AS Jiro followed closely behind his master on their return to the little
house by the water-front, he noticed signs of intense preoccupation and
irritation in Mori. The boy attempted to walk beside him, gazing into
his face with that wistful appeal of the eye which Mori had been unable
to fathom whenever his attention was caught by it. Now he was too much
occupied with his thoughts to be more than disturbed by it. With a
gesture of impatience he exclaimed, abruptly:
“Thou, Jiro, walk a space behind me.”
Jiro fell back. In this wise they proceeded for some minutes until Jiro
perceived that Mori was making signals to him. Jiro, quickening his
step, came nearer to the Prince.
“Jiro, thou sluggard, hasten,” called the Prince.
Jiro made trembling haste.
“Call a norimon at once,” ordered his master.
Jiro ran into an adjacent street, returning shortly with the vehicle, at
whose curtains he stood waiting for his lord to enter. Keiki’s absent
glance fell upon the face of Jiro. It was tear-stained. The eyes wore
that strange expression of appeal which always touched certain emotions
in the heart of Mori, so that even in his harshest mood he could never
be otherwise than gentle with the lad. Entering the palanquin, he drew
Jiro in after him.
For a time they travelled in silence. Jiro broke it to inquire very
timidly:
“Whither do we go, my lord?”
If Mori heard him he made no sign. The journey was continued in silence.
At the end of what seemed to Jiro two full hours, Mori dismounted from
the carriage and bade the runners wait for him. Jiro saw that they were
upon the ridge of a headland overlooking the bay at whose head stood the
Shogun’s city of Yedo.
At a sign from Keiki the boy followed the Prince down a path leading to
the shore below. As they made their rough way along, Jiro saw lights
flashing out in the bay, and occasionally he thought he heard the sound
of oars.
A great distance up the shore he saw men at work upon a little building
facing the bay. They were busily engaged by the light of abundant
torches. The speed of Mori, however, permitted the boy to take few
observations. Already his breathing was heavy and labored in his attempt
to keep up with his master.
As they neared the water the curvature of the shore hid the
torch-lighted spot from view. With sullen glance directed ahead of him,
Mori kept on until he stood almost at the edge of the water, which in
lapping, inky darkness glided and twisted at his feet. Then with his
chin resting upon his arm, half reclining against a giant bowlder which,
torn from the headland above, had ploughed a grudging way hither, Keiki
looked out across the water.
It was silent—a silence made impressive and accentuated by elemental
sounds, the lapping of the water below, the bursting of a crested wave,
the swirl of pebbles and sand thrust insistently up the beach by the
drive of the water. The darkness seemed a thing alive, which, taking on
fiendish, malign personality, sought to blind the mind, the heart, the
emotions, as it did the eyes.
There was an all-pervading suggestion of fate, of adversity, of other
propagated influences through the night. Subtle spirits hovered, circled
through the air, met, clashed their wings, turned, trembled down, down.
Jiro could have shrieked aloud, could he have found voice.
Gradually, faintly, as the monotony of the natural sounds numbed his
physical sense of hearing, Jiro found that a new sense of appeal to his
ear was being made, off in the darkness. As they reached his
consciousness, with their unmistakable human origin strongly impressed,
his fright gave way. In its place came the calm of nerves raised to a
higher tension. It was now the creaking of chains, the wooden friction
of oars, the movements of men on board ship. All at once lights gleamed
forth. They defined by their frequency and position the outlines of a
vessel not unlike the smaller native boats plying in the bay. Other
lights appeared in quick succession. Soon the forms of four giant
vessels were indicated rather than revealed.
“The foreigner!” said Jiro, under his breath.
Then high up in the air, above the leading of the four defined vessels,
flashed a variety of colored lights. These were instantly answered from
the others. There was the rhythmic sound of men at work upon some
machine, the clatter of chains at the bows, and the vessels moved nearer
to the shore.
These manœuvres were partially understood by Keiki. The lord of that
fleet, hitherto unseen by any Japanese, was getting up his anchors and
drawing nearer to the shore, having sent out his boats first to take
proper soundings.
Every light below the deck line revealed an open port, and every open,
lighted port showed a gun slung shoreward. The squadron’s people were to
land the next day, but they were all vigilance in the mean time.
One by one the vessels moved to their new positions. After an interval,
the noise and movement seemed to cease about them. A light was hoisted
aloft on board the leading vessel. Instantly every light disappeared
from the ports, and the blackness of the night again enveloped their
movements.
Mori turned towards the boy, noting curiously the spasmodic working of
his features.
“What is it, Jiro?” he asked, kindly.
“It is a strange civilization,” said Jiro, in a choking voice.
“Civilization!” repeated Keiki—“civilization! I seem to hear that word
everywhere to-night.”
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[Illustration: Decoration]