"Mary," she said, creeping back to bed, "I'll never believe it was Nancy.
No, never, never."
At last they went to sleep, and when they waked the rain had ceased altogether. The lawn in front of the house was a muddy lake and many trees lay prone on the ground. It was a scene of devastation that greeted Mr. Campbell as he hurried home at daylight in a 'riksha. He had dispatched a messenger in the night, paying a large fee, to see if the girls were safe at home and had spent the night in Tokyo with Mr. Buxton.
It was not until much later in the day that Billie plucked up courage to inform her father of what had happened.
"Why on earth didn't you tell me about it immediately?" he exclaimed.
"The best way to settle that, is to telegraph to Cousin Helen right off."
But with the "Comet" in town and Komatsu in the mountains this was not so easy to manage, and it looked as if Mr. Campbell would have to walk back to Tokyo. He had got half way down the drive, in fact, when a messenger appeared running at full speed as fast as a horse; such is the endurance of a Japanese runner. He had been sent with a telegram from Mr. Campbell's office, but it had been written in Japanese and had to be translated.
Mr. Campbell hurried back to the house and called Onoye:
"Read this for me if you can," he ordered.
Onoye looked at the strange script a long time. Then she read slowly:
"'O'Nainci San gone Tokyo. No honorable telling before for why she make those journey—'"
There were a few more words, but Onoye had reached the limit of her knowledge of the English language.