This, the first and master move of the mysterious and inaccessible Commodore in the game of diplomacy, practiced with the Riu Kiu regent was repeated in Yedo Bay. The foiled yakunin, clothed with only a shred of authority, could promise nothing, and went ashore. There is scarcely a doubt that he ate less rice and fish that evening. Perhaps he left his bowl of _miso_ (bean-sauce) untasted, his _shiru_ (fish soup) unsipped. The probabilities approach certainty that he smoked a double quota of pipes of tobacco. A “hairy” barbarian had snubbed a yakunin. Naruhodo! Darkness fell upon the rice fields and thatched dwellings. The blue waters were spotted with millions of white jelly-fishes looking as though as many plates of white porcelain were floating submerged in a medium of their own density. Within the temples on shore, anxious congregations gathered to supplicate the gods to raise tempests of wind such as centuries ago swept away the Mongol armada and invaders. The “divine breath” had wrought wonders before, why not now also? Indoors, dusty images and holy pictures were cleansed, the household shrines renovated, fresh oil supplied to the lamps, numerous candles provided, and prayers uttered such as father and mother had long since ceased to offer. The gods were punishing the people for neglect of their altars and for their wickedness, by sending the “ugly barbarians” to destroy their “holy country.” Rockets were shot up from the forts, and alarm fires blazed on the headlands. These were repeated on the hills, and told with almost telegraphic rapidity the story of danger far inland. The boom of the temple bells, and the sharp strokes on those of the fire-lookouts, kept up the ominous sounds and spread the news. For several years past unusual portents had been seen in the heavens, but that night a spectacle of singular majesty and awful interest appeared. At midnight the whole sky was overspread with a luminous blue and reddish tint, as though a flaming white dragon were shedding floods of violet sulphurous light on land and sea. Lasting nearly four hours, it suffused the whole atmosphere, and cast its spectral glare upon the foreign ships, making hull, rigging and masts as frightfully bright as the Taira ghosts on the sea of Nagatō. Men now living remember that awful night with awe, and not a few in their anxiety sat watching through the hours of darkness until, though the day was breaking, the landscape faded from view in the gathering mist.