For several days I lived in strict seclusion. A semi-detached wing of the palace, surrounded by one of the most beautiful of the landscape gardens within the yashiki, had been set apart for my use. All my wants were attended to by a faultlessly polite corps of retainers and servants.

Fujimaro the chamberlain acted as my major-domo and incidentally as my instructor in language and etiquette. Much as I had derived both consciously and unconsciously from my intimacy with Yoritomo, I soon found that I had made no more than a fair beginning in the intricacies and niceties of one of the most difficult of languages and of the most complicated of all existing codes of etiquette, that of China not excepted.

My teacher proved to be invariably cordial and interested, but no less invariably formal and precise in his demeanor towards the tojin daimio. The Prince, who came to walk with me in the garden each day, was still more formal whenever any of his retainers were present. At other times, as when I showed him a little pistol practice in the seclusion of a rockery, he unbent to me as to a peer, always faultlessly polite and dignified yet flatteringly attentive to my conversation.

During this time I saw nothing of his wife, the quaintly beautiful little lady Tokiwa Sama. The family life of the Japanese nobility is extremely private, even as regards relatives. Yoritomo found time to pay me only one brief visit. He was dressed in white, the Japanese mourning, and was greatly worn by his labor in preparing his memorial to the Shogun during the nights and his daytime duties as chief mourner for his brother.

Japanese etiquette does not permit the official mourning of parents for children. Upon Yoritomo had fallen the sorrowful task of receiving the family friends at the bier of his brother and of attending to all the Buddhistic and Shinto funeral rites. The day after our arrival the death of his brother had been officially announced, and the corpse, which had been embalmed in vermilion for a month past, was mourned over for the prescribed number of days before the interment in one of the cemeteries at Shiba.

In the meantime my friend had completed a summary of the knowledge he had acquired regarding the outer world, and the new foreign policy to which that knowledge pointed. He was now writing the full report and memorial, while his father, who had already smuggled the summary into the Castle, was intriguing for permission to present the memorial direct to the Shogun, unknown to Midzuano and the other members of the Council of Elders.

As the Council was secretly pledged to the Mito faction, it was necessary for us to obtain an unprejudiced hearing from the Shogun. Delay was dangerous, since at any moment Keiki might invoke the ancient laws against us, or the inopportune arrival of the American expedition might checkmate our purpose by throwing the Government into an irrevocably hostile attitude towards the foreigners and ourselves.

Weary of inaction, I welcomed a message from the Prince requesting me to join him on an informal visit. Where we were to go was not stated, but I accepted the invitation on the instant, and asked no questions. My attendants dressed me with utmost care, in rich though sober-colored garments, and I noticed that a ceremonial winged jacket, or kamishimo, of hemp-cloth was laid in a lacquered case to be carried along.

When, shortly after midday, I was led through the palace to the state portico, I found that the Prince had already entered his norimon, and was being borne away in the midst of his slow-moving cortege. I stepped into my norimon and was borne after him, Fujimaro and other officials walking beside me. My led-horse and grooms, my two-sword men, and the bearers of my state umbrella, hat, fan, and all the other ceremonial paraphernalia of a daimio, were strung out before or behind me.

Upon issuing from the yashiki, we did not cross the outer moat at the nearest bridge, but skirted southward along it to the Yotsuya Gate, which opens into the great Kojimachi Street. Up Kojimachi we swung at a pace far brisker than dignity would have permitted had not the absence of ceremonial standards indicated that we were travelling naibun. The incognito of the Prince, however, was no more than a conventional fiction, since his cortege was immediately recognized by every man in the throngs of samurais that passed us within the official quarter.

Gazing out through my curtains, I caught the politely veiled glances with which the two-sword men regarded our cortege. The intensity of party feeling among them was evident from the total absence of indifference. There was not one who failed to show indications of either warm friendship or bitter hatred. This was no less true of the helmetted riders we met. Some rode by with the heads of their barbed and grotesquely caparisoned horses curved high and the huge slipper stirrups of the high-peaked saddles thrust out aggressively. Others courteously swerved to the far side of the street, and a few even dismounted, despite our conventional incognito. A mile along the Kojimachi Street brought us to the moat of the citadel. I expected our cortege to turn to the right into the great causeway and skirt the moat towards the Sakaruda Gate where Yoritomo and I had parted from the cortege of the Princess Azai. Instead, our escort led straight on across the bridge that headed the street. The thought flashed upon me that we were about to enter the Shogun’s sacred enclosure and call upon one of the high officials of the Household.

On either side I looked down over the waters of the beautiful moat, among whose blue-green lotus pads swarmed ducks and geese, swans, ibises, storks, and cranes. The outer bank rose to the causeway in a steep grassy slope, set with wide-spreading oaks and pines. Nearing the far side, I studied at close view the granite blocks of the citadel wall, many of which measured at least four feet by sixteen. They were neatly fitted together without mortar or iron cramps, and showed no crevices or displacements from the earthquakes of three centuries.

At the head of the bridge our cortege halted, and Fujimaro informed me that I was to alight. The Prince, as the head of one of the August Three Families, was entitled to ride in through this lesser gate, but no other daimio could be accorded the privilege. “Very well,” I replied, determined to make a test of the matter. “Let the Prince of Owari proceed. I will wait his return here.”

“Impossible, my lord!” exclaimed the chamberlain.

“Then take me back to the yashiki,” I demanded. “The Prince was pleased to receive me as a daimio of rank equal to his own. I will enter the citadel in the same manner that he enters, or not at all.”

This was a bold stand for a foreigner whose very presence in Japan was against the ancient laws. But my natural disposition to insist upon a correct valuation of my dignity was backed by a careful consideration of Japanese manners and customs. As an American gentleman, I had the right to rank myself as an equal to any one beneath the ruler of the country. To accept a lower station would result in humiliations that I was not disposed to suffer, either from white men or brown.

There followed a prolonged conference between the captain of the gate, the chamberlain, and the Prince, during which Fujimaro twice came back and begged me to change my determination. I refused. The gate captain in turn refused to admit the unknown occupant of the second norimon other than on foot. The deadlock that followed was broken by the appearance of a hatamoto whom I at once recognized as the only member of the Princess’s guard, except the leader, that had survived the attack of the ronins. His dress indicated that he had been promoted to the rank of court chamberlain. He had come to conduct us into the citadel, and at a word from him, the obstinate gate captain yielded his will to mine.

We moved forward beneath the huge ancient gateway into a small court between the lofty bastions, and out at right angles, through an inner gateway, into the marvellously beautiful gardens of the Shogun. After winding about for half a mile or more among hillocks and rockeries and groves interspersed with kiosks and toy-like red-lacquered temples, we came to the wall and moat that surrounds the O Shiro.

Here the Prince and I left our norimons, and walked over a slender high-arched bridge, accompanied only by our chamberlains and the newly made court chamberlain, who had ostentatiously ushered us from the citadel gate. In compliance with the request of the Prince, I walked behind him as if lost in meditation, my head downbent and eyes narrowed to a line.

At the far side of the bridge we passed between the vigilant guards of the inner gateway, who, however, seemed to detect nothing foreign in my appearance. Beyond them we came into a garden court, surrounded with high walls on three sides and on the fourth with a wing of the palace. There was no person to be seen either in the court or in the broad veranda of the palace wing, to which we were conducted. Mounting a set of movable lacquered steps, we crossed the veranda to the threshold of a small waiting room.

When our clogs had been removed, the Prince handed over not only his sword but his dirk as well into the keeping of his chief attendant. The act convinced me that we were about to be received by the Shogun himself. It was absurd to suppose that one of so exalted a rank as the Prince would lay aside his dirk as well as his sword for any personage in Yedo other than the head of the Government. Fujimaro did not have to ask twice for my swords. I handed them over at the first word.

We entered and seated ourselves. The court chamberlain kowtowed and withdrew, and our attendants proceeded to slip on our winged jackets and adjust our court caps. These were odd black-lacquered affairs, not unlike inverted boats in shape, and were tied on the crown of our heads with cords passing under our chins. Our chamberlains then handed us the ceremonial fans, and withdrew to the lower end of the room.

After a short wait, the court official reappeared and bowed to the Prince and myself. We rose and followed him through a deserted corridor into a large square room, where he signed us to kneel on three mats below the cushions in front of the tokonoma. He slipped out again by the way he had entered, drawing shut the screen behind him.

There followed a wait of ten or fifteen minutes, during which I sought to quiet my apprehensions as to the outcome of the audience with this mysterious Oriental potentate, by studying the exquisite cabinetwork and decorations of the room. I was admiring the priceless cloisonnÉ vase which shared the floor of the tokonoma with a common water-worn stone, when the Prince drew in his breath with a soft sibilation, and kowtowed until his forehead pressed the floor.

A quick glance showed me a gap between the screens of the side wall, through which was entering a portly, stern-faced, black-bearded man in yellow kimono and black haori. In his girdle were thrust a sword and dirk that glittered with gold fretwork, but the bell-shaped cap, or hat, on the crown of his head was of plain black lacquer. The salute of the Prince was, however, quite sufficient to convince me that we were in the presence of the Shogun. I kowtowed beside my companion.

We maintained our salute until the Shogun had seated himself on the cushioned dais before the tokonoma and commanded us to rise. As we straightened and sat back on knees and heels, I was astonished to perceive that we were alone with this exclusive and jealously guarded ruler of the most exclusive and jealously guarded empire on earth. But I had heard too much about the ways of Oriental potentates to doubt that palace guards waited within instant call behind the frail barrier of the wall screens.

“The petition of Yoritomo Sama for permission to present a memorial through Owari dono has been received and read,” he began in a clear, colorless voice. “The summary of the intended memorial of Yoritomo Sama has been received but not read. The Legacy of Iyeyasu forbids the reading of documents or letters that refer to tojin countries.”

“The will of Minamoto Iyeyoshi is the delight of his servants!” exclaimed the Prince, smiling as though he had received a favor. “May inquiry be made whether the Tycoon has laid the matter before the Elder Council?”

If the Shogun was flattered by the adulatory Chinese title, which properly belonged only to the Mikado, there was nothing to indicate the fact in his stern look. He replied curtly, “The Council has not yet been consulted.”

Though so ungraciously stated, I divined that this answer implied a point in our favor, and I smiled quite as suavely as the Prince. The Shogun turned his gloomy eyes upon me in a fixed stare. As a matter of courtesy I was willing to conform to the etiquette of the country, but I was not inclined to cringe before any man. No thought of insolence or bravado entered my mind. The rank of this Oriental ruler entitled him to my respect. I met his look with the calm and steady gaze with which a gentleman regards a new acquaintance.

The experiment was not lacking in danger. Deference is the breath of life to the normal Oriental potentate. But the pride of race and family is hard to overcome, even though expediency counsel a subservient attitude. I could not have humbled myself had I desired.

The event proved that Minamoto Iyeyoshi was far other than a typical tyrant. His dark eyes lighted and he expressed his opinion of me with royal conciseness: “The American tojin is brave.”

I bowed in acknowledgment. “Your Highness is pleased to be gracious! Permit me to speak for one who is my friend,—a man who, for the sake of his country, laid aside riches and rank, and, at the risk of life and honor, crossed the seas to search out the secrets of tojin power. Your Highness, do the records of Nippon’s heroes tell of any nobler deed of courage and devotion?”

“The Legacy of Iyeyasu may not be altered,” he replied.

“Your Highness,” I said, “since the days of your august ancestor Iyeyasu Sama, Dai Nippon has stood still among the nations of the earth while all the tojin world has rolled forward. Even China stirs from the sleep of cycles. The time has come for the people of Nippon to learn that the tojins are neither beasts nor demons nor even barbarians. Your Highness, the son of the wise Prince of Owari honored me with his friendship. For the sake of that friendship I have come with him to Nippon to advise the altering of the laws of Iyeyasu.”

“A tojin counsellor in the Shogunate!”

“Your Highness may recall one precedent,” I replied. “Iyeyasu Sama listened to the counsel of Anjin Sama, my ancestor.”

The curiosity in the Shogun’s eyes deepened without a trace of change in his impassive face. He glanced inquiringly at my companion, who responded in a tone of calm conviction: “Anjin Sama, the favorite and most trusted counsellor of our august ancestor, has returned in a new birth to advise Minamoto Iyeyoshi regarding the tojin peoples.”

“Does the tojin himself make claim that he is a reincarnation of Anjin?” demanded the Shogun.

“No claim is made by myself, Your Highness,” I answered. “I am not conscious that my soul is the soul of Anjin. But I know that I am lineally descended from Anjin through his English son, and Owari dono honors me with an acknowledgment of kinship.”

The Prince bowed in confirmation.

Iyeyoshi’s face darkened. “Woroto is a believer in the accursed sect!”

“Your Highness is mistaken,” I replied. “The sect denounced by your laws is that body of Christians which acknowledges the rule of the Pope of Rome. There are many Christian sects which reject the Pope.”

“All Christian sects seek to subvert filial piety and the reverent worship of the august ancestors, upon which rest the foundations of morality and order.”

“Your Highness,” I ventured, “whatever may be the foundations of order and morality, the life of nations depends either upon the power to meet force with force or the wisdom to avoid conflict. For generations Dai Nippon has been safe owing to her isolation from the lands beyond the wide seas. But now the tojin peoples have attained to a power inconceivable to one who has not seen. Their warships cover the seas.”

“So also did the war junks of Kublai Khan,” he rejoined.

“The fleet of Kublai Khan was destroyed off the shores of Nippon by the great storm no less than by the valor of Nippon’s samurais,” I replied. “But the warships of the tojins move without sails against the greatest of typhoons, and their cannon shoot far. Your Highness may have heard of Chinese arrogance. The tojins said, ‘Trade with us.’ The Chinese spat at them and called them ‘foreign devils.’ The tojins said, ‘Trade with us.’ They attacked the tojins. The tojin warships came to them in anger. Now they trade with the tojins in many open ports. The tojin trade is a rising tide that is sweeping its way around the world. Your Highness knows that the Government of my country is sending a very great official honorably to request that the ports of Dai Nippon be unblocked before the rising tide.”

“Earthquake waves have rolled up on our coasts, destroying thousands. The waters have ever receded, and Dai Nippon still stands.”

“The tide of tojin trade has never receded from wherever it has flowed. Tojin power is far beyond the knowledge of Your Highness. Do not judge by the Dutch. They are now a very little people in the tojin world. In the august name of Minamoto Iyeyasu and in the name of Anjin Sama, his counsellor, I ask Minamoto Iyeyoshi to receive and ponder on the memorial of Yoritomo Sama.”

“The prayer of Woroto will be considered,” replied the Shogun, and with this half concession, he touched a small gong that stood beside him on an elbow rest.