"Geoffrey! Geoffrey!" Asako called out.
"It must be an earthquake," her husband gasped, "Reggie told me to expect one."
"It has made me feel so sick," said Asako.
The disturbance was subsiding. Only the lamp was still oscillating slightly to prove that the earthquake was not merely a nightmare.
"Is any one about?" asked Asako.
Geoffrey went out on to the veranda. The hotel having survived many hundreds of earthquake shocks, seemed unaware of what had happened. Far out to sea puffs of fire were dimly seen like the flashes of a battleship in action, where the island volcano of Oshima was emptying its wrath against the sky.
There were hidden and unfamiliar powers in this strange country, of which Geoffrey and Asako had not yet taken account.
Beneath a tall lamp-post on the lawn, round whose smooth waxy light scores of moths were flitting, stood the short stout figure of a Japanese, staring up at the hotel.
"It looks like Tanaka," thought Geoffrey, "by Jove, it is Tanaka!"
They had definitely left their guide behind in Tokyo. Had Asako yielded at the last moment unable to dispense with her faithful squire? Or had he come of his own accord? and if so, why? These Japs were an unfathomable and exasperating people.