A second period of anxious waiting followed the visit to the palace.
Yoritomo soon completed his memorial which his father at once presented
to the Shogun. After that we had to wait in blind uncertainty of the
outcome, yet aware that the Mito party was gathering all its strength
to bring about the downfall and destruction of Owari.
On the morning of July the sixth, Yoritomo came to my apartments for
the first long visit he had been free to pay me since our arrival at
Owari Yashiki. As soon as the attendants had served pipes and tea and
had withdrawn, he sought to repeat the fervent thanks which he had
already showered on me for my impulsive attempt to save his father. I
could no longer bear his gratitude.
“Wait, Tomo,” I interrupted. “I have a confession to make. I am ashamed
to receive your praises. The least I can do is to confess the bitter
truth. I love your little Princess.”
“Do I not already know that?” he replied. “My brother, I grieve for
you!”
“Despise me, rather! When I looked into her Madonna face, I could not
resist showing her my love--to her, your betrothed!--and I thought
myself a gentleman!”
“My betrothed only in name, Worth. How often have I told you that my
life has been given?”
“Yet if you succeed?”
He touched his dirk. “You know the customary proof of sincerity. If
that is not required, I have vowed to shave my head, and enter the
monastery at Zozoji.”
“No, no, Tomo!” I protested. “Consider your chances for a glorious
future. If we win against Mito, only the life of the feeble son of the
Shogun stands between you and the succession to the throne. As the
husband of the Shogun’s daughter and heir of Owari, with the strong
friendship of Satsuma--”
“What is the saying of your great poet?” he interrupted. “‘Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown.’ Neither power nor love tempt me. If now I
can subdue my hatred of Mito and his clan, and fulfil my mission with
self-abasement--”
“Be a Buddhist saint if you must, but when you have accomplished your
mission, your gods will reward you with a happy life.”
“Your souls have met and loved in some former reincarnation,” he
murmured. “Cast off all thought of shame, brother. I have no desire
for the maiden. You belong to one another. Your souls are bound
together inseparably.”
“Tomo!” I cried, and I bowed over, between shame and intoxicating
delight.
Fujimaro entered with the freedom allowed a teacher, and said in his
most formal style: “Permission to enter the august presence is humbly
entreated by a woman of low degree, the _geisha_ Kohana.”
Yoritomo nodded to me, and I answered: “Bring her in without delay.”
As Fujimaro glided out, I bent towards Yoritomo with a quick question:
“Another of Keiki’s plots?”
“Would that be a matter of surprise?” he replied, with his placid
smile. “She will soon tell us. We were talking of one to whom you have
given your heart with true Occidental romanticism. I grieve for you,
brother!”
“That I should have betrayed my friend?”
“No, not that. I have never stood between you and the maiden in wish,
and will not in fact. I grieve because I know that your love is
hopeless in this life. At the best, you have only the chance to unite
yourselves in death, and even that union is no more than a remote
possibility.”
“Union!--death!” I repeated.
“When lovers know there is no hope of union in this life, they pledge
themselves to love one another for seven existences, and--” Again he
touched his dirk hilt.
“That?” I cried. “Ask her to sacrifice herself for me?”
“You Westerners talk of faith. We practise it. Azai will gladly end her
life here for the bliss of being joined to you in the world beyond. She
loves you.”
“Impossible! I am a _tojin_. The very sight of me frightened her.”
“At the first, yes. Now she loves you. My father saw your soul in her
eyes.”
“Impossible!” I repeated.
“Impossible for you to be united in this life,” he repeated. “None the
less, she is yours so far as love gives you the right,--and she is
yours so far as the wish of your brother is to be considered.”
“Tomo, you will help me?”
“I will help.” He waved back my outstretched hand. “They come.”
Fujimaro opened a screen for Kohana San to enter, and, at a sign from
me, withdrew. The _geisha_ had not paused to cast off her hood and gray
street _kimono_. Panting from haste and fear, she glided across to us
on her knees, her unsmiling face pallid beneath its rouge and rice
powder.
“My lord,” she gasped, “Mito strikes! The Council, unknown to His
Highness--”
“Midzuano has ordered our arrest,” stated Yoritomo.
“I have had no calls to Mito _yashiki_. A delayed message came from the
_ronin_ Yuki, who was captain of the _hatamotos_--Keiki sought to bribe
him against us. He pretended to agree--”
Yoritomo twisted about to my _tokonoma_ and opened the lacquered case
in which I kept my revolvers and ammunition. He thrust one of the
revolvers into his bosom, and gave me the other.
“We must stand before the judges without our swords,” he said. “That
is due the dignity of the court. But we cannot tell how far Keiki and
Midzuano may induce them to proceed. It is better to die quickly than
under torture.”
“And take Midzuano and Keiki with us,” I added.
“If it comes to the point, and they are present.” He turned to Kohana
San. “You have been followed?--seen to enter?”
“Not that I can tell, my lord.”
“Call Fujimaro.”
I clapped my hands, and the chamberlain appeared at the side of the
room.
Yoritomo pointed to the kneeling girl. “Let denial be made that the
_geisha_ who entered Owari Yashiki was Kohana San. To-night return the
girl to Shinagawa in a _norimon_, with escort, incognito, but passing
out the main gate.”
“My lord! a _geisha_ in a _norimon_, and carried through the state
gate of Owari Yashiki!” murmured the outraged chamberlain, masking his
amazement behind his suave smile, yet unable to repress the note of
horror that underlaid his mildly worded protest.
“Will Keiki then believe the spies that report the coming of Kohana
San to Owari? They will say she is still here, yet she will be in
Shinagawa.”
“My lord! the life of a dancer against the dignity of Owari--”
“The dignity of Owari against the defeat of those who would ruin Owari
and Nippon. The _geisha_ is now worth a thousand men to Owari. Seal
your lips and the lips of all others. She will leave the _norimon_ in
some dark by-way. You will loiter through Shinagawa, and return with
one of the guard inside. Go now and request leave of my august father
for us to appear before him.”
Fujimaro hastened out, and we turned to question Kohana San. Before she
could tell how the message had reached her, the chamberlain reappeared,
and announced that one of the Prince’s personal attendants had come to
inform us our presence was desired in the audience hall.
“Mito strikes. It is for us to parry and counter,” said Yoritomo. We
slipped our swords into our girdles, and rose. At the threshold he
turned to Kohana San. “Pray to the war god and to your kitten.”
“Ten thousand felicitous years to my lord!” she murmured. “The might of
Hachiman and the craft of the _geisha_ cat shall aid him!”
The waiting attendant conducted us direct to the audience hall, his
unsmiling face a portent of calamity. At the entrance he halted and
kowtowed. We passed in alone. The Prince was seated in state before the
grand _tokonoma_ and close beside him on his left sat a visitor also
dressed in winged jacket,--a large and swarthy man, with features of
the heavy German type.
When we entered, refreshments had been served, and the only retainers
present were the six counsellors. Yoritomo led me to the head of the
room, where we knelt and laid our swords upon the mats at our right,
and exchanged bows with the Prince and his guest. I had no need of
my friend’s greeting to the stranger to divine his identity. I had
already perceived from the circle cross upon his coat and his position
on the left of the Prince that he was none other than Yoritomo’s
friend Shimadzu Nariakira, the great Daimio of Satsuma. Accepting the
precedent set by the Prince, he greeted me as his junior but peer, and
proceeded to look me over with a gaze as frank and kindly as it was
keen.
“Woroto Sama is far different in appearance from the hairy _tojin_ that
I have seen on the black ships,” he said. “The august Prince of Owari
has told me the deeds of his guest. My regret is doubled.”
Yoritomo glanced inquiringly at his father, who explained with utmost
calmness of tone and manner: “Our noble friend, the Daimio of Satsuma,
has received the command of the Shogunate to bring the heir of Owari
and the _tojin_ lord before the High Court in netted _norimons_.”
In a flash Yoritomo drew open his robes below the girdle and placed the
point of his dirk to his side, ready for the fatal cross cut. Calm and
steady as if cast in bronze, he looked up at his father for the signal
to strike. The Prince turned quietly to his guest. The Daimio sat mute
and impassive. The Prince faced the counsellors, who consulted together
for what seemed to me an age of hideous suspense. Yet throughout it all
the Prince and the Daimio waited, to all appearance as apathetic as
lumps of clay, while my friend crouched, no less impassive in look, the
cruel knife held ready to rend his loins in dreadful self-immolation.
At last the _karo_ spoke, in a voice devoid of all emotion. “The words
of the august lords have been heard and considered. Humble counsel is
given that Yoritomo Sama should bear the present shame and should risk
appearance before the High Court. To commit _hara-kiri_ now would save
his personal honor. It would not be proof of sincerity should doubt be
expressed as to his motive in presenting the memorial to His Highness
the Shogun.”
The Prince nodded in assent. Yoritomo still waited.
“Does the Shogun know of this order?” he asked.
“That we have yet to learn,” answered the Prince. “The risk is great.
So also is the chance of great gain.”
Yoritomo sheathed his dirk, and tendered both it and his sword to the
Daimio. I offered my sword and dirk. The Daimio smiled gravely, and
waved them back with his fan.
“We shall all lay aside our swords when we enter the presence of the
High Court,” he said.
The Prince clapped his hands, and attendants entered to take up the
swords of the four lords. The Prince himself escorted his powerful
guest to the state portico, Yoritomo and I following close after. At
the entrance, _norimons_ with Satsuma bearers and guards were stationed
in waiting for us before the gold-lacquered palanquin of the Daimio.
With no other display of feeling than the required smile of etiquette,
we took leave of the Prince, slipped our swords into our girdles and
entered our _norimons_.
The head of the cortege passed out into the great courtyard and
through the massive gateway, followed by Yoritomo’s _norimon_ and
then by my own, each surrounded by a guard of stalwart Satsuma men.
The Daimio came after us, near the end of the procession. Outside the
gateway the heralds began to chant a monotonous cry: “_Shi-ta-ni-iro!
shi-ta-ni-iro!_--kneel down! kneel down.”
As my _norimon_ swung around, I peered out and saw the standard bearers
carrying the insignia of their lord on tall shafts. The Daimio of
Satsuma was making a state progress. The thought that we were in the
charge of the most powerful of all the _daimios_, and that he was our
friend, reassured my apprehensions of the coming ordeal. I drew a
sigh of relief, and was about to settle back in my narrow box, when
something struck lightly across the _norimon_ and fell down over the
windows. I peered out again, and saw the meshes of a net.