“I am waiting,” he said quietly. “Your face comes back to me out of the dim past, but I know you not.”
“Do you remember Raku? He who allowed the war plans to be stolen, and who fled rather than face the disgrace, and who was too cowardly to take his own worthless life in atonement?” Sago raised his eyes and for a second dared to look into Inaba’s face.
“And you have been all these years in exile?” Inaba asked kindly, his voice low, thrilled with wonder. “Did you not hear that the plans were not stolen? The thieves carried away nothing valuable. The plans had been removed the night before by the Minister of Marine himself, and placed in a safer vault. Those very plans were used successfully in our late war.”
Sago’s care-worn, wizened face broke into lines of joy, and into his eyes tears rushed unbidden.
“My guilt was no less, augustness. I slept when I should have been watching,” he said penitently. “And for this I gave up my country and the companionship of my blood and have lived among aliens. They have always been kind, and I love them next to my own people. Augustness, then you were a mere stripling in the office of the minister; now you have become the giant oak upon whom the nation leans for support. Your brain is the oracle on naval tactics and strategy; where before you followed, now you lead.”
Inaba smiled, and in his eyes there was a look of joy.
“Raku, I am but the clay in the hands of the sculptor. All my achievements have been possible only through the virtue of His Majesty, our Emperor.”
Both men bowed almost to the ground as the magic words were spoken.
Sago drew nearer and spoke quickly and earnestly while Inaba listened, his anxious face becoming more tranquil as the minutes went by. There was no interruption.
After Sago had finished, Inaba sat for several minutes in profound thought. This indeed was startling and baffling news. The letter in the hands of American sailors and on board Mr. Impey’s yacht. Impey he had seen scarcely two hours ago. He had seen him go into the American Embassy and had followed him in, as he himself had business with the ambassador. For some time he had mistrusted this smooth foreigner and his intimate relations with the American ambassador. If by ill fortune the ambassador’s daughter had not interrupted him after he had dismissed the servant, he might have surprised the conversation on the other side of the closed door to the ambassador’s office.