Downing nodded after them and permitted his hard mouth to relax in a half grin. “That’s the way to talk to heathen, Mr. Adams. No begging favors; just straight-for’a’d offer to trade. You’ll see to-morrow, sir.”
At this moment the impatient steward announced dinner, and we hastened below with appetites sharpened by pleasant anticipations. The more we discussed the courteous speech and manners of our visitors the more we became convinced that they had meant nothing by their notice to leave, but would soon return with a cordial assent to our proposals.
To our surprise, the afternoon wore away without a second visit either from the guard-boat or any other craft. Junk after junk and scores of fishing smacks sailed past us cityward, but all alike held off beyond hail. Still more noteworthy was the fact that no vessel came out of the inlet or across from the city.
At last, shortly before sunset, we sighted four guard-boats, armed with swivels, bearing down upon us from the nearest point of the city. Our first thought was that we were to be attacked as wantonly as had been the _Morrison_ and other ships that had sought to open communication with the Japanese. But at half a cable’s length they veered to starboard and began to circle around the _Sea Flight_ in line ahead, forming a cordon. It was not difficult to divine that their purpose was to prevent us from making any attempt at landing.
That they intended to maintain their patrol throughout the night became evident to me when, after lingering over two bottles of my choice Madeira with the skipper, I withdrew from the supper-table to my stateroom. The cabin air being close and sweltering and my blood somewhat heated from the wine, I turned down my reading lamp and leaned out one of my stern windows. Refreshed by the cool puffs of the night breeze that came eddying around the ship’s quarters as she rocked gently on a slight swell, I soon began to heed my surroundings with all the alertness of a sailor in a hostile port.
The night was moonless and partly overcast, but the pitch darkness served only to make clearer the beacon fires which blazed along the coast so far as my circle of vision extended. No beacons had been fired immediately about Kagoshima, but the city was aglow with a soft illumination of sufficient radiance to bring out the black outlines of the guard-boats whenever they passed between me and the shore in their slow circling of the ship. The booming of the bells, however, had ceased, and the only sounds that broke the hot, damp stillness of the night were the lapping of ripples alongside and the low creaking of the ship’s rigging.