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.