In quick response to the signal, the chamberlain who had conducted us to the palace entered at the side of the room. Over his feet and a yard behind trailed a grotesque prolongation of his trouser legs that gave him the appearance of walking on his knees. I supposed he had been summoned to usher us out. But when he crept forward on hands and knees and kowtowed, the Shogun commanded harshly: “Look at the tojin, Gengo. Report has been made that he committed the crime of firing a gun within the bounds of Yedo. Speak the truth.”

The chamberlain raised his head a little above the floor, and stared across at me, his face gray with fear beneath its set smile.

“Your Highness,” he murmured, “the truth cannot be concealed. This is the tojin who, in company with Yoritomo, son of Owari dono, fired many shots from a little gun the like of which has never before been seen in Yedo. Your Highness knows that I had no share in the crime. Yuki was captain of the cortege, and the responsibility—” “Enough,” interrupted the Shogun. “Send in Setsu.”

As the fellow crept from the room I stared after him, astounded that fear could so debase one who had outmatched by his skill and braveness the armored ronins. He had stood unflinching before the bloody swords that had cut down his comrades, yet now, at the bare intimation that his lord was displeased with me, crawled away without venturing a word in favor of the tojin whose so-called crime had saved him from death and his Princess from the disgrace of capture.

I turned to the Prince, expecting him to burst into warm protests against the injustice of the Shogun’s attitude. He sat in placid silence, his face wreathed in the polite smile of the Japanese courtier. Yet I knew that he could not be indifferent. Ruin to me would spell ruin to Yoritomo. Determined not to be outdone in self-control, I composed myself, and faced the Shogun with the same forced smile of etiquette.

Iyeyoshi regarded me with an inscrutable look. Though his features were as impassive as if cast in golden bronze, I fancied a sinister mockery behind the cold curiosity of his gaze. I felt as a mouse must feel between the paws of the cat. I had been so foolish as to leave my revolvers in my apartments. I was absolutely in the power of this gloomy-eyed ruler. I thought of all the hideous mediÆval tortures still in practice in this benighted land, and a cold sweat oozed out upon my skin and chilled me. Yet I maintained my courtier’s smile.

Noiselessly as a shadow a girl glided across the room and prostrated herself before the Shogun. It was the younger of the Princess Azai’s samurai ladies. Iyeyoshi muttered a command. She raised her head a few inches, and spoke rapidly, but in tones so soft and low I could only conjecture that she was giving a detailed account of the attack and defeat of the ronins. Throughout the recital the Shogun held to his cold scrutiny of my face. I continued to smile.

At the end he signed her to go. In turning about, she cast at me a glance of modest interest, and I thought there was friendliness in her smile. She glided out as noiselessly as she had entered. There was a moment’s pause, and another girl glided in to prostrate herself before the Shogun,—a girl still more graceful and lissome, dressed in crepes of gossamer texture. I stared in amazement, my heart skipping a beat and then bounding with a force that sent a flood of color into my face. The girl was the Shogun’s daughter, the Princess Azai.

“Speak the full truth!” commanded the Shogun, with the barest suggestion of tenderness beneath his stern tone. “This is not the first time you have seen the tojin.” “Your Highness,” she murmured, in a voice as clear and musical as it was low, “the tojin sama appeared before me first below the holy image of Kwannon at Zozoji. I thought him a god or a spirit. Again he appeared, in the midst of the attack by the evil ronins, and then I knew him to be a hero such as are told of in the ancient writings.”

“The privilege of rulers is to honor heroes,” said the Shogun, and he made a sign with his fan.

Azai glided to the opening in the screens, and returned with a tea tray of unvarnished cypress wood, which she held above her white brow until she had knelt to set it before her father. Having served him, she glided across again, to return with a tray and service of vermilion lacquer. This she brought to the Prince, holding it not so high as the first tray. Last of all she came to serve me in precisely the same manner as my fellow-guest. Tray and service and ceremonial were identical. In other words, I was received by the Shogun as a personage of rank equal to that of the Prince of Owari.

But I gave scant thought to this triumph of diplomacy when I looked down upon the quaint coiffure and slender figure of the kowtowing girl. As she straightened from the salute and, still upon her knees, bent forward to offer me my tea and sweetmeats, her eyes rose to mine in a timid glance. By good fortune I was able to restrain my tongue. But I could not withhold from my gaze the adoration which overwhelmed me at this close view of her exquisite purity and loveliness.

I had barely a glimpse of the soft brown-black eyes, purpling with emotion. Then the lids drooped their long lashes, and a scarlet blush leaped into her ivory cheeks. Yet with consummate grace and composure, she maintained her delicious little smile of greeting, and served me without a falter.

Her blush passed as swiftly as it had come, but it left me stunned and dizzy with the realization that I loved this divinely sweet and innocent maiden,—the daughter of the proud ruler of Nippon,—the promised bride of my true friend Tomo. She was as far beyond my reach as the silvery moon. What of that? Love does not reason. Even in the midst of my shame at the thought of my friend, I found myself unable to resist the mad longing to win the lovely girl.

My infatuated gaze could not have escaped the keen eyes of her father and the Prince. To my surprise, instead of reproving me with word or look, they sipped their tiny cups of tea as fast as the little Princess could refill them, and exchanged cryptic verses from the Chinese classics. The poetic contest continued until we had finished our refreshment and Azai had withdrawn with her trays.

The Shogun quoted a last verse, and turned upon me with pedagogical severity. “Woroto gives no heed to the golden words of the Chinese sage!”

“Your Highness,” I replied, “if ignorance of Confucius is the sole test, regard me as a barbarian. Less than two years have passed since I began the study of your language with Yoritomo Sama.”

“In the matter of tojin learning, Woroto Sama is a scholar,” interposed the Prince.

“And a true samurai in battle,” added the Shogun with a graciousness that, I must confess, relieved me not a little.

“Your Highness,” I asked, “if inquiry is admissible—there were two hatamotos who lived to see the flight of the ronins. Both fought with utmost skill and courage.”

“Gengo, as you have seen, has been promoted,” answered the Shogun. “He did all that his position called for. Yuki, as captain of the cortege, was guilty of falling into an ambush. In consideration of his loyal valor, his life has been mercifully spared, and his punishment limited to degradation from the service of the Shogunate.”

Only with utmost difficulty could I maintain my set smile. Here was bitter requital for service,—the loyal and courageous hatamoto made a ronin and beggared because of a surprise which he had no shadow of reason to anticipate.

“Rumor says that one of the traitors was taken alive,” remarked the Prince. “Is permission given to inquire?”

“The criminal refused to speak, and so died under examination.”

A shudder passed through me at the terse reply. I called to mind what I had read of rack and boot and fire and all the other hideous tortures of mediÆval court procedure.

The Prince must have been bitterly disappointed. He laughed softly, and ventured another inquiry: “It is rumored that the band came from the north.”

“They were ronins, formerly in the service of Mito,” replied the Shogun. “Written declarations found upon their bodies state that they had foresworn their loyalty to their lord, and intended to strike a blow against the Shogunate in favor of the temporal power of the Mikado.”

“In Tenno’s name, for Mito’s fame,” rhymed the Prince.

The verse was not improbably a paraphrase of a classic couplet and must have contained an allusion beyond the bare meaning of the words. Iyeyoshi’s face darkened with a double suspicion.

“Eleven years have passed since the Prince of Mito was compelled to resign his daimiate to his eldest son and confine himself in his inferior Yedo yashiki,” he stated. “Rekko’s enemies have yet to furnish clear proof that his casting of bells into cannon was not for the conquest of the Ainos and the glory of the Shogunate, as was claimed by him.”

“Mito walks with face to the past and eyes turned upward,” murmured the Prince. “No Mito has yet sat on the stool of the Mikado’s high commander of armies. But neither was Hideyoshi the Taiko Sama made Shogun. He held a higher title in the Mikado’s court, and was supreme general in fact though not in name. 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.

The blood curdled in my veins as the full horror of the moment burst upon me. Unsoftened by my companion’s submissiveness, the Shogun thrust back his long sleeve with his left hand and tightened his grip on the dirk. His eyes narrowed to cruel slits. 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. They were as cold and hard and malignant as the eyes of an enraged snake. Yet the same impulse that had forced my offer now impelled me to creep nearer to him, fearful that he might refuse to accept. I did not realize that my interference was in itself an outrage upon the dignity of the Shogun, punishable with death. First the Prince, then myself! The bared arm of the despot twitched—

Suddenly the distorted face relaxed and the hand on the hilt drew away. Either my offer had penetrated through the crust of ceremonialism to the wellsprings of his nature, or, at the very height of his rage, he had recalled to mind the power of the friendly Owari party and remembered that even he had no lawful right to punish a daimio of the first class other than by deposition with the sanctioning assent of the Mikado.

“Namu Amida Butsu!” he murmured. “Rage is an evil counsellor! Be seated. The tojin offends with his uncouth manners and unsmiling face. Yet he has proved his high sense of loyalty and the filial duty owing to his elder kinsman. I am appeased.”

“Your Highness has spared two unworthy lives,” replied the Prince. “The loyalty of my counsel is still doubted. Grant me leave to withdraw, that I may make proof of sincerity.”

Again a feeling of horror seized me and brought the cold sweat to my face. The gruesome proof of sincerity was hara-kiri. I recalled the suicide of the wounded ronin, and I shuddered. No! Not even for Yoritomo’s sake could I offer this sacrifice of myself for his father. I had not been trained from childhood in the stern samurai code. Still on hands and knees, I stared up at the clouded face of the Shogun, in agonized suspense.

At last the clear gaze and unchanging smile of the Prince won the contest against doubt and suspicion.

“The sincerity of Owari dono is not questioned,” replied the Shogun. But the Prince was still unsatisfied. “There remains doubt regarding the wisdom of humbly offered counsel,” he insisted.

“Permission is granted Owari dono to present the memorial of Yoritomo Sama, which will be read and considered,” came the welcome response.

We kowtowed together, loudly insucking our breath to express our gratitude and delight. The Shogun rose, and we again kowtowed while he left the room. A screen in the side wall opened before him and closed again without a sound. We were once more alone.

As we settled back on our heels the Prince commended me for my part in the successful outcome of the audience with a glance of warm approval. 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. I had taken a dislike to the man, despite my remembrance of his braveness and swordsmanship, but I thought the Prince spoke with undue harshness. Heedless of the reproof, Gengo looked up, with a fawning smile, and answered significantly: “Great men have accepted aid from foxes.”

“A wise man trusts in the gods, and scorns the goblin power of badgers and foxes,” rejoined the Prince.

“Gold opens gates that steel cannot force, my lord.”

“The gates that are already open may crush those who attempt to close them.”

Gengo cringed and looked up with a bland smile.

“The favor of the exalted Prince of Owari will be remembered by his servant,” he murmured, and he kowtowed, laughing softly and sucking his breath.

The Prince signed me to rise. Gengo rose after us and ushered us out by the way we had come, with utmost obsequiousness. In the waiting room our caps and winged jackets were removed by our chamberlains, who slipped on our lacquered clogs at the threshold.

Gengo conducted our party out across the inner moat and through the palace gardens to the gate in the citadel rampart. There at last he turned back, while we swung out across the great moat and homeward along Kojimachi Street, to bear the good news to Yoritomo.