For two days I was kept caged, but fed and waited upon by eta gaolers with utmost deference. Why there should have been such a delay I could not conjecture, unless time was required to check some move of my friends, or unless Mito wished Kohana and myself to regain our strength, so that we might suffer the more keenly during our execution. Utmost precautions were taken that I should find no means to put an end to myself.

On the third day I was roused before dawn and led to a bathroom. My wounds were now almost healed, and my full strength had come back to me. But when I stepped from the cage, my arms were gripped by two samurais in such a manner that a slight twist would have dislocated the shoulder joints. Of this I was given a hint, as a warning against any attempt to escape. Otherwise I was treated with deference. After the bath I was clad in a worn but clean robe of silk, and led back to my cage for breakfast.

When I had eaten, I was again asked to leave the cage. As I stepped through the opening, etas seized me and lashed my arms behind my back. I was led out to a court crowded with warriors in full armor, and forced into a kago, over which nets were wound. Dawn had not yet come, but torches flung a weird and lurid light over the outlandish figures of the armored samurais.

Another kago was borne forward past mine. Within the nets that enmeshed it I saw the bowed form of a woman. She raised her head, and I perceived the pallid face of Kohana. She greeted me with a smile that wrenched my heart.

“Buddha bless you!” I called. “Be strong. There is one who awaits us beyond!”

Her dark eyes glistened with tears of gratitude at the words of sympathy. But the bearers of her kago hastened past. She disappeared among the close ranks of the samurais. A signal was given, and the torch bearers filed out of the court. The samurais strutted after, with clanking armor. Others appeared and fell in behind my kago. I was borne out in the midst of the procession.

Outside the gateway of the yashiki, Keiki, mounted on an armored stallion, waited at the head of several thousand warriors. The lowly geisha and the despised tojin were to be escorted through Yedo by an army of samurais—though not in honor.

Dawn was at hand as we started along the causeway of the outer moat towards Owari Yashiki. Far away, over the western suburbs of the city, I caught the glorious vision of Fuji-yama, glowing high in the blue-black sky, like a symbol of hope in the night of my despair. My spirits revived with unreasoning elation. But Keiki led his warriors on along the causeway, and within the half-hour the exultant Mito men were marching past Owari Yashiki in the full light of dawn, with an insolent clamor of conches and wooden clappers. The ranks about me opened out, that I might be seen.

No sound came from the yashiki; no face peered from the grated windows. We clashed past the great gateway. It was closed tight. The Mito men strutted past, shouting in derision. No band rushed out in fierce sortie, as I had expected. No face appeared at the windows. I was abandoned to my fate. My head sank forward upon my breast.

Before me rose a picture of the beautiful gardens and fairylike palace; of my quaint and gentle little mother Tokiwa, my stately father. But all vanished before the white face of Azai. A pang of doubt and despair pierced my brain. Was Azai still here in the yashiki, vainly longing for me?—had she gone before me, with her dirk through that white throat?—or had she been taken away to be given to Keiki? I muttered a curse upon my friends. I was being borne past the end of Owari Yashiki, and not even Yuki my swordbearer had struck a blow for me....

Down through west and south Yedo was a long and tedious march. But I failed to heed the passage of time. I had sunk into a lethargy of despair. Only once I roused up. They were bearing me past the groves of Shiba, now glorious with the tints of autumn. The northeast monsoon, after weeks of steady effort, had blown the moisture of the Japan Current southward. The air was as clear as crystal, the blue sky cloudless. It was no day to lead a man out to a hideous death—I should have been strolling through the gardens with Azai....

On to the Tokaido, and down along the bay shore through Shinagawa, marched the grimly grotesque warriors of antique Nippon. It seemed a lifetime since my dear brother had led me after the cortege of Satsuma, through the black gate and along the broad way and down that narrow street to the house of Kohana. Now the geisha was going with me to meet him—through the black gate of death!

At the southern boundary of Shinagawa the main force of our escort halted. We were borne onward, guarded only by a hundred swordsmen and an equal number of pikemen. We came to the pillory upon which I had seen the five heads. My bearers swung past. This was not the place where we were to suffer.

Out on the blue bay I saw great foundations of stone rising from the shoals that barred the approach to Yedo. Toiling workers swarmed over and about the half-constructed forts, to which strings of sampans were lightering blocks of stone from junks that lay in the offing. Other craft sailed up or down the bay, or lay at anchor in the deeper water down towards the tall white tower on the cape opposite Kawasaki.

Sailor bred, I looked out upon the wide bay with a sudden rousing from lethargy. Wind, waves, swelling sails—all spoke of life and freedom. If only the majestic Susquehanna might come steaming around that towered cape! I could see the grotesque warriors about me scuttling like crabs before the thunder of the tojin cannon.

But Perry had promised the reluctant Shogunate many months for deliberation, and I had heard the report from Nagasaki that the Tai-ping rebellion was raging in China. I could hope for no aid either from my own countrymen or the ships of any other Western power. The lives and property of white men were endangered at Shanghai by the Chinese rebels. It was no time for squadrons to be cruising along the remote coasts of Japan.

We approached Omori. A group of villagers shouted at me in derision, and ran ahead of our party. Others joined them by the score. The news spread down the Tokaido. I saw men in silk robes, white-clad pilgrims, and even priests, cutting across towards the bay shore. Keiki turned off the Tokaido. We had come to the execution ground. The mailed samurais clattered through the midst of the motley crowd assembled to gloat upon the torture of the victims. There were peasants and fishermen, merchants and porters, cowled priests and pilgrims, and a scattering of ronins.

But I had no eyes for those who had come to see me suffer. The Mito men were lining out to right and left. I was borne past after Kohana to the edge of the hideous blood pit. Bones crunched under the iron-shod sandals of my bearers. All about me the ground was composed more of the dead of countless executions than of soil.

Before us stood a heavy post with cross-beams at top and bottom. A few paces to the left was a massive gibbet with a chain dangling from its arm. Eta executioners advanced, bearing a huge copper kettle, which they swung to the chain of the gibbet. Oil was poured into the kettle, and a fire lighted below.

The etas came to my kago and unwound the nets. But as they dragged me out, Keiki called to them. One took up his position beside me, ready to catch me with a grappling-hook should I attempt to run. The others went to Kohana’s kago. She was dragged out and taken to the cross, which was directly in front of me, less than six yards away.

The etas tore the robes from about her shoulders. The first dancer of Yedo stood before the gaping mob nude to the waist. In a twinkling she was triced up to the cross, her tender wrists lashed to the upper arm, her ankles to the lower. An eta brought a sheaf of slender lances and handed one to his chief.

The executioner moved around and put the lance tip to the girl’s side. I knew that his purpose was to pierce upwards through her body without striking a vital organ. My eyelids fell. I could not endure the sight. But again Keiki interfered.

“Hold!” he commanded, and he rode forward until between me and the gibbet. “Wait until the oil is heated. You may miss your thrust. The girl may not linger long enough to enjoy the first dipping of the tojin beast.”

“My lord,” protested the eta, “it is known to you that I have more than once thrust through two and even three spears from each side, yet death did not follow until after many hours. This is one who can endure much.” Keiki did not deign to reply. The executioner drew aside a step. The crowd pressed closer, and an oppressive hush fell upon all. The gloating spectators stared from myself to Kohana and from her to the great kettle, where the etas were casting brush and faggots on the fire.

Even the certainty of torture cannot hold the mind to any one thought for many moments. I found myself heeding such trifles as the downward swoop of a flock of gulls and the heat of the midday sun upon my bare head. I noticed with idle curiosity that those of the crowd who had pressed forward on each side were nearly all men of the lower classes. The upper-class men held back behind the guards, seemingly ashamed of their morbid curiosity.

Gazing out over the bay, I began to count the junks and fishing smacks. Sampans came and went between the anchored craft. From a junk that lay opposite us a large sharp-bowed boat was sculling leisurely shoreward. I flushed with petulant anger at the thought that here was another party coming to see us tortured, yet too indifferent to hasten.

The purring voice of Keiki recalled me to the horror of the situation.

“The kettle boils,” he called. “Proceed.”

The chief executioner stepped forward with his spear. I caught a farewell glance from Kohana. She raised her face to the sun. I turned my head aside—and found myself gazing into the white face of Azai.

I stared, stupefied. She was wrapped about in the white dress of a pilgrim, the dress of mourning. Had she come to die with me? That thought was more fearful than the thought of death in the boiling oil.

A man in white behind her looked up, so that I saw his face under the broad hat brim. My heart leaped. I was to die a merciful death—I and Azai, my wife. Yuki had not failed me!