On the villain went, now cutting at the men of the 9th. I heard pistol shots and the clatter of swords and cries of, “We are attacked!” “Kill him!” “Shoot him!” and the like. I jumped out of my palanquin more quickly than I ever in my life jumped out of anything, and rushed forward. There were pools of blood in the street, and I saw the murderer coming at me, by this time himself wounded, but not seriously, and full of fight. His sword was dripping and his face bleeding. I knew enough of Japanese swordsmanship to be aware that it was no use to try and avoid his blow, so I rushed in underneath his guard and wrenched the bleeding sword out of his grip. I handed him over to the men of the 9th, but he managed to wriggle away from them and bolted down a passage into a courtyard. I ran on to see whether Parkes was safe. To my great relief he was sitting on his horse, quite unmoved, with Satow, whose pony was bleeding, also mercifully unhurt. As I came up with them I stumbled over something; it was a man’s head. The street was like a shambles; nine of the escort and one man of the 9th and four horses had been wounded, some of them lying in pools of their own blood. Sir Harry’s groom was also bleeding. Our gallant little friend Nakai was badly hurt, but quite gay, as usual. Seeing that the affray was over and that there was nothing that I could do, I ran back to make sure of the other Rōnin who had run down the courtyard. I found that he had been shot in the face by Lieutenant Bradshaw, but the weapon was but a toy pistol and the bullet had glanced off the jaw-bone. When I reached the bottom of the yard, I saw my man, a repulsive object smeared with mud and blood so that his features were hardly human, trying to escape over a wall. I hung on to him and pulled him down. I shall never forget the horror in his eyes as he glared at me, evidently thinking that I should kill him. Of course he looked upon me as a man might look upon his murderer. But my object, on the contrary, was to save him. I wanted him, for through him I hoped to get at the bottom of the plot. So I handed him over to the guard with strict injunctions that he was not to be hurt. As for the fifteen hundred Japanese soldiers, they decamped, and only came back having in the distance fired what was something uncommonly like a _feu de joie_. It was perhaps too much to expect of them, new as they were to relations with foreigners, that they should show the same courage and loyalty which had been exhibited by Gotō and Nakai. Of course, going on to the Court was out of the question for that day. Some time was lost in getting coolies to carry our poor fellows, at least as many of them as were fainting from loss of blood. The others, badly wounded though they were, insisted on sticking to their horses. They behaved splendidly and in all that pain and trouble there was not a single complaint to be heard.