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Updated: May 2, 2025
"Don't be too sure of that," answered Tom; "there are some pretty heavy guns inside those forts, and the Japanese know how to handle them too." Still the guns did not open fire, and in a short time a boat was seen putting off from the shore. She contained a party of two-sworded officials, who came on board the flag-ship, where Captain Murray and Archie happened at the time to be.
The teacher himself could never have imagined the comments made upon him by his two-sworded pupils; nor would it have increased his peace of mind, while overlooking compositions in the class-room, to have understood their conversation: "See the color of his flesh, how soft it is! To take off his head with a single blow would be very easy."
I chanced to ask him if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have disappeared. When the Iroquois reached Japan, and throughout her stay, two-sworded men were as thick almost as blackberries.
Archie afterwards related all he saw and heard. One of the principal of the two-sworded gentlemen inquired, with an air of surprise, "why the ships of war had come uninvited to the town?" adding that he concluded the ships had brought a letter from the British Government on some subject or other. "You are perfectly correct there," was the answer.
The favorite character of the Japanese drama is the otokodaté, the chivalrous champion of the common people who rescues beauty in distress from the lawless, bullying, two-sworded men. It tickled Tanaka's remarkable vanity to regard himself as the protector of this lonely and unfortunate lady. It might be said of him as of Lancelot, that
She recognized the medieval arms and armor, the ancient helmets, the hairdressing of the two-sworded men of old Japan. At the belts of two of her captors dangled grisly trophies of the hunt. In the moonlight she saw that they were the heads of Miller and Swenson. The girl was horrified.
Backed by a vast multitude of rash and impetuous working-men, those born "bosses" formed a formidable check to the rampancy of the two-sworded order. In manifold ways has Bushido filtered down from the social class where it originated, and acted as leaven among the masses, furnishing a moral standard for the whole people.
The interview at length came to a conclusion, and the two-sworded officials took their departure for the shore. Within the time specified they returned with a long rigmarole letter, which was of course anything but satisfactory.
Each yashgi is surrounded by a blank wall, loopholed, and with a tower at each of the four corners. Within this outer wall is the court of the retainers, all of them 'two-sworded' men; then comes a second wall, also loopholed, inside which dwell distant relations of the Daimio; and then again a third enclosure, guarding the Daimio himself, with his immediate belongings.
"Did she love him," her daughter wondered, "as I love Geoffrey?" Through Sadako's interpretation Mrs. Her father had been a samurai in the old two-sworded days. The photograph was not very like her. It was too serious. "Like you," said the elder woman, "she was always laughing and happy. She was chosen for your father because he was so sad and wrathful.
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