Rokuro Kobo San
An Incident in Ueno Park—Japan at Play—Journalism in Japan—A Japanese Gentleman
Shortly before dusk, one day in the week following the arrival of the Sardinia at Nagasaki, a stalwart figure in the coat, pantaloons, and clumsy clogs of a Chinaman slowly ascended the flight of steps leading to the Ueno Park in Tokio. The time of cherry-blossom was not yet; the trees stood bare skeletons against the gray sky; the ground was lightly touched with rime; it was not the beauties of nature that attracted the sauntering visitor. He seemed, indeed, to have no special object in view; but an observer might have noticed that wherever he saw a group of Japanese in conversation, he passed them with a very deliberate step, and always on the right-hand side, even when this necessitated some little squeezing. Only an observer of more than usual intentness would have connected this curious fancy with the fact that the Chinaman had lost his right ear.
He came by and by to a tea-house—not one of the large and well-appointed establishments which a Samurai would willingly have entered, but a structure little more than a shed, with tables ranged outside beneath the trees, and a few musumés sitting with folded hands and crossed feet on a long low bench covered with a crimson cloth. The Chinaman hesitated for a moment; it was cold, and hardly the evening for al-fresco refreshment. But something attracted him towards the shed. He sat down on one of the benches, and was soon contentedly sipping the weak almost colourless decoction supplied to him by the smiling girls as tea.
For half an hour he sat there, sipping, watching the passers with his yellow almond eyes, thinking Chinese thoughts, silent, almost motionless. Then he pulled his padded garments more closely around him as though for the first time feeling the cold, rose, bowed low in response to the still lower salutation of the attendants, and resumed his slow walk. There were fewer people about now; no talking groups; nothing apparently to attract the remaining ear; and Chang-Wo, shuffling along on his clogs, hurrying his step a little, passed beneath the bare oaks and gloomy pines towards the Buddhist temple near the gate.
Dark was beginning to fall; there were few rickshaws to be seen; the visitors to the famed Toshogu shrine had melted away. Only here and there a woman trudged homeward with her baby on her back and a bundle in her hand, or a shaven Buddhist priest sauntered amid the trees.
Turning from the path to shorten his way by crossing a secluded glade, the Manchu came all at once face to face with a small figure hastening in the opposite direction. He moved somewhat aside, to pass on, but with a suddenness that took his bulky form utterly aback, the shorter figure, that reached not much past his elbow, flung himself upon the Manchu with a cry like the snarl of a tiger, springing up at him, clutching at his throat, and hanging on with desperate fury. The shock was so unexpected, the assault so unprovoked, that the bigger man, his hands hampered by his capacious sleeves, was taken at a disadvantage, and gained nothing from his superior build. In a moment he was on the ground, and the Japanese was kneeling on his chest, retaining his grip on the prostrate man's throat, and striving with all his might to strangle him. But his advantage was short-lived: the Manchu regained command of his muscles, and exerting all the force of his arms thrust the assailant from him, wriggled over, and pinned the puny frame to the ground.
Scarcely a sound had been uttered, whether by Japanese or Manchu; but now, as the latter proceeded with vindictive and triumphant malice to retaliate upon his helpless victim, a half-choked cry, as of an animal at the shambles, broke the silence of the glade. Instantly, as though in answer, a tall great-coated form, the form of a European, came out from among the tree-stems. A glance apprised him of the position: a small man, black in the face, was being throttled by a man twice his size; and with a rush the new-comer hurled himself upon the Manchu, wrenched the Japanese from his grip, and saw that he was only just in time, if indeed not too late. For the small man lay inert, huddled in his kimono; and the Englishman placed his hand over his heart, fearing that he was already dead.
But his doubt was soon dispelled. In a few moments the little fellow moved, gasped, and sprang to his feet, his slanted eyes asquint with excess of rage. It seemed that he was about to fling himself on the young foreigner before him, so much was he blinded by passion; but recognizing in a moment his mistake, he looked round for the big Manchu, and found that he had disappeared. With a muttered word of thanks to his preserver, he rushed madly in the direction he supposed his enemy to have taken, and the Englishman was left to himself in the gathering darkness.
Bob Fawcett had a half-smile upon his face as he walked back through the park and the crowded streets to his hotel. It was his fourth day in Tokio, and he had already seen many strange things; nothing, perhaps, stranger than the deadly earnestness with which the little Japanese had sped after an enemy who could have crushed him with ease.