Most of all, Bob was struck by the glimpses he obtained of the samurai ideals. Kobo never talked about his honour; it was not a matter either to boast of or to prove; but from the stories he told, and his manner of telling, Bob recognized that his ideal of honour equalled, if it did not even transcend, the ideals of the preux chevaliers of Christendom. In the old days, the samurai’s devotion to his feudal chief was the pole-star of his life. He allowed nothing, not the direst tortures, not death itself, to stand in the way of his duty as he conceived it. In the Sengakuji temple in Tokio Bob had seen the tombs of the Forty-seven Ronins, the national heroes of Japan, whose story as he heard it now from Kobos lips was an epic, an Iliad that was literally true. The Ronins, whose very name means "wave-tost", were samurai, and their lord having been compelled to put himself to death, they formed themselves into a league to avenge him against the man whose treachery had brought this woe upon him. Unfalteringly they pursued their aim, though they knew that the end must be to themselves also death. Against all difficulties and machinations they held on their course unswervingly; their lord’s enemy was slain; and with serene cheerfulness they accepted the inevitable doom, and forty-seven, slew themselves in the manner prescribed. Kobo’s conversation was not merely about the past. He spoke of the difficulties at that moment facing his country—difficulties due in great measure to the interference of western powers. With an increasing population, a soil of which a large part was unfit for cultivation, and rapidly-growing industries, Japan needed outlets for her energies, and was determined not to be debarred from her legitimate markets in Manchuria and Korea by restrictions imposed upon her by Russia, which had stepped in and robbed her of the fruits of her victory over China. It was now no secret that a critical stage had been reached in the negotiations between the two empires. Russia promised but did not perform; Japan was biding her time. Would she fight? Bob could not refrain from asking the question. Kobo smiled. "You saw that little quarrel between two rickshaw men in the narrow road yesterday. They could not pass; neither would yield to the other; they bowed and smiled and discoursed pleasantly for a long time. Then all at once, as you saw, the eyes of one shone, his features set themselves with grim purpose, and he secured the right of way by a heavy stroke that rendered his adversary helpless. Our diplomatists will be polite until the last word is said, and then—"