Noon found us ready for the start, our swords girt on under the flowing priest robes, and hats drawn low to shade our faces. Upon our feet iron-shod sandals were bound firmly over the white silk foot mittens, in keeping with our role of monks of noble blood, vowed to a pilgrimage to Zozoji and just in off the road. But the hilts of our swords were within convenient reach inside the edge of our robes, and, despite Yoritomo’s warning, my revolvers were no less ready. I assured him, however, that they would not be used unless the occasion justified.

When it came to the parting, I looked to see Kohana protest or at least shed a tear over this short ending of her lover’s visit. After three weary years of absence he had come back to her for a single night, and was now going from her again, it might be to his death. Yet she neither wept nor betrayed any other sign of grief. Smilingly she conducted us from her house and down the path to the gateway, where he signed her to stop. “If all goes well,” he said, “I will send for you or come again to Shinagawa.”

She kowtowed, with a softly murmured word of parting, “Saionara!”

“Farewell, Kohana San,” I responded. “The tojin carries away with him grateful thoughts of his kind and beautiful hostess.”

“Gracious indeed is the condescension of the august lord in deigning to overlook the conduct of one so rude and ignorant,” she said. Yoritomo was swinging away at a rapid stride. She rose quickly, and held out her hands, clasped palm to palm. Her eyes gazed up into mine, full of timid appeal, and her lips quivered with a pitiful smile. “Woroto Sama is a lord of the tojin, he is powerful. While he slept I looked at the strange weapons he bears, and my lord told me their use. The tojin sama is a friend of Yoritomo Sama!”

“If they kill him, they kill me,” I answered.

With a swift movement she drew from her sleeve and pressed into my hand a dirk whose richly ornamented hilt and sheath told of a precious blade within. I would have sought to return the gift, but she sank down and beat the ground at my feet with her forehead. I thrust the dirk in beside my sword, and turned away, feeling that this girl of a despised profession had honored me with her trust and gratitude. Indeed, I might say she had ennobled me, since I had needed the dirk to become a samurai, a two-sword gentleman.

With hat brim down, hands demurely folded within priestly sleeves, and body waddling samurai-fashion from the weight of cartridges about my waist, I followed after my friend across the beautiful little landscape garden of the teahouse. There were many guests strolling along the shaded walks or lunching in the little kiosks which from the crest of a terrace looked out over the blue bay. But, unheeded either by guests or attendants, we passed up the garden and out through a wicket gate in the wall across from the teahouse.

As we came into the narrow alley upon which the gate opened, Yoritomo warned me to keep my hand on my swordhilt. On either side, preening themselves behind barred verandas, I saw rows of pretty young girls clad in gorgeous robes. We had entered a street given over to the joro, or courtesans. Throughout the length of the lane, samurais flushed with sake and evil-eyed ronins swaggered aggressively up and down, with swords cocked high in their girdles.

Twice we saw pairs of swashbucklers draw upon each other, but hurried past while their blades were yet clashing together in furious cut and parry. Without looking back or so much as glancing to right or left, we swung ahead through the groups of cut-throats and drunkards, and our steadiness, together with the priest robes, won us safe passage to the Tokaido.

Along the highway vice was for the most part masked behind the disguise of legitimate teahouse entertainment, and the rakes and ruffians bore themselves with a less truculent manner among the light-hearted smiling throngs of travellers and townfolk.

As we swung into the busy thoroughfare I caught my first view of Yedo, a view impressive only in the vastness of the city’s extent. Built in great part on low-lying ground, it stretched out along the curve of the shallow bayhead and inland to the northward, in a sea of gray unpainted roofs, partly relieved by an occasional temple or red-roofed pagoda rising among groves of trees. In the midst of this dull expanse rose an island of low hills, upon whose wooded crests the moated official quarter was built about the citadel-palace of the Shogun.

A mile along the high embankment which guards all the upper curve of the bay brought us to the black gate on the boundary between Shinagawa and Yedo. A few steps beyond it Yoritomo significantly drew my attention to a roofed notice-board, covered in large Chinese characters with the ancient edicts against Christianity. Shortly after he pointed out a temple in which were the tombs of the forty-seven loyal ronins and the lord for whose sake they achieved vengeance and martyrdom.

Somewhat farther on we left the Tokaido and angled off inland from the bay towards a great park called Shiba. It is formed of the grounds of Zozoji and its many subsidiary temples, tombs, and monastery buildings. A high-arched wooden bridge carried us over a canal, or tide-water stream, whose waters swarmed with the sampans of fishermen and roofed produce boats from up country.

A little beyond this muddy stream we entered the lovely cool glades of Shiba. The place was an Oriental paradise of giant trees and blooming shrubs, from which sounded the merry note of twittering birds, blended and dominated by the flute-like song of the Japanese nightingale; while about the smaller of the temples lotus leaves and blooming irises rose above the still waters of ponds stocked with tortoises and goldfish.

Yoritomo gravely led the way across this rear portion of the sacred park, along stately avenues of giant pines and cryptomerias and camphor trees, between rows of stone lanterns, under torii of wood and stone and bronze, and past grotesque bronze images, to enclosures where broad and massive temples shouldered up the ponderous weight of their gray-tiled roofs. We came out into the main road and turned along it a short distance to the entrance of Zozoji, a magnificent two-storied gate guarded on either side by hideous red and green demons.

“Namu Amida Butsu!” chanted my friend, and mingling with a crowd of worshippers, we passed through the ancient gateway into the great courtyard about Zozoji.

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. I could not follow their low conversation, but presently I saw my friend hand the priest one of his gold coins, in return for a slip of paper. After this we joined another group of worshippers, climbed the temple stairway, and, transferring our sandals to our bosoms, glided in upon the mats of the great hall. We stopped a little way inside, between the great lacquered contribution-chest and a superb dragon-wrought brazier from which was rising clouds of incense. Yoritomo stared for some moments into the gloom of the vast interior, shook his head slowly and edged about to watch the courtyard and gate. My experience in China had already acquainted me with the many startling resemblances between Catholic Christianity and Buddhism in respect to priestly costumes, ceremonial, and houses of worship. Yet I found much to interest me in the gorgeous panelled ceilings, the carvings and arabesques and bronze-work of this grand temple.

At the far end, within the railed space that I might call the chancel, appeared the high altar, crowded about with the shrines of various images, colossal candlesticks and lotus blossoms of silver, bells and drums for the use of the officiating priests, memorial tablets, bronze offerings, and emblematic banners. All about the hall on the soft matting moved crowds of priests and worshippers, tapping bells, murmuring prayers, clapping hands, and bowing before the many shrines.

A touch from Yoritomo drew my gaze around. I looked out into the dazzling sunlight of the courtyard, and saw the crowds falling back on either side before a band of samurais. In the midst of the band was a gilded norimon, beside which walked two silk-clad women.

“She comes. Follow,” whispered Yoritomo.

He led the way up the dim-lit hall to the chancel, and showed the paper he had bought from the young priest to an old monk in chasuble and stole. The priest eyed us sharply and stood hesitating until Yoritomo slipped a gold piece into his itching palm. At that he led us in behind the bronze screen, or rail, and left us bowing in a recessed shrine before a huge many-handed image of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy.

Hardly had we gained this post of vantage when the sudden hush throughout the temple told of the entrance of the Shogun’s daughter. Though she had come incognito, a glance around the corner of our niche showed me the mass of the worshippers kneeling with forehead to floor. Through their midst advanced the cortege of the Princess, led by the venerable abbot, who, according to my friend, was a blood kinsman of the mysterious Mikado.

Fearful of discovery, Yoritomo drew me back into the denser shadow of the shrine. Soon, however, I heard the soft rustling of silk garments, followed by low murmurs and sibilant insuckings of breath. Aflame with curiosity, I turned half about, and ventured to raise my hat brim for a sidelong glance.

The lord abbot had passed on up to the high altar. But the Princess Azai stood only a few paces distant, a little in advance of her kowtowing women and samurais. She was looking up at the benevolent features of Kwannon in the gloom above us. The outline of her dusky hair blurred into the dark background, but her face, as if framed about with black velvet, stood out distinct in all the pure loveliness of an Italian Madonna’s.

Overlapping kimonos of gold-wrought rose and azure crepes draped her about in graceful folds from the base of her round white throat to her tiny feet, and her hands were hidden in sleeves whose tips almost swept the floor. Beautiful as was her dress, it won from me only a passing glance. My eyes returned to feast themselves on the innocent tender beauty of her face.

Her complexion, untouched by any cosmetic, was of an ivory whiteness, slightly tinged on the cheeks with rose. The adorably curved lips of her little mouth were of a clear coral red. Below her delicate high-arched brows her black oval eyes gazed out between the long lashes with the mildness of a young child’s and the divinely sweet artlessness of budding maidenhood.

Forgetful of all else in my wonder and delight, I thrust my hat brim higher and faced square about. A projecting corner of the shrine masked me from the kneeling attendants, but not from the Princess. Drawn by the intensity of my gaze, she lowered her glance and looked full into my face. On the instant, I knew from the widening of her eyes and the quick rise of her little bosom that she had made out my features through the shadow of our dim niche.

Yoritomo’s voice breathed softly in my ear, “Do not move!”

I waited, breathless, expecting to see the Princess cry out or sink down as had Kohana. Yet, great as was the awe and wonder in her dilated eyes, she neither shrank away nor called upon the guard to protect her from the blue-eyed apparition. Such perfect control on the part of a girl so delicately nurtured, so exquisitely refined in look and bearing, was more than I could withstand. Regardless of Yoritomo’s warning, I raised my head higher, and sought to express in a smile the utmost of my admiration for her courage and beauty.

Again her bosom rose and fell to a quick-drawn breath, and her lustrous eyes widened yet more. But the god or devil—whatever he might be—had been pleased to regard her with a kindly look. Etiquette, if not respect and gratitude, called for a polite response. A row of little pearls gleamed between her smiling red lips, and her lissome young body bent low in gracious obeisance.

Instantly Yoritomo grasped my arm and drew me around the far corner of the shrine. Before the Princess had straightened from her bow, we were slipping out through a narrow doorway into the broad veranda of the temple. The sudden vanishing of the priest-robed apparition must have seemed to her clear confirmation of its godly or ghostly nature.

In the veranda I would have stopped to whisper my blissful impressions of the girl’s beauty, had not my friend snatched his sandals from his bosom and imperatively signed me to strap on my own. The moment our footgear was secure, he hastened down around the rear of the temple and out through a postern, into a winding road that led us past the enclosures of two or three mortuary chapels. Had the occasion been different, I might have pressed my friend to show me these magnificent memorial tombs and temples of departed Shoguns. As it was, he did not pause until we had passed down a long row of stone lanterns and out through one of the beautiful secondary gates of Shiba.

At last he stopped in a vacant space, and turned to reproach me with mild friendliness: “You should not have so risked discovery, brother!”

“How could I help it?” I demanded. “She is very beautiful, Tomo! Candidly, I envy you your good fortune.”

He gazed into my glowing face, his own quickly stilling to the placid Buddha calm. “Form is an empty mask, a nothingness,” he murmured. “The love of women, the craving for power, the greed for gold,—all alike are lures to decoy the soul out of the upward path to Nirvana.” “You have seen your future bride, and can speak of Nirvana!” I exclaimed.

“She is as pure and beautiful as an angel. Yet I looked into her luminous eyes and did not see my soul.”

“I saw her soul, you cold-blooded Buddhist! Her spirit is as beautiful as her face!”

“No, Woroto,—it was your own soul you saw shining in her eyes,” he replied.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

He shook his head gently. “Who may penetrate the mysteries of the future? You may have loved her in some previous incarnation. As for me, I have given my life to the Son of Heaven, the holy Mikado.”