The Shogun's Daughter

by Robert Ames Bennet

On to the Tokaido, and down along the bay shore through Shinagawa, marched the grimly grotesque warriors of antique Nippon. It seemed a lifetime since my dear brother had led me after the cortege of Satsuma, through the black gate and along the broad way and down that narrow street to the house of Kohana. Now the geisha was going with me to meet him—through the black gate of death!

At the southern boundary of Shinagawa the main force of our escort halted. We were borne onward, guarded only by a hundred swordsmen and an equal number of pikemen. We came to the pillory upon which I had seen the five heads. My bearers swung past. This was not the place where we were to suffer.

Out on the blue bay I saw great foundations of stone rising from the shoals that barred the approach to Yedo. Toiling workers swarmed over and about the half-constructed forts, to which strings of sampans were lightering blocks of stone from junks that lay in the offing. Other craft sailed up or down the bay, or lay at anchor in the deeper water down towards the tall white tower on the cape opposite Kawasaki.

Sailor bred, I looked out upon the wide bay with a sudden rousing from lethargy. Wind, waves, swelling sails—all spoke of life and freedom. If only the majestic Susquehanna might come steaming around that towered cape! I could see the grotesque warriors about me scuttling like crabs before the thunder of the tojin cannon.

But Perry had promised the reluctant Shogunate many months for deliberation, and I had heard the report from Nagasaki that the Tai-ping rebellion was raging in China. I could hope for no aid either from my own countrymen or the ships of any other Western power. The lives and property of white men were endangered at Shanghai by the Chinese rebels. It was no time for squadrons to be cruising along the remote coasts of Japan.

We approached Omori. A group of villagers shouted at me in derision, and ran ahead of our party. Others joined them by the score. The news spread down the Tokaido. I saw men in silk robes, white-clad pilgrims, and even priests, cutting across towards the bay shore. Keiki turned off the Tokaido. We had come to the execution ground. The mailed samurais clattered through the midst of the motley crowd assembled to gloat upon the torture of the victims. There were peasants and fishermen, merchants and porters, cowled priests and pilgrims, and a scattering of ronins.

But I had no eyes for those who had come to see me suffer. The Mito men were lining out to right and left. I was borne past after Kohana to the edge of the hideous blood pit. Bones crunched under the iron-shod sandals of my bearers. All about me the ground was composed more of the dead of countless executions than of soil.

Before us stood a heavy post with cross-beams at top and bottom. A few paces to the left was a massive gibbet with a chain dangling from its arm. Eta executioners advanced, bearing a huge copper kettle, which they swung to the chain of the gibbet. Oil was poured into the kettle, and a fire lighted below.

The etas came to my kago and unwound the nets. But as they dragged me out, Keiki called to them. One took up his position beside me, ready to catch me with a grappling-hook should I attempt to run. The others went to Kohana’s kago. She was dragged out and taken to the cross, which was directly in front of me, less than six yards away.

The etas tore the robes from about her shoulders. The first dancer of Yedo stood before the gaping mob nude to the waist. In a twinkling she was triced up to the cross, her tender wrists lashed to the upper arm, her ankles to the lower. An eta brought a sheaf of slender lances and handed one to his chief.