Sure enough next morning it was Tanaka who brought the early tea.
"Hello," said Geoffrey, "I thought you were in Tokyo."
"Indeed," grinned the guide, "I am sorry for you. Perhaps I have commit great crime so to come. But I think and I think Ladyship not so well. Heart very anxious. Go to theatre, wish to make merry, but all the time heart very sad. I think I will take last train. I will turn like bad penny. Perhaps Lordship is angry."
"No, not angry, Tanaka, just helpless. There was an earthquake last night?"
"Not so bad jishin (earth-shaking). Every twenty, thirty years one very big jishin come. Last big jishin Gifu jishin twenty years before. Many thousand people killed. Japanese people say that beneath the earth is one big fish. When the fish move, the earth shake. Silly fabulous myth! Tanaka say, 'It is the will of God!'"
The little man crossed himself devoutly.
* * * * *
A few minutes later there was a loud banging at the door, followed by
Reggie's voice, shouting,—
"Are you coming down for a bath?"
"Earthquakes are horrible things," commented Reggie, on their way to the sea. "Foreigners are supposed always to sleep through their first one. Their second they find an interesting experience; but the third and the fourth and the rest are a series of nervous shocks in increasing progression. It is like feeling God—but a wicked, cruel God! No wonder the Japanese are so fatalistic and so desperate. It is a case of 'Eat and drink, for to-morrow ye die.'"