As this is not an account of the travels incognito of my friend Yoritomo, I do not propose to give even a rÉsumÉ of our trip to America and our European experiences. Nor shall I give the particulars of the family dissension that estranged me from home and, to a degree, from my country.

Enough to say that, despite our incongruous and mutually incomprehensible mental worlds, the Autumn of 1852 found me bound to my Japanese protÉgÉ and friend by indissoluble ties of sympathy and love. Strange and inverted as seemed many of his ideas to our western ways of thinking, he had proved himself worthy of the warmest friendship and esteem.

Considering this, together with my longing for adventure, and my freedom from all the ties of family, acquaintance, and habit that bind a man to his country, it will not be thought extraordinary that I at last determined to accompany my friend on his return to Japan. My decision was made at the time when he was spurred to redoubled effort in his studies of the Occident by the news that the proposed American expedition to his country was at last approaching a consummation under the vigorous superintendence of Commodore Perry.

It was then my friend told me, with his ever-ready smile, that, should the law be rigidly enforced against him upon his return, he would be bound to a cross and transfixed with spears. Yet under the menace of so atrocious a martyrdom, he labored night and day to complete his studies, that he might return to his people and guide them from disaster upon the coming of the hairy tojin—the Western barbarians.

Few could have resisted the inspiration of so lofty a spirit, the contagion of such utter devotion and self-sacrifice. When my friend was willing to give all for his country, should not I be willing to do a little for the constellation whose brightest star was my own sovereign State, the great Commonwealth of South Carolina?

After all, though President Fillmore and Commodore Perry were Yankees, the flag was the flag of the South no less than of the North, and I had served under it. The purpose of the expedition was peaceful. There flashed upon me a plan by which I might further the success of the expedition and at the same time aid my friend in his purpose.

“Tomo!” I cried, “you insist that you must sail before the American expedition,—that you must risk all to reach Yedo and advise your government to welcome the fleet of my countrymen. Very well! I will no longer seek to dissuade you. I will go with you and help you persuade Dai Nippon to enter into friendly relations with America.”

He stared at me, startled and distressed. “Impossible, Worth! They might regard you as a spy. You would be risking death!”

“In all the world I have one friend, and only one,” I rejoined. “The thought of parting from him has been for months a constant source of anxiety and pain. It is pleasant to be rid of such distress. I am going with you to Yedo.”

His eyes widened almost to Occidental roundness, the pupils purpling with the intensity of his emotion. “My thanks, brother! But it is impossible—impossible!”

“At the worst they can only send me packing in a bamboo cage, to be shipped out of Nagasaki by the Dutch.”

“That is the usual course with wrecked sailors, but should you go with me, they might torture and execute you as a spy.”

“Not with Perry’s fleet in Eastern waters,” I replied. “I give your government credit for at least a modicum of statesmanship. Yet even supposing they lack all wisdom, I choose to take the risk. There is no room for argument. You are going, so am I. Why, sir, it’s an adventure such as I have been longing for all my life! You cannot turn me from it.”

“If not I, others can and will. The ometsukes are everywhere. You could not so much as effect a landing.”

“And you?” I demanded.

“I am Japanese. There is a chance for me to slip through. But you—”

“Disguised in Japanese dress! Can I not talk good Japanese? Have I not accustomed myself to your costume? A little more practice with the chopsticks and clogs—”

“Your eyes! In all Japan there is to be found no one with round eyes of violet blue.”

“I can learn to squint; and have you not told me of the deep-brimmed hats worn by your freelances, the ronins? You have said that many high-born Japanese have faces no darker than my own, and that brown hair is not unknown.”

“You will risk your life to come with me!” he protested.

I laughed lightly. “You have so little to say of your Japanese ladies, Tomo. Perhaps I wish to see what they are like.”

“That is a jest. I have told you that our women of noble families are seldom to be seen by strangers.”

“There are those others,” I suggested. He gazed at me in mild reproach. “Do not jest, Woroto. I have seen that you have nothing to do with the joro of the Occident. You are not one to dally with those of the Orient.”

“But the geishas—the artists—they must be charming.”

“It is their art to charm.”

“Tomo,” I said, sobering myself, “I know it is a rudeness to ask, but, pardon me, are you married?”

“No.”

“Is there no maiden of noble family—?”

“None,” he answered. “There was once a geisha—But we men of samurai blood are supposed to despise such weakness. Since then I have devoted my life to that which you so generously have helped me to attain.”

“You have no desire ever to marry?” I persisted.

“We hold it a duty to ancestors and families for every young man and maiden to marry,” he replied. “It is not as we wish, but as our parents choose. More than ten years ago His Highness the Shogun arranged with my father that I should marry his daughter Azai.”

“You refused! But of course you were still a boy.”

“You mistake. The arrangement was for the future. The maiden was then only six years of age.” “Six? and ten years ago? Then she is now sixteen,—a princess of sixteen! Tomo, you’re as cold-blooded as a fish! A princess of sixteen, and you never before so much as hinted at your good fortune! Of course she is beautiful?”

He gazed at me in patient bewilderment over the inexplicable romantic emotionalism of the tojin.

“She is said to be beautiful,” he replied, calmly indifferent. “I cannot say. I have never seen her. You know that Japanese ladies do not mingle with men in your shocking tojin fashion.”