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!”