The Kingdom of Slender Swords
CHAPTER XVI
"BANZAI NIPPON!"
Gradually, as they proceeded, the throng became denser. Policemen inneat suits of white-duck and wearing long cavalry swords lined the road.They had smart military-looking caps and white cotton gloves, and stood,as had the officer before the file of convicts in Shimbashi Station,moveless and imperturbable. The crowds were massed now in close, lockedlines on either side. In one place a school-master stood guard over afile of small boys in holiday _kimono_: a little paper Japanese flag wasclutched in each chubby hand.
In all the ranks there was no jostling, or fighting for position, noloud-voiced jest or expostulation; a spell was in the air; the ImperialPresence who was to pass that way had cast His beneficent Shadow before.
Through a double row of saluting police they whirled into an immensebrown field, as level as a floor, stretching before them seeminglyempty, a dull, yellow-brown waste horizoned by feathery tree-tops. Thecarriage turned to the right, skirting a surging sea of brown faces heldin check by a stretched rope; these gave place to a mass of officersstanding in dress-uniform, with plumed caps and breasts ablaze withdecorations; in another moment they descended before a canvas _marquee_where brilliant regimental uniforms from a dozen countries shifted andmingled with diplomatic costumes heavy with gold-braid, and with women'sgay frocks and picture-hats.
The air was full of exhilaration; people were laughing and chatting. TheBritish Ambassador displayed the plaid of a Colonel of Highlanders; hehad fought in the Soudan. The Chinese Minister was in his own mandarincostume; from his round, jade-buttoned hat swept the much covetedpeacock feathers and on his breast were the stars of the "Rising-Sun"and the "Double-Dragon." The American Ambassador alone, of all theforeign representatives, wore the plain frock-coat and silk hat of thecivilian. From group to group strolled officials of the Japanese ForeignOffice and Cabinet Ministers, their ceremonial coats crossed by white orcrimson cordons. And through it all Barbara moved, responsive to allthis lightness and color, bowing here and there to introductions thatleft her only the more conscious of the one tall figure that had metthem and now walked at her side.
Daunt could not have told that the flowers in her hat were brownorchids: he only knew that they matched the color of her eyes. Lastnight the moonlight had lent her something of the fragile and ethereal,like itself. Now the sunlight painted in clear warm colors of cream andcardinal. It glinted from the perfect curve of her forehead, and tangledin the wide wave of her bronze hair, making it gleam like hot copperspun into silk-fine strands. His finger-tips tingled to touch it.
He started, as--"A penny for your thoughts," she said, with suddenmischief.
"Have you so much about you?" he countered.
"That's a subterfuge."
"You wouldn't be flattered to hear them, I'm afraid."
"The reflection is certainly a sad blow to my self-esteem!"
"Well," he said daringly, "I was thinking how I would like to pick youup in my arms before all these people and run right out in the center ofthat field--"
She flushed to the tips of her ears. "And then--"
"Just run, and run, and run away."
"What a heroic exploit!" she said with subtle mockery, but the flushdeepened.
"You know to what lengths I can go in my longing to be a hero!" hemuttered.
"Running off with girls under your arm seems to have become a mania. Butisn't your idea rather prosaic in this age of flying-machines? To swoopdown on one in an aeroplane would be so much more thrilling! This is thefield where you practise, too, isn't it? Is that building away overthere where you keep your Glider?"'
"Yes. At first I made the models in a Japanese house of mine near here.I keep it still, from sentiment."
"How fine to meet a man who admits to having sentiment! I'm tremendouslyinterested in Japanese houses. You must show it to me."
"I will. And when will you let me take you for a 'fly?'"
"I'm relieved," she said, "to find you willing to ask permission."
Her eyes sparkled into his, and both laughed. Patricia was chattinganimatedly with Count Voynich, the young diplomatist whom she hadpointed out in the train, and whose monocle now looked absurdlycontemplative and serene under a menacing helmet. The confusion of manycolors, the pomp and panoply under the day's golden azure, was singingin Barbara's veins. She moved suddenly toward the front. "Come," shesaid, "I want you to tell me things!"
"I'm going to," he answered grimly. "I've known I should, ever since--"
"Look!" she cried. Several coaches had bowled up; behind each stoodfootmen in gold-lace and cocked hats, knee breeches and white silkstockings. Daunt named the occupants as they descended: the Premier, oneof the "Elder Statesmen," the Minister of the Household.
"Who are the people there at the side, under the awning?"
"Tourists. Each Embassy and Legation is allowed a certain number ofinvitations."
"Why, yes," said Barbara. "I see some of my ship-mates." She smiled andnodded across as faces turned toward her. There was the gaunt, sallowwoman who had distributed Christian Science tracts (till sea-sicknessclaimed her for its own) and little Miss Tippetts (the printedsteamer-list, with unconscious wit, had made it "Tidbits"), who hadflitted about the companion-ways like a shawled wraith, radiant now in awhite _lingerie_ gown and a hat covered with red hollyhocks. And there,too, was the familiar painted-muslin and the expansive white waistcoatof the train.
A hundred yards to the right was spread a wide silk canopy of royalpurple, caught back with crimson tassels. "What is that?" Barbara asked,pointing.
"That is for the Emperor and his suite. The big sixteen-petaledchrysanthemum on its front is the Imperial Crest; no one else is allowedto use or carry it. The men on horseback are Princes of the Blood.Almost all the great generals of the late war are in that group behindthem. The man smoking a cigarette is the Japanese Minister of War."
"But when do the troops come?" Barbara inquired. "I see only one littlecompany out there in the center."
"That is a band," he said. "Look farther. Can you make out somethinglike a wide, brown ribbon stretched all around the field?"
She looked. The far-away, moveless, dun-colored strip merged with thesere plain, but now, here and there, she saw minute needle points ofsunlight twinkle across it. She made an exclamation. For the tinyflashes were sun-gleams from the bayonets of massed men, clad inneutral-tinted khaki, silent, motionless as a brown wall, a living riverfrozen to utter immobility by a word of command that had been spoken twolong hours before.
A mounted _aide_ galloped wildly past toward the purple canopy. As heflashed by, a thin bugle-note rang out and a band far back by the gateat which they had entered began playing a minor melody. Strange, slow,infinitely solemn and sad, the strain rolled around the hushedfield--the _Kimi-ga-yo_, the "Hymn of the Sovereign," adapted by aGerman melodist a score of years ago, which in Japan is played only inthe Imperial Presence or that of its outward and visible tokens. Thecounterpoint, with its muttering roll of snare-drums on the long chords,and sudden, sharp clashes of cymbals, gave the majestic air an effectweird and unforgetable. The strain sank to silence, but with the lastnote a second nearer band caught it up and repeated it; then, nearerstill, another and another.
Barbara, leaning, saw a great state-coach of green and gold coming downthe field. It was drawn by four of the most beautiful bay horses she hadever seen. Coachman, postilions and footmen wore red coats heavilyfrogged with gold, white cloth breeches and block enamel top-boots. Asit came briskly along that animate wall of spectators, the vastconcourse, save for the welling or ebbing minor of the bands, wassilent, hushed as in a cathedral. But as it passed, the packed sea ofbrown faces--the mass of _kimono_ next the gate and the ranks ofsplendid uniforms--bent forward as one man, in a great sighing rustle,like a field of tall grass when a sudden wind passes over it.
The plumed hats of the diplomatists came off; they bowed low. The ladiescourtesied, and B
arbara, as her gaze lifted, caught an instant'sglimpse, through the coach's glass sides, of that kingly figure,heaven-descended and sacred, mysterious alike to his own subjects as tothe outside world, through whom flows to the soul of modern Japan themanifest divinity and living guidance of cohorts of dead Emperorsstretching backward into the night of Time!
* * * * *
The band stationed in the center of the immense field had begun toplay--something with a martial swing; and now the far brown strip thathad blent with brown earth began to shift and tremble like the quiver ofair above heated metal. Its motes detached themselves, clustered anew;and the long, wide ribbon, like a huge serpent waked from rigid sleep inthe sunshine, swept into view: regiments of men, armed and blanketed, byfile and platoon. They moved with high, jerky "goose-step" and looselyswinging arm, line upon line, till the ground shook with the tread.
Before each regiment were borne strange flags, blackened and tattered byblood and shell. Some were mere flapping fringes. But they were moreprecious than human lives. One had been found on a Manchurianbattlefield, wrapped about the body of a dead Japanese, beneath hisclothing. Wounded, he had so concealed it, then killed himself, lest,captured alive, the standard he bore might fall into the hands of theenemy. As each new rank came opposite the coach before the purplecanopy, an officer's sword flashed out in salute, and a "_banzai!_" toreacross the martial music like the ragged yell of a fanatical Dervish.
Daunt, watching Barbara, saw the light leaping in her brown eyes, theexcitement coming and going in her face. Again and again he fixed hisgaze before him, as infantry, cavalry and artillery marched and poundedand rumbled past. In vain. Like a wilful drunkard it returned tointoxicate itself with the sight of her eager beauty, that made thescene for him only a splendid blur, an extraneous impression of massesof swaying bodies moving like marionettes, of glistening bayonets,horses, clattering ammunition wagons, and fluttering pennants.
In Barbara, however, every nerve was thrilling to the sight. For themoment she had forgotten even the man beside her. As she watched theaudacious outpouring of drilled power, tempered and restrained, yet soterribly alive in its coiled virility, she was feeling a keen pang ofsympathy that was almost pain. In this burning panorama she divined noshrinking, devious thing sinking with the fatigue of ages, aping thesuperficialities of a remote race: not merely a tidal wave of intensevitality, mobile and mercurial, hastening onward toward an inaudibleunknown, but a splendid rebirth, a dazzling reincarnation of old spiritin new form, a symbol concrete and vital, like the blaze of a beaconflaming a racial _reveille_.
She turned toward Daunt, her hand outstretched, her fingers on his arm,her lips opened.
But she did not speak. Afterward she did not know what she had intendedto say.