The Kingdom of Slender Swords

by Hallie Erminie Rives

"That is all, Ishida-San," Haru answered.

They stood in the cryptomeria shadows of Reinanzaka Hill, from which he had stepped to her side as she came from the Embassy gate. It was dark, for the moon was not yet risen, and the evening was very still. One sleepy semi bubbled in the foliage and in the narrow street at the foot of the hill, with its glimmering shoji, she could hear the fairy tinkle of wind bells in the eaves.

Such an ambush by her lover, unjustified, would have been a dire affront to the girl's rigid Japanese code of decorum. That he had seen Phil greet her at Mukojima the evening before had shamed her pride, and in speaking of it to-night he had seemed at first to lay a rude finger on her maiden dignity. But she had seen in an instant that his errand was inspired by neither anger nor jealousy. He had touched at once her instinct of the momentous.

Her quick, clever brain and finely attuned perception read what lay beneath his questions. The great European expert whom Japan herself employed, and the young foreigner who had pursued her—were they, then, objects of question to that wonderful, many-sided governmental machine which was lifting Japan into the front rank of modern nations? Although she had never shared the disfavor with which her father viewed her lover's duties, she had wondered at his present apparently menial position. To-night she was gaining a quick glimpse beneath the surface. He told her nothing of the details which, though he could not himself have built a tangible indictment from them, had one by one clung together into a sharp suspicion that embraced the two men. But the agitation she felt in his words had sent a quick thrill through her, had tapped that deep racial well of feeling, the Yamato Damashii, which is the Japanese birthright. She felt a sudden passionate wish that she, though a woman, might pour herself into the mighty stream of effort—though she be but a whirling cherry-petal in the great wind of her nation's destiny. He had come to her for any shred of information that might add to his knowledge of the youth who was now Bersonin's satellite. But she had been able to tell him nothing. She had often seen the huge expert—his automobile had clanged past her that morning—but till to-night she had not even known the other's name or where he lived. "That is all, Ishida-San." It hurt her to say these words.

She bowed to his ceremonious farewell, a slim, misty figure that stood listening to his rapid footsteps till they died in the darkness. She walked up the dim slope with lagging pace. The steep road, always deserted at night, had no sound of grating cart or whirring rick'sha, but her paper lantern was unlighted and no song greeted the crow that flapped his grating way above her head. She was thinking deeply.

At the top of the hill, opposite the huge, rivet-studded gate of the Princess' compound, lay the lane on which the Chapel stood. An evening service was in progress and the faint sound of the organ was borne to her. As she turned into the darker shade she was aware of two pedestrians coming toward her,—of a voice which she recognized with a shiver of apprehension. The sentry-box by the great gate stood close at hand. It was empty, and she stepped into it.

Doctor Bersonin and Phil paused at the turning, while the latter lit a cigar from a match which he struck on the sentry-box. Haru's heart was in her throat, but her dark kimono blent with the wood and the flash that showed her both faces blinded his eyes.

"See!" said the doctor. A mile away, from the low-lying darkness of Hibiya Park, a stream of fireworks shot to the zenith, to explode silently in clusters of colored balls. "The first rocket in honor of the Squadron!"

"To-morrow the Admiral has an Imperial audience," said Phil, "and the superior officers are to be decorated."

"So!" said the other in a low, malignant voice. "And I—who have designed Japan's turrets and cheapened her arsenal processes—I may not wear the Cordon and Star of the Rising-Sun!" In the darkness a smile of malice crossed his face. "We shall see if she will hold her head so high—then! Whether war follow or not, it will damn her in the eyes of the nations! She will not recover her prestige in twenty years!"