect control on the part
of a girl so delicately nurtured, so exquisitely refined in look and
bearing, was more than I could withstand. Regardless of Yoritomo’s
warning, I raised my head higher, and sought to express in a smile the
utmost of my admiration for her courage and beauty.
Again her bosom rose and fell to a quick-drawn breath, and her lustrous
eyes widened yet more. But the god or devil--whatever he might be--had
been pleased to regard her with a kindly look. Etiquette, if not
respect and gratitude, called for a polite response. A row of little
pearls gleamed between her smiling red lips, and her lissome young body
bent low in gracious obeisance.
[Illustration: A ROW OF LITTLE PEARLS GLEAMED BETWEEN HER SMILING RED
LIPS]
Instantly Yoritomo grasped my arm and drew me around the far corner
of the shrine. Before the Princess had straightened from her bow, we
were slipping out through a narrow doorway into the broad veranda of
the temple. The sudden vanishing of the priest-robed apparition must
have seemed to her clear confirmation of its godly or ghostly nature.
In the veranda I would have stopped to whisper my blissful impressions
of the girl’s beauty, had not my friend snatched his sandals from his
bosom and imperatively signed me to strap on my own. The moment our
footgear was secure, he hastened down around the rear of the temple
and out through a postern, into a winding road that led us past the
enclosures of two or three mortuary chapels. Had the occasion been
different, I might have pressed my friend to show me these magnificent
memorial tombs and temples of departed Shoguns. As it was, he did not
pause until we had passed down a long row of stone lanterns and out
through one of the beautiful secondary gates of Shiba.
At last he stopped in a vacant space, and turned to reproach me with
mild friendliness: “You should not have so risked discovery, brother!”
“How could I help it?” I demanded. “She is very beautiful, Tomo!
Candidly, I envy you your good fortune.”
He gazed into my glowing face, his own quickly stilling to the placid
Buddha calm. “Form is an empty mask, a nothingness,” he murmured. “The
love of women, the craving for power, the greed for gold,--all alike
are lures to decoy the soul out of the upward path to Nirvana.”
“You have seen your future bride, and can speak of Nirvana!” I
exclaimed.
“She is as pure and beautiful as an angel. Yet I looked into her
luminous eyes and did not see my soul.”
“I saw _her_ soul, you cold-blooded Buddhist! Her spirit is as
beautiful as her face!”
“No, Woroto,--it was your own soul you saw shining in her eyes,” he
replied.
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
He shook his head gently. “Who may penetrate the mysteries of the
future? You may have loved her in some previous incarnation. As for me,
I have given my life to the Son of Heaven, the holy Mikado.”
CHAPTER XI--ROUT OF THE RONINS
For an hour or more we loitered about within view of the great gate of
Zozoji, waiting for the cortege of the Shogun’s daughter to march out
on its return trip to the citadel. That the Princess would come back
through the main entrance was evident from the fact that the _norimons_
of her ladies-in-waiting were stationed in the road at one side of the
grand carved portal. Yoritomo stood beneath a camellia tree, seemingly
lost in meditation, but I paced to and fro through the passing crowds,
unable to restrain my impatience.
At last between the meshes of my hat brim I caught sight of the
_samurai_ escort of the Princess issuing from the gateway. In their
lead was the quick-tempered _hatamoto_ Yuki who had struck at me from
the ferryboat at the passage of the Rokugu River. The bearers of the
_norimons_ moved around, and as soon as the ladies-in-waiting had taken
their seats, the cortege formed in line, with one of the _norimons_
before and the other behind the gold-lacquered palanquin of the
Princess. We drew back behind a hedge of blooming privet.
Soon the cortege marched past us, at a slow and stately pace, though
the absence of standards indicated to the public that the noble person
escorted was travelling incognito and dispensed with the usual kneeling
of the common folk along the road. I examined with intense interest
the sturdy _norimon_ bearers and the score of proud _hatamotos_, or
shogunate _samurais_, who made up Yuki’s company.
These gentlemen-soldiers seemed to me to be picked men, but they wore
no armor and carried no other weapons than the customary sword and
dirk. Though their petticoat-trousers were neatly tucked up above the
knees in the tops of long silk stockings, freeing their legs for quick
action, their arms and forebodies were encumbered with the peculiar
gauze-winged ceremonial jackets and the long sleeves of their _haoris_.
“That guard looks more like dress parade than action,” I commented.
“They are the pick of the best swordsmen among the _hatamotos_; yet
they are all doomed men,” replied Yoritomo.
I caught at my swordhilt, no longer intent on the fringe of split
bamboo which curtained the window of the Princess’s _norimon_. “All
doomed?--And ourselves?”
“Mito will have planned to sacrifice as few retainers as possible. But
though they will not be many, they will have the advantage of armor.
Our sole chance of success lies in the method of fence you have taught
me. Lunge for face or neck. Waste no thrusts on mail-clad bodies.”
“We can at least hold them until other rescuers run up,” I said.
He shook his head doubtfully. “Look down the bay. A rain-squall is
coming. There will be few in the streets, and if Keiki rushes up first
with his rescue party, we will be cut down with the _ronins_. As you
say, we are playing against long odds, but the stake is big.”
“A little hot soy will flavor the rice,” I replied. “Lead on.”
He shuffled about, and we strolled out and along the road, keeping
half a hundred paces behind the rearmost of the strutting _hatamotos_.
Leisurely as was the advance of the cortege, we were soon clear of
Shiba and approaching a hill that Yoritomo called Atago-yama. The
eminence was provided with two means of ascent, a straight steep
stairway and another one long and winding. The cortege passed by on one
side.
We now descended into a low and thickly populated quarter, passing at
every two hundred paces one of the gloomy gates which divide off all
the streets of the lower city into wards of fifty or sixty houses. Each
ward was given over to a particular trade or the sale of a certain
article,--as a street of blacksmiths, squatting before their primitive
forges, a street of toy merchants, another of lacquer-dealers,
fan-makers, cabinet-workers, and so forth.
Shops and people differed little from those I had already seen, but for
the first time I observed the lofty ladder watch towers, at the top of
which hung firebells. The urgent need of such means of warning in a
city built, for the most part, of tinder-like materials, was evident
from a belt of ash-covered ground off to our right, in which the only
buildings unburned were a few mud-walled storehouses.
My roving eye was recalled by a word from Yoritomo to be on my guard.
Kohana had conjectured that the attack would be made near one of the
moats, and we were approaching a boat-crowded canal or moat, the
outermost of the line of fortifications that gird in the Shogun’s
palace and the _yashikis_, or palaces, of the _daimios_. I loosened
my swordblade in its scabbard, and held my hand ready to jerk up the
skirts of my robes and tuck them in the back of my girdle.
The cortege moved slowly on down the busy street and out upon the
old wooden bridge that arched across from the grassy slope of the
nearer bank to the abrupt stone wall which Kämpfer calls the Outer
Castle. We followed, warily scanning the band of _samurais_ that
approached from the far end of the bridge and the scattered groups
that clattered up behind us through the crowds of common people. All
alike, however, showed the utmost deference in avoiding close contact
with the attendants of the Princess, and the crests of their respective
_daimios_, conspicuous on the backs, breast, and sleeves of their
_haoris_, proved that they were not _ronins_.
We plodded after the cortege, across the canal and through the
bastioned gateway on the far side, out into one of the smooth wide
streets of the official quarter. Here there were no commoners to be
seen, and the few _samurais_ scattered up and down the broad way were
hastening to shelter before the first gusts of the coming rain-squall.
But even the threatened downpour failed to hurry the _hatamotos_ out of
their stately strut. Seeing no sign of any _ronins_, I relaxed my tense
nerves and looked about at the long walls of the _yashikis_ which lined
each side of the street.
I knew that these residences of the _daimios_ each consisted of
a mansion house surrounded by courts and gardens, all set in the
defensive hollow square of the retainers’ barracks. What I had failed
to picture from Yoritomo’s descriptions was the extent and odd
appearance of these _samurai_ quarters. One of them stretched along
the road nearly a quarter of a mile, its continuous roof of red tiles
broken only by a grand, ornate gate, midway of the monotonous façade.
The mortarless stone foundation walls of the _yashikis_ rose from deep,
curbed ditches that flowed along each side of the street. Above the
high foundations the walls were of diagonally-set black tiles with wide
joints of white plaster. Well up in this checkerboard surface, rows of
small windows, stoutly barred against attack, projected in shallow bays.
A turn in the street brought us in view of the citadel just as the
rain-squall came swirling upon us. Across the head of the street loomed
up a mighty wall of cyclopean masonry, its granite base deep beneath
the placid waters of a broad moat, its crest crowned with trees and
square pagoda guardtowers. Our street rose to meet the causeway that
ran along the moat bank and curved in to cross a wooden bridge. At the
far side a huge bastioned gateway led up into the higher ground of the
citadel.
Beyond the trees and pagodas that fringed the top of the titanic wall,
I saw outlined against the blackening sky the lofty white peak of the
“Lord of Heaven” tower, in the O Shira, or innermost castle. Then the
full force of the storm struck us and wrapped us about in blinding,
swirling torrents of rain. Yoritomo pressed up close to me, and bent
over to make himself heard above the howls of the wind and the drumming
splatter of the deluge.
“Be ready!” he warned. “Watch this street that runs in on the left
where the vanguard is passing--There is one just beyond, on the right.
At the moat gate is stationed a powerful guard. If the _ronins_ fail to
attack here--”
“Look!” I cried, grasping at my swordhilt.
Out of the narrow street on the left were streaming a number of
cloaked figures, silent and downbent as though intent only upon making
their way through the storm. As they filed out into the broad roadway
alongside the _norimon_ of the Princess, a gust of wind tore open the
cloak of one in the rear and exposed to our gaze the bright links of
chain armor within.
“The _ronins_!” hissed Yoritomo. “Wait! Make ready.”
I let go my half-drawn sword, and hastened to follow his example
by tucking my robe skirts in the back of my girdle and tying up my
long sleeves. In the midst I saw one of the _hatamotos_ turn upon
the nearest _ronin_ with a repellent gesture. Instantly the assassin
drew his sword and struck a fearful two-handed blow. The head of the
luckless _hatamoto_ leaped from his shoulders and fell after the
blood-gushing corpse into the mud and water.
At the treacherous blow all the _hatamotos_ who had seen it yelled
with fury and amazement, and flashed out their swords to strike down
the murderer. But their blades clashed without effect upon his hidden
helmet and armor, and in an instant the other _ronins_ were beside
their chief, slashing back at the armorless _hatamotos_. Half a dozen
guardsmen fell beneath the razor-edged blades, slain outright or
hideously maimed, all in the brief moment before those in the van of
the cortege could turn about and rush to their aid.
I found myself with drawn sword, struggling frantically to free myself
from the grip of my friend. Though I was the stronger, he held me fast
by some subtle trick of wrestlers’ art that, without injuring, rendered
me as helpless as a child.
“Not yet!” he muttered, “not yet, brother!”
Unable to free myself, I was forced to stand and glare impotently
through the whirling rain at the terrible massacre. At the beginning
of the fight the _hatamotos_ had numbered a fourth more than the
assailants. Now they were already less than equal in number. With
merciless swiftness, the _ronins_ struck out in terrific blows that
split heads to the chin and hewed off arms and legs and ripped open
bodies with hideous slashes.
Vainly the brave _hatamotos_ parried and slashed back at their foes
with strokes no less powerful and often more skilful. For the most
part, their blows served only to slice the false covering from the
helmets of the _ronins_ or nick the steel and brass under the masking
cloaks. But every stroke of the _ronin_ blades that reached its mark
meant a ghastly wound.
Yet the _hatamotos_ were not the only ones that fell in the bloody
shambles. Twice I saw _ronins_ go down under blows that split clean
through their steel helmets; others were bitten deep by blades that
slashed through the firmest chain mail; while more lost a foot or
a hand from the lightning strokes of the Shogun’s swordsmen. But
gloriously as the _hatamotos_ fought, the _ronins_ were no less
brave and little less skilful, and the armor gave them an advantage
impossible to overcome.
Never had I dreamt of such terrific fighting. In as many seconds a
dozen of the guard were lying mutilated under the iron-shod sandals
of the _ronins_. Every _hatamoto_ near the _norimon_ of the Princess
and all but three or four of those in the rear were slain. One of
the bearers of the rearmost _norimon_ caught up a sword and struck
out manfully. Back flashed a blow that split him to the middle. His
fellow-bearers, who so far had stood as though paralyzed by fright,
fled past us shrieking.
But not one of the proud _hatamotos_ sought to escape. Shouting fierce
imprecations, the last of the rearguard parried and struck, each
as long as he could stand,--without giving back an inch before the
merciless attack of their murderers. The six members of the vanguard
still left, burst through the ring of _ronins_ that was closing about
them, and fought their way back towards the _norimon_ of the Princess,
whose bearers were being forced by threatening blades to swing about to
the narrow side street.
“Now!” shouted Yoritomo, as the _ronins_ again closed around the
vanguard. He freed me and leaped away up the street, flourishing his
sword and yelling, “_Owari!_ _Owari!_”
I rushed after him, blood-mad with the sight of the fighting and
slaughter, and utterly lost to all sense of danger in my fury at the
ferocious treachery of the assassins.
“Avast!” I roared in English, “avast, you devils!”
For answer, the head of the last rear-guardsman came rolling towards
us along the wet pavement. Close after it a pair of _ronins_ sprang to
meet and slash down the audacious priests. Out lunged Yoritomo’s sword,
and the foremost murderer fell headlong, stabbed through the throat.
The second slashed at my head. But the stroke glanced harmlessly down
my parrying blade, and before the fellow could recover guard, I drove
my point into one of his glaring eyes.
As my man fell across Yoritomo’s, three others came running at us
with the ferocity of tigers. We sprang to meet them half-way. One,
fortunately, was slightly outdistanced by his fellows. The swords of
the two leaders clashed against ours in fierce, eager strokes. A blow,
barely warded, struck off my hat and exposed fully to the gaze of my
opponent my distended blue eyes. A look of horror flashed across his
vengeful face. Doubtless he thought me a demon. For the barest fraction
of a second he faltered--it was enough for me. Before his gaping mouth
could snap shut, he fell to my lunge.
I wheeled to meet the third man, who, as Yoritomo parried with the
second for an opening, had sprung around for a treacherous side slash.
My outstretched blade met but failed to check entirely the blow, which
fell across the back of Yoritomo’s right shoulder. Meeting my gaze, the
ronin faltered as had his mate, and the result was as fatal to him. How
seriously Yoritomo had been wounded I could not tell. I doubt if he was
aware he had been struck. His lunge followed after mine, flash upon
flash.
We darted forward, leaving five of the murderous band already accounted
for. Four more were intent upon driving the bearers of Azai’s _norimon_
on across into the side street. All the others were crowding around the
few survivors of the vanguard in furious attack. Only supreme masters
of Japanese swordcraft could have so long withstood the tremendous
blows of the assassins throughout this atrocious massacre.
To fling ourselves into the midst of the deadly struggle was sheer
madness--but it was a glorious madness. Having a moment’s start of my
friend, I dashed ahead, past the rearmost _norimon_, from which the
younger lady-in-waiting was frantically struggling to free herself.
The _norimon_ of the princess had been swung about, and its reluctant
bearers were being forced into a trot by prodding dirks.
Shouting a command for the bearers to halt, I ran upon the _ronins_ at
the rear, who were directly before me. Until this moment they had been
too intent upon driving the bearers to perceive us. The sight of their
fallen comrades and the possibility of a check in their plans seemed to
madden them. They rushed to meet me with a silent rage that flamed into
wildest fury at sight of my _tojin_ eyes.
“Demon! Kill! kill!” they yelled, and their strokes flashed out at me
so swift and strong that I was beaten back a full two yards, and saved
myself from the whistling blades only by the nimblest of footwork and
parrying.
In a moment, though none too soon, Yoritomo sprang to my side and
crippled one of the grinning fiends with a leg cut. This man must
have been the leader of the band, for as he and his mate fell to our
thrusts, the pair at the head of the _norimon_ checked their charge
upon us, and shouted loudly to their fellows.
Only three of the _hatamotos_ now stood in the merciless circle of
swords, and but one of their assailants had fallen. At the cry for
help, the greater number of the _ronins_ wheeled about and charged upon
us, with the rain splashing upon their downbent helmet brims.
“Shoot!” gasped Yoritomo, bending over to lean upon his sword. “My arm
weakens!--Shoot!”
Already my right hand was thrusting into my bosom. As I drew out one of
the revolvers and cocked it, I stepped forward and to the left, that I
might have the _norimon_ between me and the charging _ronins_. At the
same moment the young _samurai_ woman from the rear _norimon_ darted
between the bearers and stood up across from me, facing the _ronins_,
with upraised dirk. She could not have hoped to stop the ruffians for
an instant, but she thought they meant to injure her mistress, and so
was offering her own bosom first to the murderous blades.
The sight of such absolute courage and devotion steadied my twitching
hand. I raised my revolver, and fired as rapidly as I could work hammer
and trigger. The _ronins_ were too close for me to miss even through
the swirl of wind and rain. I risked no glancing of balls from mailed
breasts, but aimed at the devilish faces below their broad helmet
brims. To shoot wide of such large marks within a distance of ten
paces and less would have been difficult, and a man shot from the front
anywhere between mouth and brows never requires a second ball. Down
went the foremost _ronins_, sprawling backwards in the flooded roadway,
one at every shot.
To these mediæval warriors, acquainted only with antique matchlocks and
Tower muskets, the mysterious appearance and rapid fire of my revolver
must have been even more appalling than the death of their leaders.
Before I could snatch out my second pistol, every man of them still on
his feet fled towards the narrow cross street, shrieking that I was the
_daimio_ of demons. To aid their flight, I sent after them a leaden
message that glanced from the helmet of the rearmost man, yet sent him
staggering for a dozen yards.
CHAPTER XII--ESCORT TO THE PRINCESS
A gust whirled the smoke of the shot into my face. As I paused with
half-raised pistol, waiting for the puff to sweep aside, I heard the
_samurai_ lady calling cheerfully to her mistress, “My Princess! august
lady! Fear nothing. The _ronins_ have fled!”
I gazed about at the _norimon_. On the far side the brave girl was
kneeling in her drenched silks, intent upon reassuring the occupant of
the palanquin with word and smile. But the Princess had turned to the
window on my side, and, heedless of the rain, was peering out at me
through the parted bamboo curtain with even more awe and wonder in her
dusky eyes than when she saw me in the temple.
My features, flushed and distorted as they were from the rage of battle
and bloodshed, and fully exposed to view by the loss of my hat, must
have appeared to her both _outré_ and terrifying. Yet she was aware
that I had helped to save her from the _ronins_. The _samurai_ girl was
exclaiming the fact through the other window. I bent toward her with a
reassuring smile, but before I could speak, Yoritomo shouted to the
bearers, “About, men! To the palace!”
The _samurai_ girl sprang up as the willing bearers swung around over
the bodies of the dead and wounded. The two _hatamotos_ who alone had
lived to witness the flight of the _ronins_ came staggering to meet
the litter, the blood of their many wounds dripping with the rain from
their tattered coats. One of them I recognized as Yuki the captain.
Past the wounded men darted the aged _samurai_ woman of the foremost
_norimon_, whose bearers had fled at the beginning of the attack, and
who had only just contrived to squeeze from her narrow box.
I drew a deep breath, and stared around at the bloody scene through the
lessening rain, in sudden bewilderment. To have witnessed the butchery
of all those brave _hatamotos_, to have had so large a part in the
defeat and rout of their murderers, to have met again the soft gaze of
the Shogun’s daughter, all within little more than two minutes--small
wonder I stood dazed! It was my first fight, the first time I had ever
met and struck down men in mortal combat.
One of the wounded _ronins_ had dragged himself a little aside and,
crouched on knees and heels, was bending forward with the point of his
dirk at his bared left loin. I caught at Yoritomo’s arm to point out
the man, but before he could turn to look, the _ronin_ had stabbed
himself and was drawing the blade across his middle with a horrible
deliberateness. After the cross stroke there followed an upward cut.
The suicide swayed forward in silent agony, yet still had strength and
resolution to draw out the blade and plunge it through his neck.
“_Hara-kiri!_” murmured Yoritomo, in a tone of deepest respect. “He
has saved his family from disgrace and punishment. See! There are two
others who would do the same.”
One had been enough for me. I turned, shuddering, to pick my way over
the water-and-blood-soaked bodies of the dead, in the wake of the
slowly advancing _norimon_. The rain-squall was blowing away as swiftly
as it had dashed upon us.
With the passing of the last shower, a burst of golden light from the
low western sun flooded over the roof of the _yashiki_ on our left. At
the same moment I heard the sound of rushing iron-shod feet. As I flung
up my downbent head the sun-rays glittered on the wet silks and bared
steel of a band of _samurais_ that came charging out of the street on
the right.
“Keiki!” cried Yoritomo, and clapping his hat upon my head, he
darted forward to thrust a roll of writing through the window of the
_norimon_, into the lap of the Princess.
With my second revolver held loose under the edge of my robe, I sprang
after him to the side of the _norimon_, as the Mito men swarmed out and
closed about the crippled cortege. The first glance had shown them the
failure of their diabolical plot. Utterly disconcerted and bewildered
by the defeat of the _ronins_, they ran about like wolves that have
overshot the trail of their quarry. The two wounded _hatamotos_ sought
to wave them aside, but so many blocked the way that our party was
forced to halt.
The thought flashed upon me that they might butcher every one of us
except the Princess, and then claim all the credit of the rescue.
This I am certain would have been the course of action of the more
hot-blooded among them, had not the older men bethought themselves that
they could not silence the Shogun’s daughter. To accomplish the object
of their plot, they must bring her safe to her father.
In the midst of their flurry and confusion, a _norimon_ came swaying
around the corner of the side street at a most unlordly speed. Before
it the excited _samurais_ parted their ranks, and the bearers trotted
across as if to range alongside the _norimon_ of the Princess. Yoritomo
sprang before them with barring sword.
“Stand!” he commanded.
The bearers halted at the word, but the _samurais_ burst into angry
yells, and turned to rush upon the audacious priest who had dared to
oppose the advance of their lord. A glance around in search for some
way of escape showed me the windows of the _yashikis_ jammed with
the heads of out-peering women and the main street full of running
_hatamotos_ and _samurais_. My pistol shots had been heard above the
uproar of the squall.
Regardless of the swiftly gathering crowd, Keiki’s men pressed upon
Yoritomo, with upraised swords. I drew my revolver and stepped forward
beside him, certain that the end had come. I could not hope to overawe
so large a band with a few shots. Without doubt we would have been
overwhelmed and cut down within the next quarter-minute, had not their
master called upon our menacing opponents to fall back.
The bearers of the black _norimon_ set down their burden, and the
nearest _samurais_ sprang to remove the top. The silk-clad aristocrat
who arose from the depths of the box-like palanquin was younger and
even handsomer than Yoritomo, but his eyes, between their excessively
narrow lids, had a shiftiness that reminded me of the treacherous
Malays.
Yoritomo bowed low to him in mock politeness.
“Ten thousand years to the heir of Hitotsubashi!” he said. “Had Keiki
Sama come sooner, he might have aided the progress of the Shogun’s
daughter, instead of blocking the passage of the august lady.”
“Seize that false priest!” commanded Keiki, stung beyond self-control.
But before the eager _samurais_ could spring in upon him, Yoritomo
flung the priest robe from his shoulders, and exposed to view the
Tokugawa crests upon his silk _haori_. Angry as were the Mito men, they
stopped short at that insignia of the ruling family.
Again Yoritomo bowed to Keiki and spoke with biting sarcasm: “The son
of Owari dono greets the son of Mito dono. It may be possible that
Keiki Sama is disappointed at having arrived too late to share in
the slaying of certain _ronins_. Wounds have been received by those
who defended the august lady, but if the heir of Hitotsubashi will
condescend to soil his honorable feet, proposal is made that he exhibit
his wide-famed skill as a swordsman.”
For a moment I feared that the fiery young lord would snap at the
ironical challenge. He flushed a dusky red beneath his olive skin and
glared at my friend with a malignancy that caused me to raise and aim
my revolver with an instinctive movement such as might have followed
the sudden uprearing of a venomous snake. Had Keiki so much as signed
to his retainers, he himself would have been the first to die. But a
gray-bearded counsellor was murmuring quick words into the ear of
his master. Keiki’s hate-distorted features relaxed to the blank,
inscrutable calmness of Yoritomo’s.
“The heir of Hitotsubashi does not pollute himself by crossing swords
with common street brawlers,” he answered.
Yoritomo smiled suavely. “Keiki Sama need not fear to pollute his
sword. Such of the brawlers as have not fled are all slain. Fortunate
is the evil-doer who dies beneath another’s sword or finds opportunity
to commit _hara-kiri_. The stern torturers rack the limbs of criminals
until they confess all the foul plans of themselves and their
accomplices.”
Unable to face my friend’s challenging glance, Keiki turned to the
wounded captain of Azai’s guard. “Yuki,” he called, “lead on again! My
cortege is at the service of the Shogun’s daughter, to escort her safe
to the inner castle.”
The younger _samurai_ lady, who had knelt beside the _norimon_ of the
Princess, whispered across to the older lady. She in turn bowed and
whispered to Yuki. Though tottering from his wounds, the _hatamoto_
captain straightened and replied to Keiki in a tone of haughty
command: “Stand aside with your men, lord. The daughter of the Tycoon
is satisfied with the escort of the two priest-clad champions who,
single-handed, destroyed the evil _ronins_.”
At this the newly arrived _hatamotos_ came shouldering their way in
among the Mito men with scant ceremony, and Keiki hastened to give
the signal for his retainers to fall back. Again the bearers of the
Princess started forward, with the two wounded _hatamotos_ in the lead,
each supported between a pair of his fellow-retainers. The others
stationed themselves behind, to act as rearguard. Yoritomo sheathed
his sword, and placed himself before the old _samurai_ lady, on the
right side of the _norimon_. Following his example, I thrust my sword
and revolver inside my robe, and stationed myself on the left of the
_norimon_, in front of the _samurai_ girl.
As we advanced through the crowd of curious onlookers, I glanced about
at the baffled Mito men, who were attempting to “save the face” of
their lord by forming about his _norimon_ in the usual stately cortege.
Chancing to catch the eager gaze of the _samurai_ girl, I smiled and
nodded. Encouraged by my condescension to venture a like breach of
etiquette, she bowed low, and murmured, with a soft laugh: “August
lord! pardon the rudeness of Setsu!”
“O Setsu San is free to speak,” I said.
“Ten thousand years of happy life to my lord!” she murmured. “Again
pardon the inexcusable rudeness,--but the awesome face of my lord has
been seen by august eyes. Should report be made that my lord is to be
numbered among the _kami_?--or is he a _tojin sama_?”
“A _daimio_ of the _tojin_, come to aid Dai Nippon with sword and
counsel,” I answered.
She bowed low, with a gentle insucking of breath, and fell silent.
But as I sauntered along beside the slowly moving _norimon_, I caught
glimpses of a pair of soft black eyes peering at me through the fringe
of the window curtain. There could be no doubt that the Shogun’s
daughter was studying such of my face as showed below the hat brim. The
thought that she might be seeking to accustom herself to the “demon”
eyes of the _tojin_ set me aglow with blissful anticipations. But my
amorous fancies quickly gave place to hot shame at the remembrance that
the gentle little princess was the betrothed of my friend.
Our slow advance at last brought us up on the causeway, across the
lake-like moat from the cyclopean wall and gate. The passage had been
made through the midst of a multitude, drawn in rapidly increasing
numbers by wild rumors of the fight. The causeway swarmed with hundreds
of _samurais_, who stared at Yoritomo and myself in respectful silence.
A company of the _hatamotos_ in charge of the great gate had advanced
across the bridge to meet the Princess. Near the foot of the bridge
Yoritomo signed me to stop. We stepped back while the _norimon_ and
those who followed it passed on between.
A venerable _samurai_ wearing the circled cross of Satsuma saluted
Yoritomo and pointed westward to the gate of one of the nearer
_yashikis_.
“Shimadzu Satsuma-no-kami sends greeting to Yoritomo Sama, the heroic
son of Owari dono, and to his heroic companion!” he said. “Will they
honor the house of Shimadzu by entering and refreshing themselves?”
“Return our greetings and thanks to the Daimio of Satsuma,” replied
Yoritomo. “We hope soon to visit Shimadzu Sama, but now we have come
from a long journey, and must hasten to salute my father.”
“The son of Owari dono is wounded,” suggested the _samurai_.
“A wound received in a good cause bears no sting,” replied my friend
with a Confucian sententiousness that drew an appreciative murmur from
the crowd. He waved aside the old _samurai_ with a courteous gesture,
and crossed to me. “Come, brother, we must be on our way. The sun is
low, and we have no lanterns.”
The _samurai_ again hastened around before him and bent low. “Fearing
that Yoritomo Sama might be unable to linger for a call, my lord took
the liberty to send _norimons_ for the conveyance of the son of Owari
dono and his companion.”
“The gracious offer of Shimadzu, the Daimio of Satsuma, is accepted
with grateful thanks,” responded Yoritomo.
At a sign from the _samurai_, two red-lacquered _norimons_ were borne
forward through the crowd, and their doors opened for us to enter.
Calling to mind Yoritomo’s instructions I slipped off my sandals and
squeezed into one of the narrow boxes. Once inside, I crouched down on
knees and heels in quite the correct manner, though I caught a murmur
of politely smothered surprise at my failure to remove my hat.
A half-minute later our palanquins were swinging westward along the
walled edge of the moat, an escort of Satsuma _samurais_ in van and
rear, and the old leader in attendance beside Yoritomo’s _norimon_.
CHAPTER XIII--THE PRINCE OF OWARI
Our trip through the _daimio_ quarter must have covered two miles and
more. Though closely cramped in my elegant box, I managed by stooping
over to peer out through the bamboo fringe of the windows. For some
time we had on our left the walls of large _yashikis_ and on our right
the beautiful lotus-covered moat-lake, with the lofty rampart of the
citadel across. The sun sank beneath the horizon as we turned westward
down a wide thoroughfare.
Presently we turned again, and passed zigzag from one street to another
between silent _yashikis_. The buildings were lighted only by quaint
street lanterns hung beside their heavy gateways and by the dim glow of
candles through the white paper screens of the windows. The few people
passing along these aristocratic streets were provided against the
gathering darkness by cylindrical lanterns marked with the crests of
various _daimios_.
At last we came to one of the bastioned gateways of the outer moat,
and, after a brief parley with the guard, passed through and out
across the bridge. Shortly beyond, our escort halted before a grand
double-roofed gateway. We had arrived at the main entrance to the
largest of the _yashikis_ belonging to the Prince of Owari.
While our bearers carried us across the stone bridge of the moat-ditch
into the lighted space before the huge copper-faced gates, the old
_samurai_ leader announced us to the warden or captain of the gate.
Almost instantly the ponderous leaves of the gate swung open before us,
and a dozen Owari _samurais_ hastened out to open the _norimons_ and
salute their occupants.
Yoritomo met their smiles and kowtowings and noisy insuckings of
breath with an austere dignity that I took pains to imitate. But to my
surprise, he accepted a pair of the lacquered clogs that were brought
for us, and proceeded to leave his _norimon_. Catching my look, he
explained in English: “I am yet to be made heir, and as a younger son I
lack the rank required of one permitted to ride in through the gateway.”
“Your rank is known,” I replied. “Mine is yet to be established. I will
make a start here and now. You know that in my country there is no man
of better blood than myself. I will not enter your father’s gateway
except in my _norimon_.”
“You are right. The point is shrewdly taken,” he assented, and he spoke
gravely to the gate warden.
The retainer accepted the statement of his master’s son without
a trace of hesitancy, and I was carried in beneath the carved and
lacquered crossbeams of the gateway with Yoritomo walking beside my
_norimon_. The iron-shod sandals of _samurais_ and bearers clattered on
the stone flags of the broad courtyard within the gate.
Crossing this court, we passed up a slope and through an ornamental
fence, into a second court before the mansion of the prince. Wings and
high hedges flanked the main building in such manner that we could have
seen nothing of the _yashiki_ gardens even had the day still lingered.
I was, however, more than satisfied by the fairy-like vision of the
palace. Though the building was of only one story, the white-tiled roof
flung up its twisted gables against the blue-black sky with an effect
of airy height, while the rows of lanterns, hung to the outcurving
eaves, shed their soft glow over the artistic balustrades and polished
planking of verandas wider than those of Zozoji.
In the centre of the façade was a grand portico of _keyaki_ wood,
supported by carved beams and pillars lacquered in vivid colors. Young
pages came out to salute us and spread mats for us to step upon. I
emerged from my _norimon_. Yoritomo returned our thanks to the old
_samurai_ for the courtesy of Satsuma, and stepped from his clogs onto
the mats beside me as the bearers and escort turned back to the gate.
An elderly chamberlain in richest costume appeared from within and
kowtowed before us. Mindful of my lessons in etiquette, I drew out my
sheathed sword and handed it to the official as he rose. He took the
priceless weapon reverently and raised it to his forehead before giving
it into the keeping of one of the pages. Yoritomo handed his own sword
to a second page, and addressed the chamberlain curtly: “Let my august
father be informed of our arrival, Fujimaro.”
“By what name shall I announce my lord’s companion?” asked the
chamberlain.
“Announce my friend as one entitled to sit at the left hand of the
Prince of Owari.”
Fujimaro bowed us into the keeping of a second chamberlain, and slipped
noiselessly away over the white mats. The newcomer kowtowed, and, at
a word from Yoritomo, conducted us in through a vestibule lined with
halberds, lances, archers’ equipage, armor, and battle-axes, to a
dim-lit passage. The pages with our swords followed at a respectful
distance.
Two or three turns brought us to the brightly illuminated dressing-room
of a bath. As we entered several attendants saluted and began waiting
on us, rising from their knees only when necessary. When my hat was
removed, one man gave a gasp of amazement. Otherwise all preserved
their bland smiles throughout my disrobing, too well trained to
venture any comments upon my “snow white” skin.
But etiquette did not prevent them from uttering soft exclamations of
grief and pity when the removal of Yoritomo’s dress disclosed a deep
cut across his shoulder blade. Though no longer bleeding, the wound
gaped open to the bone. Yet with Spartan fortitude Yoritomo silenced
their cries and ordered them to proceed with me. When, in turn, he
had received his cold rub and hot immersion, he at last permitted the
chamberlain to bind up the wound with moistened strips of the tough
Japanese paper.
Blind shampooers reinvigorated our muscles with their skilful rubbing;
other attendants shaved us, dressed our hair, and attired us in
gorgeous ceremonial costume, including white silk socks and the
gauze-winged jackets called _kamishimos_. Last of all our dirks were
thrust into our girdles and my revolvers and cartridges placed on a red
lacquer tray to be carried after us with our swords.
Fujimaro appeared to conduct us into the presence of the Prince. We
followed him through well-lighted corridors, flanked by rooms varying
in size but all alike in their silk-bordered mats, the beautiful
pictures on their lacquer-rimmed wall-screens, and the artistic
fretwork in the space between the lintel-beams and the ceiling.
Throughout the palace the woodwork was in natural finish, without
paint or varnish, yet polished until the exquisitely grained surface
shimmered like watered silk.
At the anteroom of the _daimio’s_ hall of audience two more
chamberlains kowtowed and ushered us forward. At the head of the room
there was an impressive pause. The chamberlains could not have looked
more solemn had they been ushering us into the presence of the Shogun
himself. The screens before us drew noiselessly aside and disclosed a
chamber somewhat larger than the anteroom and a slight step higher.
The chamberlains kowtowed at the threshold and crept forward on their
knees. We followed, erect. To our left, midway up the room, knelt six
dignified _samurai_ counsellors. The Daimio awaited us, seated Turk
fashion upon a low dais before a lacquer-walled _tokonoma_. So far
as I could judge of his figure within the loose robes, he was tall
and slender. He wore a small beard and mustache whose snowy whiteness
contrasted with his tall black bag-like cap of cobwebby tissue. His
long face had a stern and saturnine expression and he bore himself with
austere stateliness.
As the chamberlains neared the dais, they kowtowed and drew to one
side. We advanced and knelt, and Yoritomo kowtowed. Resolved to
maintain equality with the Prince, I went no further than a low bow. As
I straightened, the Prince gazed keenly into my blue eyes, and after
a moment’s pause returned my bow. I was received as a _daimio_ of the
first class!
The kneeling chamberlains waved me to the cushion on the left of the
Prince and Yoritomo to the cushion on his right. Our swordbearers slid
around to the _tokonoma_ and placed our swords upon the rack of honor
below the Prince’s glittering gold-mounted helmet and armor. At a sign
from the Prince, the page bearing my revolvers and cartridges set his
tray before us.
The solemn silence which had prevailed since our entrance continued
while attendants glided in with sweetmeats and a toy-like tea service
of egg-shell china. When we had been served, the Daimio signed all the
retainers except his counsellors to withdraw, and broke the silence by
politely inquiring my name, age, and family.
“My father’s guest is Adamisu Woroto Sama,” answered Yoritomo for me.
“He is a _daimio_ of the great _tojin_ people whose land is called
America. His age is the same as my own. In all America there is no
family of higher blood than the family of my friend and benefactor. He
held honorable rank under the Government of America, but laid aside
office, and has come with me to aid Dai Nippon.”
The Prince looked across to the group of counsellors, and the aged
_karo_, or chief counsellor, responded to the wordless inquiry without
moving.
“My lord, in the Legacy of Iyeyasu it is forbidden to harbor a _tojin_.
According to the ancient edict, all Christians shall be imprisoned in
the common jail.”
“August Prince and father,” said Yoritomo, “the Legacy of Iyeyasu also
forbids that any man shall leave the shores of Nippon, under penalty
of crucifixion. Your son has travelled beyond the shores of Nippon; he
has traversed the five continents, and proved the truth of the Dutch
learning by sailing around the vast circuit of the world.”
“My lord,” said the _karo_, “the wording of the edict is explicit.
Death is decreed against whomsoever shall presume to intercede
for the life of a man returned from beyond the seas. Men of low
class--fishermen--have been received back from _tojin_ ships and
forgiven their unintended crime. But according to his own words,
Yoritomo Sama left the shore of Nippon with intent to contravene the
ancient edict by bringing back the knowledge of the _tojins_. My lord,
the enforcement of the laws has been lax in recent years; there has
been much blinking at the study of the Dutch learning. Yet the laws
stand ready for enforcement against my lord and Yoritomo Sama and the
honorable guest,
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