The night of July 7th had been set for the festivities, and when that evening came the grounds were resplendent with lighted lanterns and the banquet halls were festooned with vine and blossom. The beautiful foliage, the brilliant lights, the fragrant flowers, the lacquered walls, the spotless floors, the embroidered screens, the simple ornaments, all combined to make a scene of beauty and inspire a hearty good will.
The feast had employed the highest art and the ransacking of every market for rare foods and choice viands. The delicate cooking and exquisite flavouring proclaimed the finest culinary art, while the mild tea and rich liquor evinced an exactness of curing and perfection of brewing that might well rank Maido's workers and artisans in the highest class of perfection. The dinner in its almost endless round of courses represented the very acme of human endeavour, tastes, and desires covering an unbroken period of over a thousand years of polite and civil life, and might well be the joy of a people who in the nicety of its conception and the beauty of its creation stands for all time as a model to the world.
A thousand dancing girls, with embroidered gowns, reeled hither and thither over the noiseless floor, tripping time to strangely harmonious and sweet-sounding instruments, while the guests mingled and the feast progressed. The hour was neither early nor late. The night was warm. Not a leaf stirred. No sound rose from without. Then suddenly there came the cannon's roar, a blinding flash. The startled throng sprang up and stared blankly.
"It is Hoti, god of good will, brandishing his heavenly sword and beating the mighty drum, Sekegakara," they cried in one accord, as they recovered, and ran from one to another, talking and laughing the event away. "How silly to take fright! Let us be merry! Now and for ever!" rang out, sounding anew the dash of pomp, the march of joy.
Then again and again the threatening voice broke upon the still air, telling them that a new agency, the force of a friendly foe, was at their door, bidding them hearken. With each discharge their fears grew, until bitterness and hate burst forth in determinate unison:
It was all they could say; it was enough. Yet in all that excitement there were two who more than others controlled their emotions, and set about calmly to dissuade hasty and ill-advised action. From the firing of Commodore Perry's first shot Ikamon divined its certain meaning; and before the old _Susquehanna_ had ceased sounding her notes of warning he had begun to evolve a plan for his own aggrandisement. Therefore, while others fell upon one another in loud appeals to the gods, he moved quietly among them, foretelling the true character of the strange visitation. It was quite different, however, with Tetsutaisho, for at the first sound of firing he fell upon his knees in the midst of a coterie of admirers, and between gesticulating with his arms and beating his head upon the floor prayed first to one god, then another, to drive away the unforeseen and save them from an untimely end. Whether it be earthquake or "foreign devil" mattered not to him so long as their women be spared and their honour maintained, though when understanding finally dawned he suddenly changed face and began strutting around in a boastful manner, vowing the enemy all sorts of speedy overthrowings and fatal exterminations.