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.”