"You get a name, but not the real central planet," said Akira, with a shrug. "Clouds and mist obscure his rays. Only in the East does the true sun exist. Is that not so, Dane?" he spoke to Basil, whom he always addressed in this way, although he was more ceremonious with Theodore. "It is," assented the sailor, with a laugh. "And yet, Akira, when under your painfully blue skies and in your blazing sunshine, I have often longed for the cooling mists of England you so despise." "That is quite poetical," smiled Patricia. "Sailors are always poetical, although they don't show that side to landsmen. The solitary spaces of sea and sky, when one is driven back on one's self to think out high things, is enough to make any man poetical." "Well," said Mara shrewdly, "if sailors don't show that side to landsmen, they probably show it to landswomen. Is that not so, Basil?" and she mischievously glanced from him to Patricia and back again. "To some women," replied Basil briefly, and colouring through his tan. "What! When a sailor has a wife in every port!" sneered Theodore; then aware that he had said more than he ought to in the presence of ladies, he quickly turned to Akira. "Perhaps, Count, you will tell us about Japan." The little man blinked his keen eyes and politely assented. He made himself comfortable, and in many coloured words placed fairy-land before their eyes. With great charm of manner, he told of cool Buddhist temples, wherein weird ceremonies take place; he related the delightful legend of Jizo-Sama, that kindly god who protects dead children; he pictured the vivid life of toy cities, all colour and movement, and drew the attention of his fascinated hearers to the charm of Japanese and Chinese lettering, which lend themselves to fantastic and odd decoration. After a time he gave a description of a pilgrimage he had made to Fuji, that sacred mountain, which appears in a thousand and one pictures of Dai Nippon. "My country with Fuji-Yama left out is like _Hamlet_ without the Prince," he said, smiling. "That mountain is the guardian genius of the land." Then he told about the rice-fields, with their delicate springing green, of the cherry-orchards in blossom, of the pine forest where fox-women lurked, and sketched out many charming legends. His talk was like a page of Lafcadio Hearn, and Mara hung breathlessly on his words. As he proceeded, her breath became quick and short and her eyes grew larger. She looked at the narrator, through him, past him, as though all he described were passing before her like a panorama of byegone centuries. Suddenly she clapped her hands. "I remember; I remember," she cried, rising unsteadily to her feet. "Your land is my land. I remember at last," and stopping suddenly, she sank unconscious at the feet of the astonished Japanese. CHAPTER XIII THE UNEXPECTED