He sat up in bed in bewildered wonder whether it had been an actual sound, an explosion, that had him, or whether it had been some particularly realistic bit of dream. Still, there was a peculiarly dry, , something like hail—and yet the sun was shining—just as he was trying to shake himself awake, the sound ceased .  
As he swung himself out of bed, Karsten hurried in. "Hallo, time to get busy, Kent. It has broken loose, the revolution, riot, or whatever it is, shooting, burning. That was machine-gun fire we just heard, from the Aoyama barracks, I take it. Breakfast will be ready for you when you have dressed. You had better make a meal before you start; you're likely to have a day."
 
It was difficult to take time for eating, but Karsten insisted. "Won't you come along?" asked Kent. "You should see the excitement." But Karsten shook his head, laughed. "No, to-day, I'm staying home, even if they burn down all of Tokyo." He smiled to Jun-san. She came over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. Happiness, radiated over these two, made them look younger, an odd appearance of newness, as if they had been refurbished, brightened. A flash of came to Kent; after all, though modern life smiled at romance, it was the thing that mattered, woman, affection between the sexes, the one ingredient that could vitalize existence with the color, the play and sparkle of joy of living. From a distance came the [Pg 302]reverberation of a dull boom; from somewhere near the center of the city a great smoke cloud shot skywards, mushroomed in the still air, dissipated slowly into a thin of bluish .
 
He ran into the street. It seemed like a holiday, with the absence of the usual of business. Here and there groups of people, mostly women, excitedly, with a frightened and yet fascinated look on their faces. It reminded him of the aspect the neighborhood took on when there was a fire in the quarter. The street cars were not running. A detachment of police passed him, about a hundred of them, running with their stiff , each with a gloved hand clamped on his short sword, in a long double file.
 
As he came near the square at Toranomon, he ran into a line of infantrymen, resting on their rifles, keeping clear the wide space behind them, the quarter containing the Diet building, Foreign Office, the Kasumigaseki Palace and, farther back, the General Staff headquarters. He made his way along a side street hurriedly, avoiding the crowds which had gathered here and there, wherever temple grounds or square afforded a convenient space. There was not so much excitement as he had expected, rather an air of ; they did not appear like people who were engaged at this moment in their overlords; rather they seemed eager for the staging of some event which they knew was about to happen, as if they were waiting for a show of daylight fireworks. Still, here and there might be seen small groups of men who seemed to have a definite objective, who were intent on some certain purpose, on going somewhere. It was significant that they all, even the more ones, ran, or walked, or drifted in the same general direction,—towards the [Pg 303]government building quarter stretching from the central police station at Hibiya to the War Office in a long curve following the outer palace moat and centering on the wide street running from the palace gate at Sakuradamon, near which lay the nerve centers of the Government, the Navy, War and Judiciary buildings, the Diet quarters, and the rest.
 
The whole movement was too vast, too intangible, covered too much ground to make it possible to handle the story single-handed. They would know more at the Japan American Office. He found Carew there, tired-eyed, himself to hot, black coffee from a bottle.
 
"Hallo, Kent," he stretched himself. "Hell, isn't it? Here it is, the big story, the outbreak that we have all been expecting and waiting for for years, the demolishment of the last stronghold in the world of militarism in its old form, perhaps; and here I am, almost idle. There is news popping every minute, big stuff, and there isn't a thing to do with it. The boys are out covering the story as best they can, but what's the use? We can't get out a paper. There is no power for the machines, and, anyway, I have no linotype men, no press crew. You might as well take it easy, too. Tokyo is as far as messages are concerned. The wires are down everywhere. They say the bridges are down on all sides of the city. Even if they weren't, they would not take cable messages, of course. I tried to send one of the boys to Yokohama, hoping he might get a message out by from some steamer, but he just came back. The Kawasaki bridge has been blown up, one span at least, and the military are guarding it and won't let any one pass. Go out and enjoy yourself looking about, but you won't get any news out of here to-day, anyway."
 
[Pg 304]
 
"But what do you make of it?" Carew's stoicism irritated him. "What do you know about it? Is it The Revolution?"
 
"I don't know." Carew his shoulders. "Call it anything you please, revolution, riot, . It is the simultaneous uprising of all the lower classes, the poorer classes, the working classes. It is the explosion of the discontent that has been accumulating for years. It reminds me of a drift of snow that has been growing bigger and bigger, overhanging some steep slope, waiting but for some to start it off. The Mito started it; it is on the way, force every minute, an that gains growth from the snow that is waiting to add its volume as it rushes onwards. The question now is merely whether the Government can hold it; if the troops will stick by it. That'll tell the whole story."
 
"Have you any idea how far this is a concerted movement, a planned general movement? Have you gotten anything from the outside?"
 
"Sure it is part of a general plan to some extent." Carew handed him a sheaf of Nippon Dempo news service flimsies. "These kept coming in until early this morning when everything suddenly stopped. You see how, the moment the news of the Mito assassination came out, hell broke loose in various places. Peasants from one end of Japan to the other, farmers, who have been clamoring at the landlords on account of rents, have been burning village offices and landlords' houses. At the same time came strikes, rioting, violence in all the industrial centers,—Osaka, Kobe, Nogoya. At first, when the news began to in last night, I thought it was just like the rice riots in 1918, with breaking of some windows and of some office buildings and [Pg 305]warehouses. But it's bigger. It's a sight bigger. I fancy no one knows how big it will grow before it stops, or where it will stop. Go take a look about town, and you'll see they've done a lot of damage already.
 
"We had a small riot right here a couple of hours ago. I've known right along that one of the linotype men is a leader of sorts; at least, the police have always come and locked him up whenever the bill or anything like that came up in the Diet. But when they came early this morning as per usual, some three or four of them, they set upon them, all the printers. They beat the devil out of the policemen and then they beat it. I fancy that's characteristic of the whole situation all over Japan. The worm is turning."
 
Kent went on to his office a few blocks away. Ishii was there, restless with excitement. "I've been waiting for you, Kent-san. I have a message for you. She came about an hour ago, Adachi-san. She says that if you want to see the best part of the excitement, come to Sakuradamon. She'll probably be there."
 
Adachi-san! It was like a shock to have her suddenly injected into his life again after all these months. A short time ago, when she had vanished, this news would have caused his heart to beat high with excitement, would have sent him flying to find her—but now, even though he did feel expectancy at seeing her again, curiosity to learn why she had disappeared, where she had been, the predominant feeling was one of uneasiness. That incident, that bit of romance, had been , sweet when thought of as just that, a , charming interlude in the humdrum course of existence; but that was just its main charm, what gave it the subtle flavor of a fanciful dream, its evanescence, the very fact that it had never crystallized into a more , definite[Pg 306] relationship. It had faded out of his life now; what he could treasure as a memory, a whimsical recollection, might be but vitiated, rendered drab and , should he allow its reality to inject itself, intrudingly, into his life. And then, of course, over and above it all, there was Sylvia.
 
"We had better go right now." Ishii was eager. "You had better wear your police badge where it can be seen, so we can get through the lines."
 
"All right, I'm coming." He fastened his police badge, a disk of wood bearing the magic formula which allowed him to pass police , on a string about his neck. Of course, he must see her. After all, it was pathetic, her thinking of him in the midst of all this excitement. He wondered how much she really had to do with it all.
 
As they approached Hibiya Park the crowds became more . He had to display his badge repeatedly to get past lines of police. Excitement was more evident now, and yet the city seemed oddly quiet. He realized that it was the absence of the usual noise of traffic, roar of elevated trains, clatter of street cars. The entire voice of the city had changed; the volume of sound from hundreds of thousands of humans, along in clacking geta, talking, shouting, making an new sound, live, electric, as contrasted with the usual mechanical .
 
Just in front of the park the police lines were the most solid, thousands of officers backed by mounted . They would not let him pass, shrugged shoulders as he tried to argue with them, showing his pass. He worked his way along the line towards the main entrance, hoping to find some opening. He found a young official, pleasantly , who seemed inclined to listen. Suddenly, as he argued, a dull roar sounded behind him, to his right; a gust[Pg 307] of wind, as if a giant had blown a gigantic breath over him and the rest of the crowd. The masses behind him surged forward . He that the mouth of the young officer had opened, eyes popping, staring as if some , incredible sight had just appeared. As the crowd pushed on, carrying him and the police line before it, he managed to turn and look over the heads of the people milling all about him. As he was borne on, through the entrance into the park, he caught a glimpse of the great central police station to the right behind him. The entire corner was gone, leaving exposed, doll-house rooms in the interior beyond. The usually bronze figure of some noted police official had been knocked by the débris into an absurdly incongruous drunken attitude. Fine dust from the explosion began to settle over them. The crowds, on getting away, had broken through the police lines on all sides, along the broad road between Hibiya Park and the outer moat, and, beyond that, across Babasakimon bridge, into the great space between the inner and outer palace moats, surging towards Sakuradamon. But here in Hibiya Park the police were getting the crowd in hand again, assisted by gendarmes and soldiers who had come from the other side of the square. The mounted men rode their horses right into the crowds; sabers were used freely. The soldiers seemed unenthusiastic, . Kent noticed that they belonged to some up in the fifties; probably they were country recruits, more in sympathy with the mob than against it. But the others, the police and the gendarmes, were under excitement. They had always seemed absurd to him, these tiny-looking swords, but quite evidently they were dangerous weapons, viciously sharpened. Some of the superior officers[Pg 308] particularly appeared to have become entirely beside themselves, eyes bloodshot, mouths , crazed for the moment, insane with blood .
 
Kent managed to avoid them by taking the smaller paths leading through shrubbery. The police were all busy raging at the mob, and the soldiers, seeing his police , shrugged shoulders and let him pass. As he worked over towards the other side of the park, in the direction of the navy wireless tower, he became aware of a feeling of emptiness, as if the space, the atmosphere rather, had in some strange way changed, as if it were , more . There was a peculiar tang in the air; he ; yes, that was smoke rising there over the trees. He climbed a low , usually a favorite place for lovers, with a summerhouse surrounded by azaleas. Ah, that was it; where the Diet building had stood, a barn-like, wood and stucco structure, was now no building at all; only heaps of débris. He obtained a moment's amusement by noticing that the cordons of police and soldiers which had been guarding the Diet all these months were still there, on all four sides of the great block, solemnly guarding the smoking ashes.
 
He to the right, managed to get to the street alongside the outer moat just ahead of the crowd which had broken through the police lines down by the central station. Here, inside the space containing the most important government buildings, were only small detachments of police and soldiers, who did not attempt to face the mob; but beyond, up on the high ground by the War Office and the General Staff headquarters, were sounding calls. Evidently troops were being summoned to form new cordons to take the places of those which had been broken.
 
By this time he was almost running. He must get[Pg 309] as far as possible into this inner area before new lines were formed. Evidently the same thought the mobs behind him. They were surprisingly silent; the predominating sound was the vast volume of clatter made by tens of thousands of wooden geta. Just as he was about to pass into the square facing, on its right, the Sakuradamon palace entrance and to the left a great empty lot above which rose the General Staff building, he heard his name being called. "Here, Kent-san. Here I am."
 
There she was, Sadako-san, with a small group of others, at a vantage point formed by the small space surrounding the pedestal of a statue of a frock-coated gentleman in bronze, set in a corner of the Judiciary building grounds. There were two or three other girls and about a dozen men. He noticed the professor who had been in jail on account of his writings about Kropotkin.
 
She had been right in picking this point as the center of events. Already they were beginning to concentrate on this spot from all sides, the crowd coming along the Hibiya Park road and that flowing across the space from Babasakimon reinforced by the student from Kanda and the from Asakusa and Uyeno, and even from across the Sumida River, from Honjo and Fukagawa. And they were trying to come on from the other side of the city, too. Up on the higher ground, in the direction of the Sanno-dai Temple grounds, a hilly park often used for , came sound of musketry, volley firing. still sounded about the General Staff headquarters grounds and, behind that, on the hill crowned by the War Office. Bugles also began to sound from across the moat, inside the inner palace grounds. Still, oddly, there was no sight of soldiers or police; the crowds continued to surge on into the[Pg 310] square, gradually filling it. On the other side the multitude was evidently being kept in check by some which they could not see, at Toranomon probably. A few small groups, individual figures here and there, evidently Foreign Office officials or men from the Italian or Russian embassies close by, were moving along rapidly, evidently to see the excitement. Presently Kent saw Kikuchi. He shouted to him, managed to attract his attention. As he joined their group, Kent noticed a stir among the others, frowns, whispers, then shoulder ; but no protest was made.
 
But he wanted to see Sadako-san, to have a few words with her, at least. He managed to draw her aside a little, sheltered against the pedestal of the statue. "Sadako-san, where have you been? That wasn't the right thing to do, to run away from me like that. You know, I've——"
 
"Oh, Kent-san, you must not think that that was what I asked you to come here for, to talk nonsense, on a day like this—no, not nonsense, forgive me. I didn't mean that. We'll talk about—about these other things some other time—yes, I promise—but to-day; don't you see, this is the day we have all been waiting for so long, the day marking the birth of a new Japan, when the people of Japan shall break down the rule of the , of the wicked, old anachronists over there," she across the square to the gray, copper-roofed building of the General Staff. "That's why I asked you to come here, to this spot; for this is where history is to be made to-day."
 
It flashed on him that she made a picture as she stood there, in her soft- kimono, eyes flashing, cheeks flushed. She seemed as if she might be , a figure representative of the new Japanese idealism, side by side with this bronze frock-coated individual, a nice old respectable [Pg 311]bureaucrat no doubt, whoever he might be; the two, the breathing, girl and the cold, stiff bronze man, of Japan of to-day, the contrast. Still, why did she insist on taking part in this mad of mob passion? How much happier she would be—— Recollection came to him of some of their excursions together. But, of course, that could be no longer. The thought came to him suddenly—it was fortunate that she had refused to discuss personal topics. That was just like him, saying things without thinking. He had not intended to recall their affair, matters of affection; still, of course, he could see now how it must have seemed to her that he was trying to do so.
 
The crowd kept surging into the square, which was gradually filling. It began to become ; nothing happened; it did not look as if anything was even about to happen; one became impatient, disappointed with the sense of constantly baffled expectation. Evidently the "revolution" was about to fizzle and splutter into without dramatic dénouement. Did it have any intention whatever, this mob? What was the idea of the whole thing? "What is going to happen, Sadako-san? What are you people going to do? Is all this throughout Japan a planned, concerted movement, or is it just accidental, spontaneous outbreaks caused by the death of the ?"
 
"Both, in a way." She showed her pleasure at being able to instruct him. "We have been waiting for many months for this to happen, we , thousands of us, scattered through all of Japan. Everywhere where there was dissatisfaction, among the tenant farmers in all the country districts, among the industrial laborers and all the other poor people in the cities, in fact, everywhere in Japan we had our leaders, a few here and a few there; only a few were[Pg 312] needed in each place; conditions have made the people, the whole nation almost, ready to strike if only some one gave a start. They all knew, we all knew, that some day the great event would occur which would be the signal for our men to lead revolts throughout Japan. We all knew that it would happen some day, to-morrow, in a month, in a year, but ............