CHAPTER XI. IN THE MIKADO'S CAPITAL.
On the evening after the event narrated in the last chapter a group of foreigners sat on the pleasant verandah of one of the largest hotels in Tokio. They were easily distinguishable from the natives that thronged the street and square, not only by the Occidental costumes—of the latest and most fashionable styles—which adorned the ladies, but by the bright and animated faces with which they looked out on the strange scene before them, and discussed the astounding news which had just been displayed, "in real tea-chest letters," Edith said, on the newspaper bulletins.
Edith and Ethelwyn Black had been invited by their father's old friends Colonel and Mrs. Selborne to join them in a trip around the world. The two young girls were delighted with the prospect, and with some reluctance Major Black consented to the plan. His wife had died five years before, and a widowed sister kept house for him; so, although the separation bore hardly upon the jolly major—from whom Wynnie must have inherited her unfailing flow of spirits—there really was no good excuse for letting the girls miss such an opportunity to enlarge their horizon, mental and physical. The party left New York in December, spent Christmas in San Francisco, and late in January landed in Yokohama. After a brief tour inland they went to Tokio, arriving just before the assault of the Japanese on the ships in the harbour of Port Arthur.
On this special evening Tokio was a blaze of light. Not only were lanterns strung over every shop door and the porches of private houses, but in groups of twos and threes the golden and crimson globes veered wildly through the streets, borne by children as well as by their jubilant elders. Newspaper boys ran to and fro with extras, their little bells jingling and their shrill cries sounding above the roar of the crowds. The naval cadets of Japan in their neat uniforms massed in a solid column, and their cheer rang out, loud and clear: "Banzai! Dai Nippon banzai! Banzai, banzai, banzai!"
Edith clasped her hands as she listened. "It's like a Harvard cheer," she exclaimed; "only it's more real!"
"Yes," said the Colonel, blowing out a whiff of smoke. "It's life and death, instead of a mere football victory. I wish I could get the latest news——"
Just then a slight, alert figure came up the steps of the hotel. The young man glanced quickly right and left as he reached the verandah.
"Ah, Miss Black and Miss Ethelwyn," he said, coming forward with outstretched hand, "I'm not sure that you remember me, but that evening on the Osprey——"
"Mr. Larkin!" exclaimed both girls, rising and cordially shaking his hand. "How delightful to find you here! Colonel Selborne, Mr. Larkin, a friend of Lieutenant-Commander Rexdale's."
"Is Mr. Larkin in the navy?" inquired Colonel Selborne, meeting the young man's friendly greeting in his hearty way.
"Well, no, not exactly," said Larkin with a laugh, "although I am on board the war-vessels pretty often, as war correspondent for the Boston Bulletin. There are half a dozen of us here already, trying to get our passes to go to the front, wherever that may be. Just now it's on the fleet and at Chemulpo, where the Japs have landed a regiment."
"O Mr. Larkin!" exclaimed Edith. "You'll surely be shot, or something, if you go right where the soldiers and battles are!"
"It will be 'something,' then, I guess," said the reporter with another of his jolly laughs. "We fellows aren't often shot. The greatest trouble we have, in a foreign war, is getting within reach of bullets at all. These blessed Japs bow and smile and promise, from dawn to sunset, but somehow there's always some hitch when it comes to actual permission to start. If I don't get my pass soon," he added, lowering his voice, "I shall get a move on, permission or no permission."
As he spoke, both girls nodded to a man who bowed low as he passed them and entered the open door of the hotel. Larkin, following the direction of their glances, stopped short. A puzzled expression came into his face.
"Pardon me," he said quickly, "may I ask you the name of the gentleman who bowed to you?"
"That? Oh, that's Señor Bellardo," replied Wynnie carelessly. "He's a Spaniard, I believe, travelling for his health, but he speaks English very nicely. Have you met him?"
"There's something familiar about his face," mused Fred, "but I can't remember—a Spaniard, did you say, Miss Ethelwyn?"
"I think—yes, I know he is, for he alluded to his estates near Barcelona. That's in Spain, isn't it?"
"It certainly is," assented the war correspondent, "but that fellow—excuse me; that gentleman-looked more like a—well, I think the air of Tokio, or the pleasure of finding old friends here, must have gone to my head. So we'll let the Señor drop. You'll be surprised when I tell you of another friend of yours who arrived here this very day!"
"Oh, who is it? Tell us!" exclaimed the girls.
"Perhaps you've forgotten him," said Fred, with a sly glance at Wynnie. "I declare there he is, now! Hulloa, there! Ship ahoy!" he cried, beckoning to a trim-looking lad who was passing on the other side of the street.
"Why, it's Mr. Starr!" said Wynnie, with a gladness in her voice that proved she had not forgotten her companion of the Osprey banquet.
"Come up here, young man!" called out Larkin, rising from his seat. "I would have brought you here to-morrow, anyway, but my good intentions are frustrated by your untimely appearance."
By this time the midshipman, recognising the faces of the two girls, had reached the verandah with a bound. He was presented to Colonel Selborne, and then came such a rapid fire of questions and answers as might have been expected.
Bob explained that he had been temporarily detached from the Osprey to carry important documents and messages from the commanding officer of the battle-ship squadron (of which the gunboats formed one division) of the Asiatic fleet to the United States naval attaché at Tokio. He had arrived that morning on the U. S. Ship Zafiro, which had immediately steamed away again under orders to return for him at some future day to be appointed. He had run across Fred Larkin on the wharf, that enterprising gentleman being on the lookout for news from the fleet and any scraps of information the Zafiro might have picked up as to the midnight assault on Port Arthur. Starr's official duties had occupied his attention most of the day, and he was on his way to see the crowds at the park when he was hailed from the hotel verandah.
"Well, this is homelike!" he exclaimed with great satisfaction, as he settled back in his chair next Wynnie's.
"What is the latest war news?" inquired the Colonel.
"Oh, the Russians have got it in the—have sustained a severe defeat," said Bob, cutting short his Academy slang. "The Japs have blown up, sunk, or disabled half a dozen of the finest ships in their fleet. This afternoon Admiral Uriu finished off the Variag and Korietz just outside Chemulpo. The naval attaché got it direct from the commander of the Vicksburg. I tell you, the old academy made itself felt when those Russian ships steamed out of the harbour!"
"Made itself felt? Why, what academy, Mr. Starr?" asked Colonel Selborne, who was himself a West Point man.
"Didn't you know, sir, that the Japanese Admiral Uriu was a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis?" cried Starr.
"Is it possible?"
"It's true, and what's more, he married a Vassar girl."
"To graduate from the Naval Academy and marry a Vassar girl—what more could man desire?" laughed Edith.
"Echo answers 'What,'" agreed the midshipman enthusiastically. "That is, unless—Miss Ethelwyn,—" But if he had intended to ask whether she were a Vassar student, his courage failed him and he lamely inquired if she "felt the draught."
Wynnie dimpled and then laughed outright, putting the young man to still more confusion. Larkin struck in with one of his irrepressible puns about a "Vassarlating maid," and the laughter became general.
"I married a farmer's daughter from Connecticut," said Colonel Selborne, "and, as a result, see what a charming pair of adopted nieces I have!"
In the midst of the merriment that followed this sally, Señor Bellardo passed out of the hotel door, raising his hat to the group and saying "Good evening, ladies!" on his way to the street, in the shadows of which he soon after disappeared.
Larkin started again and frowned. "Where have I heard that voice?" he demanded. No one could enlighten him, and the gay badinage and laughter of the young people was resumed, while the far-off clamours of the crowds were renewed as fresh details of the victory appeared on the illuminated bulletins. The "piazza party" at the Grand Hotel was prolonged to a late hour, when Fred and the midshipman took their leave, promising to call early the next forenoon in order to show the young ladies some of the sights of Tokio.
When the correspondent reached his lodgings he cudgelled his brain to recall the time and place in which he had met that stranger whose voice affected him so unpleasantly. He gave it up at last, but his last waking thought was a resolve to follow up the mystery and establish that black-bearded Spaniard's identity before he left Tokio.
The next morning the two young men appeared promptly at the appointed hour, together with three jinrikishas (or "rickshaws," as foreigners call them) of the most gorgeous description. It being Saturday the Mikado's private pleasure-grounds, the Fukiagé Gardens, were thrown open to the public, and here the American party wandered for an hour, observing and discussing the broad, smoothly cropped lawns, the cascade, the masses of dark evergreen trees—unfortunately the plum was not yet in blossom—and, most interesting of all, the careless, bare-headed, quaintly dressed, good-natured people who thronged the grounds. Of the six thousand policemen in Tokio not one was visible in the Garden, yet everybody was well-behaved and courteous.
In the afternoon Larkin took his daily tramp to the War Office. The sentry outside allowed him to pass with what Fred could not help interpreting as a sardonic gleam in his dark eye. The man had admitted many newspaper men, during January and February, and had seen them depart, bearing gloomy and disappointed faces and using strong language which fortunately he could not understand. Any boy or man who has ever drilled will remember the wearying performance called "marking time," when the soldier goes through all the motions of marching, tramp, tramp, tramp, but never gets ahead one inch. A noted American war correspondent contributed to his journal at this period a series of papers called "Marking Time in Tokio." No term could be more expressive.
Larkin found half a dozen of his brothers-of-the-craft in the War Office. There were besides, in the large, bare room, two uniformed orderlies and two or three grave, elderly, courteous generals, each apparently doing nothing by himself, and although politely interested in the welfare of the foreign visitors, unable to spare time to discuss the war with them.
"Perhaps," said one of these officials to Fred, "a column will leave soon for Korea. It would give me exalted pleasure to allow you to accompany them. No, I cannot tell when or where. Must you go? Good-day!"
The days passed quickly. Larkin did his best to pick up scraps of information and cable, or write them out, for the Bulletin. His leisure moments he spent with the Blacks and Bob Starr, who was their unfailing escort in all excursions. Once they came upon Bellardo in full daylight, and Fred studied his face, but had to confess himself baffled. A rather dark complexion, full black beard, and an odd mispronunciation of English—these peculiarities he noted; in the two-minute interview with the young ladies he could make out nothing more, nor did he even secure an introduction, Bellardo excusing himself, on the plea of an engagement, and moving away just as Fred joined the group.
The correspondents of the great American, English, French, and German dailies became more and more impatient. Some of them gave up, or were recalled, and went home. The certainty that Japanese troops were being taken across in transports made the situation the more aggravating. News of various sea-fights, and skirmishes on land, was posted by the newspapers. It was evident that the war was proceeding, just as if there were no war correspondents waiting to report it—at least, on the Japanese side. The city reporters in New York were better informed as to the movements of the two great armies than these scouts so near the firing line, yet so far away. Before long there appeared ship-loads of wounded men, sent back from the front to the hospitals in Nagasaki and Tokio.
Information was given out that the Russians were concentrating in the lower Yalu valley, and that here the first great battle might take place. It was necessary for Japan to strike across the Korean peninsula and isolate Port Arthur, cutting the railroad above it if possible.
"Larkin," said Starr, meeting the reporter in the street one day early in March, "I've received word that the Zafiro will be at this port to-morrow, and I am ordered back to the Osprey. I hate to say good-bye to you, old fellow!"
"And I hate to have you," said Fred. "Perhaps you won't have to," he added meaningly.
"Oh, yes, of course I must obey orders. I'm on my way now to make my farewell call at the hotel. This evening I'll run in to see you at your lodgings on my way home."
But when Bob called, Larkin was not in his lodgings, nor, strange to say, was there any trace left of his ever having occupied the room. No one knew where he had gone. He had paid his bill in full and left the house early in the evening, taking the small bag which constituted all his luggage.
With a heavy heart—for various reasons—Bob went on board the Zafiro the next morning, and the little despatch-boat put out to sea.