"Who are the people there at the side, under the awning?"
"Tourists. Each Embassy and Legation is allowed a certain number of invitations."
"Why, yes," said Barbara. "I see some of my ship-mates." She smiled and nodded across as faces turned toward her. There was the gaunt, sallow woman who had distributed Christian Science tracts (till sea-sickness claimed her for its own) and little Miss Tippetts (the printed steamer-list, with unconscious wit, had made it "Tidbits"), who had flitted about the companion-ways like a shawled wraith, radiant now in a white lingerie gown and a hat covered with red hollyhocks. And there, too, was the familiar painted-muslin and the expansive white waistcoat of the train.
A hundred yards to the right was spread a wide silk canopy of royal purple, caught back with crimson tassels. "What is that?" Barbara asked, pointing.
"That is for the Emperor and his suite. The big sixteen-petaled chrysanthemum on its front is the Imperial Crest; no one else is allowed to use or carry it. The men on horseback are Princes of the Blood. Almost all the great generals of the late war are in that group behind them. The man smoking a cigarette is the Japanese Minister of War."
"But when do the troops come?" Barbara inquired. "I see only one little company out there in the center."
"That is a band," he said. "Look farther. Can you make out something like a wide, brown ribbon stretched all around the field?"
She looked. The far-away, moveless, dun-colored strip merged with the sere plain, but now, here and there, she saw minute needle points of sunlight twinkle across it. She made an exclamation. For the tiny flashes were sun-gleams from the bayonets of massed men, clad in neutral-tinted khaki, silent, motionless as a brown wall, a living river frozen to utter immobility by a word of command that had been spoken two long hours before.
A mounted aide galloped wildly past toward the purple canopy. As he flashed by, a thin bugle-note rang out and a band far back by the gate at which they had entered began playing a minor melody. Strange, slow, infinitely solemn and sad, the strain rolled around the hushed field—the Kimi-ga-yo, the "Hymn of the Sovereign," adapted by a German melodist a score of years ago, which in Japan is played only in the Imperial Presence or that of its outward and visible tokens. The counterpoint, with its muttering roll of snare-drums on the long chords, and sudden, sharp clashes of cymbals, gave the majestic air an effect weird and unforgetable. The strain sank to silence, but with the last note a second nearer band caught it up and repeated it; then, nearer still, another and another.
Barbara, leaning, saw a great state-coach of green and gold coming down the field. It was drawn by four of the most beautiful bay horses she had ever seen. Coachman, postilions and footmen wore red coats heavily frogged with gold, white cloth breeches and block enamel top-boots. As it came briskly along that animate wall of spectators, the vast concourse, save for the welling or ebbing minor of the bands, was silent, hushed as in a cathedral. But as it passed, the packed sea of brown faces—the mass of kimono next the gate and the ranks of splendid uniforms—bent forward as one man, in a great sighing rustle, like a field of tall grass when a sudden wind passes over it.