"Have you been to Nikko?" This was a malicious chance.
"We were afraid to leave Tokio for fear of not getting to the front."
"Shall we see much fighting?"
"I think so—from a high place. You cannot see in the valleys—the kow-liang is too high to see over even on horseback. Yes, you will see the fight."
Then we shook hands again, saluted the staff and departed.
The Japanese soldier had Fuji behind a tree—and he was smiling.
"Warui desu!" he said, and he looked at me with approval that I dared ride him; for Fuji was Japanese and bad, and Japanese are not good horsemen. At any rate, he followed me to the gate and held Fuji twice more before we finally got away. On the way back to captivity Laguerié turned a somersault over his white donkey's head. He rose, spluttering, between the donkey's forelegs. It looked for a moment as though the donkey were riding Laguerié.
At sunset, next day, the Irishman said:
"Come with me," and I followed unquestioning, because questioning was useless. Out the compound we went, through narrow streets and up a rocky little hill in the centre of the village, where we could look over the low tiled roofs—here and there a tree was growing up through them—over the mud-enclosures, the high-notched city walls, the stretch of white sand beyond, a broader stretch of green still farther on, slit with the one flashing cimeter-like sweep of the river—and then over the low misty hills to the tender after-glow, above which wisp-like, darkening clouds hung motionless.