Adventure, November 1915 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Unofficial “Your ideas of death are as incompre- hensible to us as ours probably are to you,” he said. “With us the individual is nothing, Japan everything. If she needs our lives, we give them naturally, not with any feeling of extraordinary sacrifice, but as a simple duty. If there is a hereafter, we are only that much sooner admitted to its joys; if not, what difference does the cessation make?” With his small, yellow hand he made a slight gesture of tolerance, as he smiled lightly. ‘The old school, of course, would not have made it conditional. -In any case Japan goes on to her glorious ful- filment.”’ : ‘“‘And if some one stood in the way?” I ventured. 2 The murky whites of his eyes grew darker as the shadows of his lowered lids fell on them. “Certainly what we are ready to give, we should demand of others.” Through the open doorway behind Kozu _. I saw Mr. Robinson enter the room, and after glancing around quietly, take his seat near the entrance. He drank his customary glass of lithia, lingered a few minutes as if in sheer idleness of anything to do, and then . went unhurriedly out the way he had entered. : The Jap had given an almost impercepti- ble start when he heard Mr. Robinson speak to the waiter; then he continued to chat, but I had the feeling that he was on guard, as it were, as long as the old gentleman was in the room. It was late when I said “good night,” and left Kozu sitting in the smoking-room, glancing over a Japanese paper which he had picked up from the seat beside him. The night was dark, with a considerable head wind; and though we were running along on a fairly even keel, the decks ap- peared deserted, as they usually were by _ this hour, except for stray couples who were huddled in dark corners. Before going below, I decided to take a couple of turns ' around the main deck to clear my head and try to shake off a certain vague uneasiness which had taken possession of me. It took considerable effort to walk against the wind, and I could not hear my own foot- falls for the noise of the water as it was driven against the side of the ship. In the semi-obscurity beside the rail and * beyond the rays of the decklights, I made “ I5I out a figure standing with its face toward the sea. As I rounded the corner of the social hall the second time, I purposely veered outward toward the rail. I thought it was Dr. Carter, the missionary, although I could not be sure. | I had gotten almost to my cabin, which was on the deck below, when I remembered leaving on the couch in the social hall a - copy of the oversea edition of the 7%imes, which contained an article I wished to clip. I retraced my steps, found the paper, and was about to descend again, when directly outside the window beside which I was standing I heard a faint -explosion, followed by the thud of a body falling. The unexpectedness of the sound startled me for a moment, and I had hardly gotten to the doorway of the hall when Dr. Carter entered hurriedly from the deck, glanced furtively about him and, without having seen me, walked quickly down the main corridor along which the cabins were placed. I slipped over to the head of. the corridor and watched the missionary. When he reached a cabin well to the rear of the ship, he turned the handle of its door; but as he placed his foot across its threshold, he sprang backward, wheeling around sud- denly. For an instant he stared about him _ blankly, then, shaking his head as if puzzled, he absently rubbed his shoulder. A mo- ment later he disappeared into his cabin. I formed a pretty shrewd guess of what had happened, and evidently the thing had been done so quietly that no alarm had been raised; but I had no wish to be concerned in it. I again slipped down the main stairway to the lower deck. You know how the cabins are arranged down there: in series of four, two outer and two inner, opening on to a small aisle leading off from the main corridor which traverses the length of the superstructure. As I turned into this smaller aisle, I bumped into Mr. Robinson. He was placidly apologetic; said he had been reading in his cabin, and was on the point of having a glass of lithia before turning in for the night. He begged me to join him in it in the smoking-room. We had hardly given our orders when the first-officer entered. His face was white and he opened and closed his hands ner- vously. Evidently he was tremendously excited. When he reached the middle of the room, he said: IOOKk (F@) ‘ 7 SONI 3 We oto de BY 2 TPS I Pre LAL Ne Ran CE os " wig oy Hea 95 OS Poe ns é p, . no woe ap J A aoe Ce, ee a ee he TAR fF a) A Nae ng