The boys nudged one another and giggled. One of them at length answered in careful English, "Mr. Togo has war already begun. Many Russian battle-ships, having been this day fired upon, have into sea-bottom sinked. All will be sinked! Banzai Nippon!"
"Banzai Nippon!" roared his comrades; and the four, with sundry delighted, backward glances at the bewildered foreigner, hurried on.
Pierre, ignoring consequences, again stood still. Jinrikishas clattered past him to the right, to the left, singly, or now in long, black strings. The faces of human horses and vehicle occupants were alike vivified by a singular excitement. Many of the little trotting men conversed volubly with those whom they bore. "Ikusa! Ikusa!" was the burden of all speech.
"Ikusa," repeated Pierre, dully. "This 'Ikusa' undoubtedly means 'war.'" He knew in his soul that the rumor was true. Visions of the scowling Onda, of Prince Haganè, of the leering, intelligent eyes of Count Ronsard, flew past him with the real faces of the streets. He cursed aloud. "War!" a new wedge between himself and Yuki.
He walked on now with nervous energy. "Yu-ki—Yu-ki—Yu-ki,"—his heart and steps kept pace with the refrain. The whole world fell into the despairing swing of it. "Yu-ki—Yu-ki—Yu-ki!"
A little Japanese matron, hastening to a sick neighbor's house with the great news, gave him a commiserating glance. Her husband was a sailor on one of the battle-ships now fighting. She was proud and happy. What sorrow could it be that made the young foreigner's eyes so deep and blue? Surely this was not war! It must be love. She had heard that in the affairs of love the foreigners found strange griefs.
"Dō-mo!" murmured the little dame to herself, "I am grateful to the gods this day to be a Japanese with my husband in a glorious fight."
Pierre walked now, still unheeding, in a direction almost due west from the French Legation. On his right hand stretched the long moats edged stiffly with young willows. He had been told that these trees were planted by an adoring people on the day, just fifteen years before, that the Emperor, out of his wise and loving heart, had given to them a parliamentary government. Only fifteen years! The willows had none of them attained full growth, and yet the nation that had planted them had that morning fired upon one of the proudest and most implacable empires of old Europe.
On the enormous campus directly in front of the Imperial gates, citizens by thousands were assembling. They surged here and there in a breathless, whispered excitement. Their lowered voices and moving garments made a sound as of the sea.
All eyes were turned upward to the Imperial moat walls, where white dots of faces belonging to the court ladies peered over for an instant and vanished.