“I will do so at once, sir, if you believe that is the best way,” Phil replied quickly. He very much disliked the task, for he knew that Takishima would question his honest intentions. He would wonder why he had not immediately returned the letter, and why he had said nothing of it until it had passed beyond his control.
“I have an appointment to pay my respects to the Emperor in a few hours,” Captain Rodgers replied anxiously. “If my meeting is a success, I hope all misunderstandings will be over. But if this meeting should be stopped now at the last minute, the effect would be very bad. All eyes in America are turned to this audience. It has been noised abroad that I am the bearer of a personal letter from our President to the Mikado, and the denial of an audience would be taken by our countrymen at large to mean that Japan is unwilling to meet us amicably.”
Phil felt that the whole responsibility rested upon his shoulders. His blunder might readily be the cause of the catastrophe outlined by Captain Rodgers. The captain did not deny the existence of such a letter and had intimated that if the audience could be held, all misunderstandings would cease to exist; so undoubtedly there was such a letter.
“The ambassador has sent for me, and I am now going to the embassy,” the captain continued. He was dressed in his special full dress uniform, worn only on state occasions when crowned heads and presidents were to be visited. “It must be to talk over the situation. He is much worried. I can’t imagine what has happened to Sago,” he added irritably. “He was to have been here nearly an hour ago with my valises, but the valises arrived and no Sago.”
“He was with our sailors last night,” Phil exclaimed, “and afterward Mr. Monroe and I met him in the corridor of the hotel. It was he that telephoned to a police station near the prime minister’s house and in that way we heard promptly of the disturbance.”
“Good for Sago,” Captain Rodgers exclaimed. “I really believe he is thoroughly loyal to us. He has been my steward for over five years, and I have implicit trust in him.”
A servant knocked on the door announcing the carriage, and Captain Rodgers made ready to leave.
“I don’t anticipate trouble, but make a point of telling your classmate Takishima the whole story. Don’t allow him to harbor a single suspicion of the visit of the ‘Alaska.’ By the way,” the captain stopped at the doorway, “I hear from the ambassador that the ‘Shimbunshi,’ a Tokyo newspaper, has been attributing all manner of motives to our visit, in fact, going quite as far as to claim that we are here to precipitate war. They bring up the visit of the ‘Maine’ to Havana before our war with Spain as an example. Was there anything more in this morning’s edition?” he asked quickly. “The paper prints in both Japanese and English. I have been so busy writing important letters that I’ve not had time to open the paper.”
Phil smiled broadly. It was the first time that morning that he had felt he could indulge in such a luxury.
“There would have been one,” he replied, “only the man who was taking it to the ‘Shimbunshi’s’ office lost it and O’Neil and Marley found it and gave it to us. I have it in my valise there in my room. It’s a tirade against us, written in English.”