Part 11

“My lord,” said Keiki, stopping suddenly in his walk, “your suggestion gives me much pain, because I am unable to grant your request. It is quite impossible. This is not the place for a woman.”

Drawing himself up proudly, Satsuma replied, in a ruffled voice:

“Very well, your excellency. You refuse me.”

After a moment, as Keiki averted his face and did not reply, he continued:

“I am an old man, travelling over the last stage of the journey of life. I had a natural longing to have with me in these my last days my beloved child. Hence, feeling assured that you would not deny the wish of a dying father, I took the liberty of bringing her hither with me.”

“You brought her here!” cried Keiki, in amazement.

“She is within,” said the old Prince, quietly, as he indicated the interior apartment.

With difficulty Keiki curbed his temper. Satsuma had not long to live. He would tell him his secret: he would bare to him the source of his buried grief. Thus his old friend would recognize the impossibility of his being brought into contact with any woman, and perceive how unfitted he was for the task of protecting her.

So it happened that while without a storm raged, and rainy blasts struck sharply into the faces of the sentinels about the fortress, Keiki related his story to his aged friend. Once during the recital the shoji moved, then there appeared in it two tiny holes. Once there crept into the room, mingled with the tempest and the sentinels’ sharp cries without, a muffled sob.

“You have passed through the heart’s narrowest straits to the mind’s broadest realm,” said old Satsuma; “but permit me to still insist that while your highness’s story has touched me deeply, I cannot agree with you that it should be permitted to affect the fate of my daughter.”

“You are right,” said Keiki, gently. “It must not do so.”

“You will allow her to remain here?”

“Yes.”

Satsuma bowed deeply and gratefully.

“The camp,” said Keiki, thoughtfully, “is no place for a woman, but here in my fortress she will be safe.”

“Your highness,” said Satsuma, with much emotion in his voice, “no words of mine can express the thanks of a grateful heart. Goodnight, my brave boy; the gods comfort and bless you.”

In the adjoining apartment a small figure, half crouching by the dividing doors, sprang to its feet. A girl ran to him with a little cry and threw her arms about his neck, pressing a little, wet face gratefully against the heavily limned one of the old Prince.

“It is well,” said Satsuma, patting her head.

“How can I thank thee?” she breathed.

“By endeavoring to feel as if thou wert indeed my own daughter instead of a distant relative. But come, thou art pale, and your garments are soiled and torn with travel.”

“The journey was long,” she sighed, glancing at the frayed ends of her kimono, “and do you know, my Lord Satsuma,” she added, “I could scarcely hire a runner to carry me, because of my unworldly attire, and so I was compelled to make much of the journey on foot.”

Meanwhile Keiki sat alone, his hands clasped before his eyes. All the bitterness of a lifetime welled within his bosom. He was trusted above men; at young years the idol of a brave nation; fate was bearing him upon a wave of the highest destiny that could not fail to beat down the rotten dikes of oppression. Yet all this brought no peace, no happiness. He realized in a moment the futility of all his efforts to put the soul of the Lady Wistaria out of his heart. Only in fierce action and strain that should engross all his faculties could he even find a temporary easement. After that, the gods pity him! After that, he could not live. There should no longer be any delay. There should be war, and that speedily, perhaps on the morrow.

XXIV

HOWEVER fiercely the Prince Keiki desired and sought for instant action, there were excellent reasons in the delayed march of some of the clans journeying to the Mori fortress for the temporary postponement of hostilities.

Keiki at first was bitterly opposed to any further delay, but the reasonable arguments of the older daimios and the insistence of Satsuma, the practical leader of the movement, won him over. It was their logic, not their authority, which restrained him. He would be compelled to wait no longer than a few days more, certainly not more than a week.

One morning shortly after Keiki’s interview with the Lord Satsuma concerning his reputed daughter, who so far had kept apart in strict retirement in her apartments in the castle, Keiki found in his morning reports a reference to the youth Toro. He was riding post-haste in the direction of the Choshui province with the evident intention of crossing its frontier. What was the will of his excellency respecting him?

So this, then, was the way in which the rash youth repaid his consideration, mused Keiki. Or perhaps he came because of the Princess Hollyhock. If that were so, he would send him back to Catzu again, with a friendly warning against the perfidious sex.

“He approaches the frontier?” he asked the soldier who brought the reports.

“Yes, your highness.”

“Well then, let him ride unmolested towards our fortress. So long as he advances do not touch him, but at the first sign of his return seize him and bring him to me.”

The soldier bowed.

“It shall be as your highness commands.”

So it was that Toro, to his surprise, was allowed to proceed unharmed through the hostile country of the Mori. His journey was without incident until his arrival before the fortress. There a guard barred farther progress with his sword. Toro flung himself from his panting charger.

“The Prince Mori?” he questioned.

“Expects you and will give you audience shortly,” returned the guard.

The young heir of Catzu was conducted to a chamber within the outer circle of the fortress’s defensive works. While this chamber was not within the inmost area of the edifice devoted to the living apartments, yet it was sufficiently near for the occasional passage of some peaceable member of the household through the grimmer servants of war to occasion no comment. Moreover, it adjoined the apartments set aside for the Prince of Satsuma.

Thus when the daughter of Satsuma chanced to pass through the chamber, none showed surprise until the youthful Toro came. His astonishment, however, was such that instantly his mouth gaped wide. Before sound could add its audible testimony to his visible astonishment, the girl had clapped her hand upon his lips. A quick glance about the chamber told her that they were unobserved. She took Toro gently by the shoulder.

“Come,” she said.

Half an hour later the old Lord Satsuma stood before Keiki in alarm.

“My daughter is not to be found,” he cried.

“Not to be found!”

“No, my lord. I committed her to thy care. Thou didst promise to guard her.”

Keiki was troubled. His conscience smote him, for he had painfully put off making the acquaintance of Satsuma’s daughter and had left her to the care of his underlings.

“My lord,” he said, “I will have search made at once. Your honorable daughter must be found.”

Satsuma, in deep agitation and concern, left his pupil’s apartment to make further inquiry of the guard. He had advanced but a little way into one of the armed outer chambers of the fortress when a note was slipped into his hand. He tore it open and read it through in amazement. After a second reading a broad smile overspread his face. He sought no more for his daughter. Instead, he despatched a hurried note to Keiki, briefly informing him that his insignificant and unworthy daughter had become ill with longing for her home, and had departed thence on her own account. As she was very efficiently attended, he had no fears for her safety.

Meanwhile Keiki was holding audience with Catzu Toro.

“This, then,” he said, severely, “is the gratitude of the Catzu for me. I have spared your life, twice forfeit to me by every law of lord and samurai. You have come back, it seems, and are determined to make fresh trouble for yourself.”

Keiki paused. Toro answered, quickly:

“I have come back to you, your highness, to offer my allegiance and my service.”

“Your allegiance!”

“My poor aid, rather, to a cause of whose nobility I learned during my stay in your province. Sovereignty is not with the Shogun, but the Emperor. Place the rightful ruler upon the throne, oust the usurper and tyrant, and the rights of the people will be listened to.”

“Who taught you these counsels?”

“My own conscience, my lord.”

Keiki smiled.

“Are you quite certain, Toro, you did not read your new principles in a lady’s eyes?” he asked, dryly.

Toro blushed.

“The Princess Hollyhock appears to have been a teacher of some weight,” said Keiki.

Toro cried, warmly:

“My lord, you do me injustice. I love the Princess Hollyhock, it is true—I confess it. But what my honor dictates, what my conscience has seen, has naught to do with the Princess.” Ingenuously: “’Tis, my lord, I do protest, but a happy coincidence that her views are mine. Were it otherwise, though tears did blind my eyes, I should perceive the right way; though sorrow choked my voice, I still would cry, ‘Daigi Meibunor!’”

Toro dropped to his knees, his extravagance of expression seeming not to have affected his sincerity. Keiki put out a quick hand to raise him. In a voice of deep emotion he cried, impulsively:

“Toro, my brother, I wronged you. Now I make amend and receive you into our service. My heart was bitter because of my own sorrow, but it still has generosity left for you, friend of my hopes. You are of the days of flowers. Now, after the flowers have withered, I still receive you.”

“The flowers have not withered,” said Toro, impulsively. “Do listen to me. Perchance—” He broke off in some confusion, as by some sudden remembrance.

“Speak no more, I pray thee,” said Keiki, commandingly.

“Forgive me. I would speak of my gratitude to you.”

“Toro, I will place you in command of a small company. At first I could not do more without antagonizing some of my people. They would say that your adherence was too recent.”

Toro replied:

“I do not seek that honor. I ask a humbler station.”

“You shall be upon my personal staff for the present,” was Keiki’s response. “Later, as occasion offers, I will honorably advance you.”

Keiki now rose. Bowing to Toro, he signified that the interview was at an end. Still Toro hesitated.

“You wish to have further talk with me?” inquired Keiki.

“I crave pardon,” said Toro, somewhat embarrassed, “but—”

He went towards the doors into the adjoining apartment and signalled to some one within. A youth entered quietly. He was slight, yet of a grace that owed its being equally to his exquisite proportions and to his entire command of his physical being and comportment. A youth’s fringe hid his forehead. His eyes, cast down, were veiled from Keiki. He did not wear the armor of Toro or Keiki, but carried under his arm a small encased sword, which he handled easily.

“My lord,” said Toro, “I have, as you see, been able to make a recruit. He was to be my personal follower, but since I am to serve on your staff I have no need of him.”

“I am not an exquisite. I do not need a little man to follow at my heels,” said Keiki, surveying with disapproval the dainty lines of the little warrior.

The unwelcome visitor flushed to his ears. Toro glanced at him with what seemed a suspicion of humor. The youth, seemingly infuriated, whipped out his sword.

A sudden suspicion of treachery came to Keiki as he brought his hand to his own heavy blade and put it at guard. But the thought of the youth attacking him seemed to amuse him also, so that he took no trouble to defend himself.

Perhaps, too, it was because of his astonishment, and the heaviness of his blade, and not because of lack of skill, that the tiny blade of the youth slipped down Keiki’s guard, and, leaving the line of defence, sought, cut, and carried away a rosette from the cuirass of the Prince. Plucking it from his blade, the youth thrust the rosette into his breast, while on his knees he offered his sword to Keiki with its point directed towards his own breast.

Keiki made a motion of surprise. The youth had answered, and worthily, his taunt. But his life hung upon the generosity of the Prince. Toro saw that here was a test of the soul of Keiki.

The Shining Prince laughed loud and long.

“Good! I receive thee at once into my service. Thy name?”

“Jiro, my lord,” half whispered the youth from his kneeling position.

“Well, Jiro, just now you held my life in your hands. For the sake of a worthy cause I thank you for sparing me. A thrust in the loosened corsage below that rosette would have done for me.”

Jiro rose to his feet, but remained with his head respectfully bowed before the Prince.

Toro clapped him on his slight shoulder.

“In the days soon to come, when your life is sought by the foes of the cause, my lord, Jiro and I will protect you.”

When Toro, flushed with his strange success, sought the Lady Hollyhock, he found her wholly unresponsive.

“In faith, my lord,” she said, mockingly, “it was not right for you, a Catzu lord, to ride through the outposts of your hereditary enemy, simply for a glimpse of an unworthy and insignificant maiden.”

“Nay—” remonstrated Toro.

“To abandon your father’s house and hopes for a girl—that is not what the daughters of Nipon are taught.”

“My dearest lady—”

“To follow one’s conscience were an honor, but to forget all blindly, to betray your cause, to betray your house to win a wife. Think you she would have you after such perfidy? She would not be worth possessing did she favor you then.”

One little, unfeeling hand Toro carried to his heart.

“Dear lady,” he said, “I did not do it for thee.”

The Lady Hollyhock frowned, and withdrew her hand immediately.

“You did not?” she exclaimed.

“Nay, dear lady. I did it because of my conscience, because I believe in the Emperor, and not the Shogun.”

The Princess turned her back upon him.

“You are angry, sweet lady?” interrogated the agitated Toro.

No reply.

“Lady, you were angry with me when you thought I did it for you, and now when you know I did not you are still angry.”

“A princess must have her brave knight,” said the Lady Hollyhock, haughtily.

“You know why I did it,” said Toro, ready to forswear everything at her demand.

Again he sought her hand, but still she denied him.

“Oh, not so fast, my lord. Let me whisper to you a report I have heard.”

“A report—concerning me?” said Toro, in bewilderment.

“Concerning a certain Catzu gentleman who recently awaited an audience with the Prince Mori. He was placed in a certain interior chamber, which happened to adjoin the apartments of the daughter of a certain prince of prominence. This Catzu gentleman, it is said, disappeared into this lady’s private apartments. Since which time the lady has been banished to Satsuma by her own father.”

“Lady,” said Toro, in a great state of mingled fear and bewilderment, “I pray thee repeat not such a story, even to the flowers.”

With a scornful and angry little laugh, the Lady Hollyhock, who had inwardly hoped for a denial by her lover, stepped away.

“I am not likely,” she said, “to tell of my own supplanting.”

She drew the doors sharply between them.

Toro, alone, mused upon the imputation of her words.

“She is mine if I tell her a secret,” he said, “but that secret is not my own; I cannot tell it!” He added, with a naïve wisdom: “Nor can I trust her. A woman is like unto a volcano, which, even when inactive, is palpitating to spit forth its fire, and which, when it does vent its fury, bursts the bounds of its late enforced suppression.”

XXV

A SMALL portion of the night had been spent by the Prince in that sleep, troubled by nervous starts and awakenings, which was now his only repose, when there was a sound of disorder in the great enclosure without the fortress. The challenging of sentinels, the rattle of arms, the gallop of a considerable body of horse, came to him plainly within the palace interior.

Hastily Keiki passed through the castle apartments to a parapet high above the area of the enclosure. Leaning against a cannon, he sought among the shadows for the cause of the disturbance. If he had any fears as to the state of his defences, none appeared in his face, now grown impassive almost to the point of apathy.

Gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness of the enclosure, he saw that his followers were receiving an accession of fresh troops, many of whom were mounted. Quarters for the rest of the night were being made ready for the new-comers. Plainly, it was the arrival of some of the long-expected clans.

With the knowledge that a report would be made presently, for such was his standing order by day or by night, Keiki returned to his apartments, seeking, after a few further preparations, the chamber in which he was accustomed to receive guests.

Soon a number of his people, among them Toro and the boy Jiro, ushered in his cousin, the cadet Lord of Nagato. Scarcely had he announced the number and strength of the clans he had gathered about him, when he burst out:

“Strange news, your highness!”

“Speak,” said Keiki, briefly.

“With these eyes have I seen it. Ill augurs it for our land and cause.”

“Speak,” said Keiki, impatiently.

“My lord, I have just come from Yedo, whither I went alone in disguise, joining my men only yester morn.”

“My lord,” said the impatient Keiki, “pray remember that the hour is late. All things wait upon your utterance. Tell me in a breath what is your news. What did you see in Yedo?”

“Foreign ships-of-war sailing up the harbor.”

“What was their purpose?”

“They demand the opening of our ports, closed for two hundred years, to the trade of the world.”

Keiki reflected.

“It is evil—this complication with foreign peoples at this time,” he said. “But proceed, my lord.”

The other continued:

“Four foreign ships-of-war are now in Yedo Bay. They are American. They are in much doubt as to who is the ruler of the country. The Shogun Iyesada has assured them that he reigns supreme. Treaties are now being negotiated. The Shogun has taken it upon himself to change the policy of our country without reference to the Son of Heaven” (the Mikado).

“This is treason,” cried Keiki. “We must march against the Shogun at once.”

“Nay, my lord, permit an insignificant vassal to suggest that our country must present at this critical juncture an undivided front against the foreigner. It may be that the Shogun in his weakness before the foreigner but temporizes in his presence. The foreigner must be expelled, and, after that, the Shogun dealt with.”

“You are right, my lord. I congratulate you upon your wisdom and foresight, and beg that you will now retire to rest.”

“May I inquire whether you purpose taking any action, your highness?” inquired Nagato.

“I am decided,” said Keiki. “In the morning I shall set out for Yedo, whatever the peril. I must make observations.”

Long after the others had retired, Keiki tried to review clearly the train of events that had led up to this occurrence. He must decide upon his course. In spite of the European knowledge transferred to him by the Lord of Satsuma, the very term “foreigner” sent a vague thrill of unknown terror to his soul. He had been told of their arms and other methods of warfare; many of their secrets were his. He had, if not their armaments, at least fair imitations—gunpowder, cannon, and rifles. Yet in spite of all this, an emotion that was not fear, not cowardice, made its way subtly to his heart. These foreigners stood for a strange civilization which, despite his vaguely derived knowledge, might yet include greater destructive agencies.

Then who could clearly see beyond their diplomacy? They might come simply, as they said, to demand open ports. But their own history showed that such things had been the forerunners of wars of aggression, wars for the acquisition of territory. No man might know what the extent of the latter demanded. They were a distinct peril to the whole of Dai Nippon. Yet what was to be done with regard to the shogunate? Iyesada was dealing with these foreigners, making treaties, without the sanction of his imperial master, the Mikado. If, on the other hand, Keiki should move with all his forces against the Shogun, would not the foreigners, taking advantage of civil war, better their mysterious position and gain whatever object they might have in view?

No, it seemed clear to Keiki that, unless something unforeseen intervened, every energy must be made by a united country to keep out the foreign powers. When this was definitely accomplished the Mikado’s reign would be established with little delay before the foreigners could recover.

This was the final and definite conclusion reached by Keiki. He saw a certain advantage in the arrival of the foreign ships-of-war, provided they came in good faith. They would serve to distract attention from the aroused and armed state in which the southern provinces now were, to which they had been brought under his direction.

“I will go to Yedo at sunrise,” he told himself.

His temples were throbbing painfully, the result of long nights without sleep, of long days of thought and care. He sighed and drew his hand across his brow.

“My lord is ill?”

He started at the voice. It had a vaguely familiar sound. The young boy, Jiro, had started towards him a pace, and then had retreated backward, as though overcome by his temerity.

“My lord is ill?”

“An insignificant pain in the brow,” said the Prince.

The boy slipped behind the Prince softly and fell upon one knee.

“Dear lord, will you not permit me to relieve the pain of your august brow?”

The Prince stirred uneasily. Again the strange quality of the boy’s voice touched some hidden spring of memory. Taking his silence as consent, the boy laid a soft, cool hand on either side of Keiki’s temples, pressing them with his finger-tips. The action, the touch, recalled in an instant a memory that was better than sleeping. It was thus the Lady Wistaria had been wont to woo away the pain that beset his brow when he had lain ill in her father’s house.

Suddenly the Prince clasped his hands over those on his brow. Gradually he was drawing Jiro to a position facing him, when, eluding the Prince’s grasp, Jiro sank to the floor and laid his head at Keiki’s feet.

“Oh, my lord, I beseech you not to be angry with me for my forwardness. It was my solicitude for your pain—”

“Nay, rise,” said the Prince, gently. “Pray do not confound me with apologies.”

With his head still drooping, the boy retreated towards the door.

The Prince smiled at the fear apparent in Jiro’s demeanor.

“You have done me no ill,” he said, kindly; “you have actually soothed away the pain. I thank you.”

XXVI

UPON his arrival in Yedo, Keiki made use of every precaution his ingenuity could devise, that the Imperialists might not discover his presence in the capital of the Shogun’s government. His approach to the city had been attended only by Toro and Jiro, but during the last stage of the journey the three had separated, entering the city from opposite directions to meet in an isolated quarter near the water-front. Here the Imperialist party found it advantageous to maintain a small establishment whose squalid exterior gave no promise of the comparative comfort to be enjoyed beyond the threshold by those in possession of the pass-word.