A servant of Satan: Romantic career of Prado the assassin

by Louis Berard

SUICIDE.

A fortnight later, the snow-capped peak of the lordly and beautiful Mount Fusiyama appeared in sight, and a few hours afterward the steamer rounded the promontory and cast anchor in the port of Yokohama. The ship was soon surrounded by some score of native boats, and having taken their place in the “sampan” of the Grand Hotel, Frederick and his inamorata were rowed on shore. The first few days were spent in visiting the various sights and curiosities of the place, and so enchanted were the couple with the beauty and picturesque aspect of the environs that they determined to remain for a time in Japan.

With the assistance of the hotel officials, they secured a very pretty Japanese “yashiki,” or villa, situated at about half an hour's distance from the town, and caused such European furniture as they were likely to require to be transported thither. When all was ready, they took up their residence there, with a large retinue of native servants, both male and female. These were under the orders of an ex-Samurai (member of the lower grades of the nobility), who spoke both English and German, and who was to act as their interpreter and major-domo.

The secrecy with which it had been necessary to observe all their relations until the moment when they left Batavia, had imbued their intrigue with a certain degree of piquancy, and the constant change of scene which had passed before their eyes like a kaleidoscope, since they left Java, had prevented any danger of monotony and ennui. The experiment which they were now, however, about to enter upon was a most perilous one. With no European society in the neighborhood, and dependent solely on one another for conversation and diversion, it was only natural that a man of Frederick's character and temperament should soon begin to weary of the sameness and dreariness of his existence. It is useless to expect that any man should remain in a state of perpetual adoration for an indefinite length of time before his lady-love, no matter how beautiful she may be. Familiarity breeds contempt, and this is especially the case when the lady is no longer young and has become sentimental and exacting. Accustomed as Nina had been at Batavia to see Frederick, and in fact all the other men by whom she was surrounded, anxious for a smile and ever ready to execute her slightest behest, it cut her to the very heart to see how, after the first few weeks of their residence in Japan, her lover's affection toward her decreased. He betrayed traces of weariness in her society, and spent much of his time in riding about alone in the neighborhood.

At about a quarter of an hour's distance from the house, and standing on the banks of a small river, was a pretty village, of which the chief attraction was a “chaya,” or tea-house. It was here that Frederick's horse might have been frequently seen walking up and down, attended by his “betto” (native groom), while his master was being entertained by the graceful “mousmes,” who constitute so charming a feature of every Japanese restaurant.

Stretched on a mat of the most immaculate whiteness, Frederick would remain for hours, lazily sipping his tea and watching the voluptuous dances of the “geishas” (dancing-girls). Although not beautiful, yet the Japanese women, when young, are exceedingly pretty and captivating. They have many winning and gracious little ways, and are thoroughly impressed with the notion that their sole mission in life is to provide amusement for the sterner sex.

The young man appreciated these little excursions into the country all the more since, with commendable caution, Madame Van der Beck had insisted that all the female servants employed in the house should be married women. In order to realize what this meant, it must be explained that on their wedding-day, the Japanese wives are obliged by custom and tradition to shave off their eyebrows and to stain their teeth a brilliant black, so that their husbands may have no further grounds for jealousy. Their appearance is therefore scarcely prepossessing.

Nina, more and more embittered by her lover's ever-increasing indifference, lost much of her former good humor and cheerfulness. She spent the whole day brooding alone in the gardens which surrounded her villa. These were laid out with much ingenuity and artistic feeling by one of the most famous Japanese landscape gardeners. Miniature rivers traversed the ground in every direction, spanned by miniature bridges, and with miniature temples and pagodas on their banks. There were also miniature waterfalls, miniature junks, and even miniature trees, the latter being especially curious. By some method which has been kept a profound secret by the great guild of horticulturists at Tokio, trees even two hundred and three hundred years old have been treated in such a manner as to stunt their growth and to prevent them from attaining a height of more than two or, at the most, three feet. Their trunks are gnarled and twisted by age, but there is no trace of the pruning-knife, and they constitute an exact representation in miniature of the grand old sycamore, oak, and cedar trees which line the magnificent fifty-mile avenue which leads up to the sacred shrines of “Nikko.” The object which the Japanese have in view in thus stunting the growth of certain classes of their trees is the fact that owing to the want of space the inhabitants of cities are obliged to content themselves with very small gardens. In order to make these appear larger and to allow for the composition of the landscape, which is the Japanese ideal of a garden, they are obliged to arrange everything in miniature, and since trees of normal size would be out of keeping with the rest they have discovered an ingenious scheme of dwarfing them to a corresponding size.

One day, a few minutes after Frederick had arrived on his customary visit to the (tea-house), he was suddenly called out into the court-yard, where he found his betto stretched dead on the ground. Frederick had been in such a hurry to get away from home that he had ridden too fast, and the unfortunate native, whose duty, as in all oriental countries, it was to run before the horse, had, on reaching his destination, expired of the rupture of an aneurism of the heart. Much annoyed by this incident, Frederick ordered the corpse to be conveyed home at once, and spent the remainder of the day with the pretty “mousmes” at the tea-house.