The draught was a bitter one for Midzuano Echizen-no kami. He thrust the death warrant into his bosom, bowed punctiliously to Gengo and Satsuma, and rose to depart, with the excuse that he must call a meeting of the Council of Elders to consider the threatened invasion of the barbarians. Gengo the chamberlain withdrew immediately afterwards, too puffed with importance to acknowledge the nod of Satsuma.

With the disappearance of the Shogun’s messenger, the alarm and confusion outside the audience chamber seized upon the hatamotos about us. Giving way to the terror which drove in upon them with the din of the bells and wild cries from all parts of the yashiki, the guardsmen flung open the screens and rushed out in a panic of fear.

The Daimio rose with stately composure, and signed us to follow him. We went out, escorted only by our Satsuma swordbearers and the hatamoto official who, as bearer of the Daimio’s sword, had been restrained by his duty from joining the flight of his fellow-retainers.

The harsh clang of the firebells had now ceased, and the boom of the temple bells reverberated at less frequent intervals, but the funereal solemnity of the tolling served only to intensify to highest pitch the panic effect of the first wild tocsin. To the terrified Japanese it was the knell of doom for Yedo. Excited hatamotos ran about at random through the rooms and corridors of the yashiki, their faces distorted with fury and despair, while from the women’s quarters shrill voices pierced the frail walls of the palace with shrieks of terror. With fear run riot in the yashiki of the High Court, what must be the panic beyond the moats of the official quarter, among the million denizens of the lower city!

In the midst of the wild flurry a scowling hatamoto rushed at me, with furious imprecations. But as his blade flashed out Yoritomo flung me headlong away from the stroke, and my Satsuma swordbearer rushed to my defence. My assailant barely saved his head by a dexterous parry. Before he could strike in turn, the Daimio’s swordbearer called out a sharp command. At the voice of his superior officer, the assassin leaped back and sheathed his sword. My defender looked to his lord.

Satsuma frowned at the hatamoto, and said sternly: “So great an insult cannot be endured even in the yashiki of the High Court.”

“No!” I cried, springing up between the man and the blade that circled to cut him down. The Satsuma man checked his stroke in mid-air. “Sheathe your sword!” I commanded. “The hatamoto attacked me because of mistaken loyalty. Let the samurais of Nippon learn that my countrymen come in peace and friendship, not to kill or conquer.”

The hatamoto dropped on his knees and kowtowed to me. But Satsuma shook his head doubtfully and signed to the swordbearers. “We will prepare against other efforts of mistaken loyalty.”

The bearers handed over our swords, and we passed on out to the portico. The courtyard was crowded with shouting hatamotos. But the Satsuma men of our cortege stood as we had left them, too sternly intent upon their duty to give way to the general fear and flurry. At a word from the Daimio, the nets that had been used on the norimons of Yoritomo and myself were flung aside. We seated ourselves, and the procession left the yashiki with all its usual stateliness of parade, though at a quickened pace.

A few yards beyond the gateway Yuki was kneeling at the edge of the street-moat to watch us pass. I saw him lean forward and stare at our norimons, then relax and sit back on his heels. He had perceived from the strain upon our bearers that our norimons were occupied. Turning a corner some distance beyond, I looked back and saw the ronin walking after the rear of the procession, with a woman close behind him.

The streets of the official quarter swarmed with hatamotos and the samurais of various daimios, rushing about, afoot or mounted, some without aim or purpose, others racing with all possible speed and directness to fulfil the commands of their lords. In the midst of the turmoil a captain of the palace guard galloped up to the procession with an order for Satsuma to wait upon the Shogun. The Daimio immediately detached a number of his retainers to escort us to Owari Yashiki, and ordered the cortege back to the Sakaruda Gate, which had just been passed.

The sun was setting as we advanced again along the great causeway, skirting the well-remembered scarp of the citadel moat. This time, however, my attention was directed, not towards the moat and the mighty rampart on the far side, but to my left, whence sounded the wild din and turmoil of a city in panic.

We swung up a slope. From the crest, far away to the west-southwest, I caught sight of Fuji-yama’s grand cone rising in purple majesty through the twilight, while to the southward the dark sky was streaked with upshooting red and blue meteors,—the signal rockets sent up from every headland along the bay shores. Not Yedo alone was panic-stricken.

In vain I strained my eyes to discern the glimmer of ship lights on the vast stretch of the gulf. But it was easy to imagine the majestic sight of the great steam frigates Susquehanna and Mississippi lying at anchor with their consorts, in the lower bay. I pictured the tiers of gunports triced open for action, and the grim guns lurking within, charged and shotted against treacherous attack. For a moment I felt a pang of longing, of home-sickness—but only for a moment. I had cast in my lot with Yoritomo.

A horseman dashed up the slope after us, and drew rein beside our party, with a loud command to halt. The Satsuma men came to a sudden stand. I peered out and saw that the rider was Gengo the court chamberlain. He caught sight of me between the parted curtains, and bowed low across the barbed mane of his horse.

“The presence of Woroto Sama is required at the palace,” he called.

At a word from me, my bearers ranged up alongside the other norimon, until I was within arm’s-length of my friend’s out-peering face.

“You heard, Tomo,” I said in English. “What does it mean?” He fixed a keen gaze upon Gengo, and demanded: “Does the command include both Woroto Sama and myself?”

Gengo bowed low as he replied: “The honored heir of Owari is still in mourning. The presence of Woroto Sama is alone required.”

“At once?”

“Woroto Sama should mount his led-horse.”

“You bear a written order?”

“The matter is urgent. Time was lacking to write an order.”

Yoritomo met my expectant look with an anxious frown. “It is hard to tell, brother,” he answered me in English. “Had he brought a written command—Yet in all this wild alarm, even the castle must be in a turmoil. They may want your assurance that the Commodore comes in peace.”

“Any risk to tell them that!” I cried, and I called to my escort: “Open! Fetch sandals and my led-horse!”

In the confusion of my quick scramble out of the norimon and into the high-peaked saddle, some one pressed a little square of paper into my hand. As I set my feet deep in the huge stirrups, I looked about and saw Yuki slipping out from among the Satsuma men. Gengo was wheeling around the other way. My fiery little stallion plunged free from his grooms, and to gain a better grip of the bridle I thrust Yuki’s note into my bosom. A moment later and I was racing madly back along the causeway, with Gengo a length in the lead, yelling for all to clear the road. After me ran the Satsuma grooms who had charge of my horse.

Down the slope we tore at breakneck speed, through the midst of the swarming samurais. Nimbly as they leaped aside at Gengo’s commands, we must inevitably have run over more than one, had the roadway been less broad or the distance greater. A scant minute brought us to the bridge of the Sakaruda Gate. A daimio’s procession was coming down to the bridge from the east. Regardless of its standards, we cut in ahead and galloped across the bridge.

At the gateway Gengo leaped off and ran forward to speak with the gate warden. The latter entered into a dispute which, though soon settled by Gengo, gave my grooms time to come panting across the bridge after us. Gengo hastened back to me, and cried out with imperative urgency: “Woroto Sama cannot pass unless on foot, yet haste is required!”

I thought it no time for insistence upon dignity. Carried away by the possibility of persuading the Shogun to receive my countrymen with cordiality, I sprang off as the Satsuma men grasped my stallion’s bridle. “Lead on!” I cried.

He signed to the Satsuma men to return with the stallion. “To your yashiki. A norimon will be provided for the tojin lord,” he explained, and as the grooms hastened away, he led his own horse forward to place him in the charge of a palace groom.

The thought flashed upon me that in the heat and excitement of the panic the sight of my tojin eyes might cause the blades of other assassins to leap from their scabbards, or at best cause serious delays in our advance. I squinted my eyes, and followed Gengo with my chin on my breast. Though the gate watch had been doubled, neither my height nor the whiteness of my forehead was noticed by the crowd of chattering hatamotos through which we forced our way under the great gateway, across the court, and below the inner gateway on the right.

As we issued into a broad plaza within, Gengo turned on his heel. For a moment I fancied I saw chagrin and bitter disappointment in his narrow eyes. But then his face shone with the blandest of smiles, and I told myself I had been deceived by the gathering twilight.

“Woroto Sama is wise to walk humbly,” he whispered. “Let him continue so, and he will be conducted safely past all these.”

I followed the gesture that took in the hundreds of palace retainers before us, and replied: “Lead on.”

He turned again and walked swiftly along the edge of an inner moat of the citadel. I followed through the midst of the guards and other palace attendants, still unchallenged and unheeded. 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. It was the first building I had seen in the garden, though more than once I had heard voices, which led me to believe that we had passed other houses. Gengo stopped at the edge of the kiosk veranda, and kowtowed.

“Woroto Sama will be pleased to wait here,” he said.

Before I could reply, he hurried on along the path. Within the toss of a biscuit, he turned a bend and disappeared. I seated myself on the edge of the veranda, and waited. About me was the peaceful hush of the woods with its twittering birds. The turmoil of the terrified city barely reached me over the treetops. But my mood jarred with this sylvan quietude. I was burning with impatience to reach the Shogun and protest the absurdity of the wild panic that had seized upon his people.

I sprang up and paced half way to the next turn and back again, observing with surprise that objects were still distinctly visible even in the shadow of the coppice. 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!” yelled voices behind him, and as the leader rushed towards me, other swordsmen charged around the bend after him, half a score or more in the first bunch.

Between revolver and sword I might possibly have checked and stood off that number, but still others yelled in the path behind them,—and there was utmost need to avoid a clash with the Shogun’s retainers. I turned and ran up the path, hoping to overtake Gengo. The hatamotos redoubled their yells, and dashed after me. I twisted around the turn, and saw before me, less than a hundred yards away, a number of lancemen charging to cut off my retreat.

The silent stealth of this rear attack was more appalling than the open charge of the other party. Had these lancemen come a few seconds sooner I would have been taken by surprise and pierced by their long shafts without warning. Even as it was, I had no time for second thought. At the view-cry of the lancemen, I leaped the hedge of clipped privet on my right, and plunged straight into the coppice beyond.

Fortunately my sandals were bound on firmly, and the coppice, while dense enough to screen me after a dozen yards, was of willowy shrubs that did not catch my loose garments or bar my advance. A louder outburst of yells told me that the two parties of pursuers had met, and from the crashing that followed, I knew that they were beating through the coppice after me in quickly scattering formation. Had I doubled, they would have run me down in the first minute.

I kept straight on, trusting to the gathering gloom to hide the traces of my flight, and to the noise of the pursuit to drown the thud of my iron-shod sandals on the turf. Had the coppice continued I might have gained enough to slip around one of their flanks and make my way back by the path, out of the enclosure.

But within fifty yards I burst out of the thicket into an open garden that lay about a large lotus pond. Upon an island in the centre of the pond stood a kiosk, approached from the left end of the pond over a narrow high-arched bridge of bamboo. Beyond, towering high among the treetops, rose the white roof-crest of a large edifice. Beneath that crest there was a possibility that I might find a palace official able and willing to check my pursuers and conduct me to the Shogun.

Without a pause, I dashed across the garden, veering to pass around the left end of the pond. My pursuers were closer upon me than I had thought. The leaders, who had been running silently through the coppice, burst out almost on my heels. The exultant note of their view-cry sent me clumping down towards the shore of the pond at redoubled speed.

For a while I gained rapidly on the hatamotos, the mass of whom broke cover soon after their leaders. Their exultant cries changed to furious imprecations as they perceived that I was outrunning them. But as I plunged down to the pond bank, a little short of the bridge, I was dismayed to find that one of the thongs of my right sandal had burst. A few steps more would find the sandal loose. I could not stop to refasten it, nor was there time to slash the thongs of both sandals and run on in stockinged feet.

The high arch of the bridge caught my despairing glance. I swung around the shore-post and clattered up the sharp ascent to the round of the arch. The bridge was very narrow. They could approach me no more than two abreast. I would pick them off at the foot so long as my cartridges lasted and then do what I might with my sword to sell my life dearly.

As I gained the top of the bridge I saw a woman dart from the far end into the kiosk. But the foremost of my pursuers were already at the pond bank, and I whirled about, with drawn revolver, to face them. For all their fierce eagerness, the sight of the threatening muzzle brought them to a halt. They had heard of the defeat of the ronins. The leaders checked those who followed, and all gathered at the foot of the bridge, yelling imprecations at the tojin.

“Murderers,” I shouted, “set foot on this bridge, and you die! Your master the Shogun sent for me. He waits for me now. Go, fetch Gengo the chamberlain.” “Liar!—Fetch bowmen instead!” cried one of the leaders of the mob.

“Bowmen and musketeers!” cried another.

“Down with the bridge!” yelled a third leader.

The response was instant. A dozen men caught up the cry and sprang into the pond to hack at the frail supports of the bridge with their swords. I sighted my revolver at the foremost. But before I could fire, several pointed up and cried to their fellows: “Hold! hold!”

A moment later all were kneeling, even those in the shallow water of the pond. Something brushed softly against my sleeve. I turned half about. Beside me stood the Princess Azai. Her hands were folded within the long sleeves of her scarlet kimono, and she was gazing down upon the mob as tranquilly as if contemplating the irises in the pool.

When she spoke her voice was barely audible above the labored breathing of the hatamotos. “Is this loyal service?” she asked. “Let explanation be made why you seek to murder the honored friend of your lord.”

“The august lady errs,” ventured one of the leaders. “We seek to rid the august lady’s garden from a defiling beast,—that tojin devil!”

“Is it error to speak highly of the august lord who saved your master’s daughter from the shame of ronin capture? The presence of Woroto Sama honors the garden.” “The black ships of the barbarians glide up the bay against wind and tide, propelled by evil magic!” cried another hatamoto. “In the morning they will destroy all Yedo with their cannon. This tojin is their spy, august lady. Give him to us!”

“That is a double lie,” I rejoined, “a lie born of cowardice. Every man among you knows that the black ships cannot approach near enough to Yedo to throw a cannon ball into the city.”

“Spy!” hissed the mob. “The court found you guilty!”

“And the Shogun annulled the sentence! Find Gengo, and learn the truth.”

“There is no need, my lord,” said Azai, and she bowed low to the kneeling hatamotos. “Permission is given to withdraw.”

The men upon the bank kowtowed. Those in the water waded ashore. All set off across the garden, without so much as a murmur.