With a thunder of hoofs over the wooden drawbridge, first there defiled a troop of cavalry with tapering lances and pennons, in glistening black armour and housings, each helmet adorned with the badge of Hojo, the face of each horse covered by a gilded mask of frowning and horrific aspect. Solemnly the horsemen man[oe]uvred, forming a hollow square of gold and sable; then at a signal the outer gates were opened, and with clatter of many clogs there poured in from the town a sea of men and women, old and young, with anxious pallid faces. The invitation had been accepted by all classes. Fishermen there were in short blue cotton shirts and tight gaiters, and mushroom hats roughly bedizened in colour with tigers or twisting dragons. Old dames and young rosy girls jostled and fought for places, for sure never had the oldest inhabitant been bidden to so strange a mummery. Artisans there were too, burly and bronzed, naked, save for a loin-cloth and loose jacket; and merchants and superior persons, in long crape kimonos, adorned with curious designs, bound round the waist with scarves of silk. The black phalanx looked down with scorn but half concealed, for never had so motley a rabblement been admitted within these walls, and many a timid wight glanced trembling at the swart fierce visages under shadow of the casques, wishing he had stayed away. There was one, however, conspicuous for gay attire and many hairpins, who, no whit abashed, looked saucily along the line, making loud remarks, with pointed finger, as if the motionless figures were statues. A very pretty little lady like a humming bird, with dancing eyes and silvery laugh, and hair tricked out and stiffened with pomade, who, by her gay dress, was a geisha or professional dancing-girl. All about her was small, but neat and natty and trim, from her tiny feet and lacquered clogs to her impudent little nose. It was plain that she was afraid of nothing, taking life lightly, resolved upon enjoying the day, however dark its setting; for, elbowing her way to the front, she commenced, with a comical assumption of haughtiness, to criticise the arrangements, as if all her short career had been passed in castles and palaces.