Robert Ames Bennet

“ At the best I am a condemned man. It is my right to do what little I can to free the House of Owari from blame.”
“The House of Owari stands or falls in honor. To thrust you out as a ronin would stain that honor, and it would rightfully be considered as evidence of weakness. No, brother! There is one chance, and only one, to check the intrigues of Mito.”
I shuddered. “So dreadful a death, Tomo! Could I but take your place!”
“I am samurai bred. It is a privilege to offer one’s life in a great cause. You, I fear, will have the harder task. ”

“ A mob of yelling, slashing warriors surged about us. Azai flung herself upon me to shield me with her tender body. A Mito man fell heavily across us, the blood gushing from a great wound in his breast. I heard the triumphant shout of Yuki. The wave of fighting men surged back.
My bonds parted under Azai’s dirk edge. She sprang up and tugged with her girlish strength to help me to my feet. From the bosom of her robe she plucked out my revolvers, first one and then the other. ”

“ Presently Gengo led me across a bridge to a gateway whose guards seemed to have deserted their post. After pausing to peer about in an odd manner, my guide hurried me through the gateway with feverish haste. I found myself in one of the palace gardens. We advanced quickly along a narrow clean-swept path, between coppices tenanted only by birds, and our course was so full of irregular twists and turns that I soon lost our bearings.
After a few minutes we came to a small pagoda-roofed kiosk, or summer-house, in the midst of a grove of gnarled old cherry trees. ”

“ I could not restrain an exultant exclamation: “We’ve won! He cannot resist Yoritomo’s facts!”
The Prince touched his lips and signed to the rear. A shadow passed across my face. I had not heard even a rustle of silken folds, yet Gengo the court chamberlain was already beside me. He kowtowed, and murmured in a tone of ingratiating obsequiousness: “The august princes are implored to accept the humble services of their servant. The condescension of the great fills with joy the breast of the lowly!”
“The duties of a court chamberlain restrict his services to his lord,” replied my companion. ”

“ The temple stood at the head of a flight of red steps, and, with its huge red pillars and enormous Chinese roof of gray tiles, was by far the most imposing edifice I had yet seen in Japan. A mighty sonorous boom smote upon our ears. I looked to the right, and saw a priest swinging a suspended beam against the rim of an immense bell.
Yoritomo turned across to a building on our left, and between the thunderous peals of the great bell addressed a young priest who was writing in the veranda. ”

“ Only once I caught her gaze and read in her agonized eyes the grief and despair which etiquette compelled her to conceal.
Soon Yoritomo entered, gravely serene, yet radiant with the solemn joy of self-sacrifice. His final testament was in the hands of his father. All was now in readiness for him to undergo the ultimate test of sincerity. When he seated himself beside me Kohana prostrated herself at his feet. He regarded her with the tender compassion of a saint for a suffering child.
“Kohana is of samurai blood,” he said. “She knows that death is a small matter.” ”

“ Yet not a man about us stirred. Every eye was fixed upon the messenger of the Shogun.
Gengo rose, faced about, and displayed the great vermilion seal of his master upon the scroll. All in the room, from the humblest samurai among the attendants to the daimios of Satsuma and Echizen, kowtowed before the emblem. Gengo swelled with pride.
“Give heed to the command of His Highness the Tycoon!” he shouted above the booming of the bells, and he cried out the contents of the scroll: “All proceedings against Yoritomo, son of Owari dono, and Woroto Sama the tojin, are annulled. ”

“ Is it for the glory of our holy Mikado or for the elevation of Keiki that Mito plots the overthrow of the Shogunate?”
Stung to fury by the bare mention of the threatened disaster to his rule, Iyeyoshi bent forward, his face distorted with murderous rage, and his hand clutching at the hilt of his dirk. The Prince, still smiling under the menace of instant death, kowtowed, and waited on hands and knees, with his neck bared for the blade.
“Gladly does a loyal subject offer life in confirmation of sincerity,” he murmured. ”

“ My thoughts wander from the classroom below me where, as honorable and honored teacher of the tojin learning, I instruct the young samurais of my great friend Satsuma. I pass in rapid review those eventful months in Yedo. I recall the sacrifice of my dear friend and rejoice to know that the years promise a maturing of good fruit from the seed sown by his spirit and watered with his blood. I recall how even Mito and the cautious Abe were forced to accept the treaty they abhorred, by the menace of Perry’s black ships, in the Spring of fifty-four. ”

“ To the outside of the bundles, I now tied my revolvers and Yoritomo his sword and dirk, all alike wrapped in oil paper, together with two pairs of straw sandals and black leggings and our deep-brimmed basket hats of coarse-wove rattan. The night was far too wild for us to risk being flung into the breakers with any unnecessary weight about us. That we might not be hampered by our loose dress, we bound up our long sleeves to our shoulders and tucked the skirts of the robes through the back of our girdles. ”

“ The northeast monsoon, after weeks of steady effort, had blown the moisture of the Japan Current southward. The air was as clear as crystal, the blue sky cloudless. It was no day to lead a man out to a hideous death—I should have been strolling through the gardens with Azai....
On to the Tokaido, and down along the bay shore through Shinagawa, marched the grimly grotesque warriors of antique Nippon. It seemed a lifetime since my dear brother had led me after the cortege of Satsuma, through the black gate and along the broad way and down that narrow street to the house of Kohana. ”

“ I faced to front, and saw floating towards us a vision as wondrously beautiful as a Buddhist angel. Against the jet blackness of her high coiffure glinted comb crests and pin heads of amber and coral, while from slender throat to tiny feet she was enveloped in a robe of scarlet silk, gorgeously embroidered with flowers in gold thread, and her plump little hand fluttered a vividly colored fan.
Like my friend’s, the girl’s face showed the samurai type in its oval contour, small mouth, and aristocratic nose,—features so markedly different from the broad, flat faces of the lower classes. ”

“ I knew there would be only one movement,—a flashing stroke from the scabbard that would sever the outstretched neck of the Prince. In the same instant I realized that the death of the father would mean death to the son and the ruin of what he valued far above life,—his mission. I had pledged myself to help Yoritomo, and—I loved his betrothed! What had I to live for?
“Your Highness!” I gasped. “I do not know all your customs. In China a condemned man may sometimes receive punishment through a substitute. Accept my life for the life of my kinsman!”
The Shogun turned his glittering eyes upon me. ”

“ Mito Yashiki swarms with retainers ready to pour out and overwhelm my small band. Keiki and his followers are in full armor. I refuse to be tricked. If I draw sword, it means death to me, whether or not Keiki dies first. Such being the scheme, I will even the odds in this manner”—I drew both my revolvers—“the life of Keiki is in my hand. He will do well to let the mourners of Yoritomo Sama pass in peace.” ”

“ We had come so quickly from where I had parted with Yoritomo that a full quarter-hour of twilight yet remained. Gengo could not miss his way for lack of light. Again I paced towards the turn and back. As I rounded the kiosk I glanced down the path by which we had come. At the last bend stood an armored hatamoto with drawn sword.
My first thought was that the man must be a foreguard of the Shogun. I waved my hand to him. In the same instant he whirled up his sword, and called fiercely: “The tojin! the tojin!—At the kiosk! Upon him!”
“Kill the barbarian! kill! kill!” ”

“ The girl straightened and gazed up at me, wide-eyed yet with a smile on her trembling lips. “Tojin sama! forgive the rudeness of one who is foolish and ignorant! Accept the humble greetings of your servant!”
“Is the tojin so fearful a beast or devil in the eyes of Kohana San that she still trembles?” I asked.
“Woroto Sama is my friend and brother. He has been my benefactor during all my travels among the tojin,” added Yoritomo.
“Among the tojin, my lord! You have travelled among the barbarians?—beyond the sea?” ”

“ The crest of the challenger’s helmet was a pear-shaped ornament. At the height of the combat the man stooped forward with the force of a supreme stroke. Yuki glanced the whistling blade, and struck back a tremendous downward blow that split the pear in half and cleft down through the helmet. The challenger fell as if struck by a thunderbolt.
My men raised a jeering shout, but Keiki advanced alone, and they fell silent again. The young lord strutted out within a few paces of me, and called tauntingly: “Does the barbarian consider the day ill-omened for Hitotsubashi? ”

“ You have an heir?”
Yuki bowed to each question. Yoritomo nodded and continued: “Blessed is the samurai who can give his life to lift his parents from beggary to honored affluence; whose heir has full cause to stand before the mortuary tablet of his father with grateful reverence! Offer is made to receive the family of Yuki the ronin into the service of Owari.”
Yuki kowtowed. “The condescension of my lord is above the acknowledgment of empty words. Command the ronin to return into the hands of the torturers! His gratitude may not be expressed by the sacrifice of mere life.” ”

“ By noon, though the wind had fallen to a light breeze, we had sailed some thirty miles up the bay and were within three miles of the volcano, which stood out, apparently on an island, with a deep inlet running in on either side. On the Satsuma shore, across the mouth of the western inlet, our glasses had long since brought to view the gray expanse of Kagoshima, rising to a walled hill crowned with large buildings, whose quaint, curved roofs and many-storied pagoda towers recalled China. ”

“ For the sake of common preservation, humble request is made that Owari dono join in petitioning for the freedom of one who would prove a tower of strength to Nippon,—the wise and brave Rekko Prince of Mito.”
The Prince of Owari bowed, with a smile as suave as the subtle counsellor’s. “It is certain that Midzuano has at heart only the honor and glory of His Highness,” he murmured. “Owari claims a still higher degree of loyalty, if such be possible. The present moment is one of confusion and uncertainty. All men respect the counsel of Ii Kamon-no-kami. ”

“ I wheeled and confronted the younger of Azai’s samurai women, standing very near me, with her hand on the hilt of her dirk. I looked steadily into her angry eyes, and smiled at her through the gloom.
“O Setsu San will believe that no rudeness was intended by the ignorant tojin” I said. “In his land courtesy requires a lord to offer his hand and assist a lady to rise.”
O Setsu San bowed to hide her amazement, and murmured to her mistress: “Grant permission for me to conduct the tojin lord from the enclosure. The presence of a stranger is not permissible.” ”

“ When I expressed my surprise that her love for Yoritomo had not caused her to commit hara-kiri, Yuki was no less surprised that I had failed to grasp her motive. For love of her dead lord, she had submitted to a fate that to her was worse than death.
“With the permission of my lord,” he added, “I will continue to haunt the vicinity of Keiki’s yashiki. None is more crafty than a geisha. She will be watching for an opportunity to send us word of the schemes and intrigues of the Mito party.” ”

“ To give way to grief in the presence of a superior is a most serious breach of Japanese etiquette. The graver the grief or pain, the more pronounced the smile of the sufferer. Yoritomo uttered a soft laugh, and immediately turned the conversation to a less painful subject.
“My lord,” he said, “I have told how Woroto Sama received me aboard the black ship, and how he proved himself the generous friend and brother of the stranger. We believe the saying that the spirits of our ancestors are ever about us. ”