The head of the cortege passed out into the great courtyard and through the massive gateway, followed by Yoritomo’s _norimon_ and then by my own, each surrounded by a guard of stalwart Satsuma men. The Daimio came after us, near the end of the procession. Outside the gateway the heralds began to chant a monotonous cry: “_Shi-ta-ni-iro! shi-ta-ni-iro!_--kneel down! kneel down.”
As my _norimon_ swung around, I peered out and saw the standard bearers carrying the insignia of their lord on tall shafts. The Daimio of Satsuma was making a state progress. The thought that we were in the charge of the most powerful of all the _daimios_, and that he was our friend, reassured my apprehensions of the coming ordeal. I drew a sigh of relief, and was about to settle back in my narrow box, when something struck lightly across the _norimon_ and fell down over the windows. I peered out again, and saw the meshes of a net.
The ride would have been tedious at best. With that symbolic net hung over me, it was well-nigh unendurable. More than once the indignity of being paraded as a prisoner through the aristocratic section of Yedo all but overpowered my self-control. Only by the severest repression was I able to constrain myself from drawing sword and cutting my way out of my enmeshed palanquin. The saving thought was that Satsuma had left us our swords and that the net did not necessarily imply degradation.
With the heralds ever chanting their cry, “Kneel down! kneel down!” we marched in solemn state into the official quarter and slantingly across it, past the great Sakaruda Gate where we had parted from the cortege of the Princess, to a gate in the angle of the moat, half a mile beyond. Here I expected an order for us to dismount and enter afoot. But the gate led us into the Second Castle, which is the separately moated portion of the official quarter, lying along the east side of the citadel.
We now had to go only a short distance to reach the _yashiki_ in which the magistrates of the Supreme or High Court held their sessions. As prisoners of high rank, we were carried in through the gateway and across the courtyard to the portico. The Daimio followed in state. When he had stepped out upon the mats laid for him by the _hatamoto_ attendants of the court, the nets were removed from our _norimons_, and we were courteously assisted to alight beside the Daimio. At a sign from him, we handed over our swords and dirks to a pair of his own retainers, while he gave his sword alone into the keeping of one of the _hatamotos_.