Geoffrey had been sleeping for half an hour or so when he was awakened by a sudden jolt, as though the whole building had met with a violent collision, or as though a gigantic fist had struck it. Everything in the room was in vibration. The hanging lamp was swinging like a pendulum. The pictures were shaking on the walls. A china ornament on the mantelpiece reeled, and fell with a crash.
Geoffrey leapt out of bed to cross to where his wife was sleeping. Even the floor was unsteady like a ship's deck.
"It must be an earthquake," her husband gasped, "Reggie told me to expect one."
"It has made me feel so sick," said Asako.
The disturbance was subsiding. Only the lamp was still oscillating slightly to prove that the earthquake was not merely a nightmare.
Geoffrey went out on to the veranda. The hotel having survived many hundreds of earthquake shocks, seemed unaware of what had happened. Far out to sea puffs of fire were dimly seen like the flashes of a battleship in action, where the island volcano of Oshima was emptying its wrath against the sky.
There were hidden and unfamiliar powers in this strange country, of which Geoffrey and Asako had not yet taken account.
Beneath a tall lamp-post on the lawn, round whose smooth waxy light scores of moths were flitting, stood the short stout figure of a Japanese, staring up at the hotel.
"It looks like Tanaka," thought Geoffrey, "by Jove, it _is_ Tanaka!"
They had definitely left their guide behind in Tokyo. Had Asako yielded at the last moment unable to dispense with her faithful squire? Or had he come of his own accord? and if so, why? These Japs were an unfathomable and exasperating people.
Sure enough next morning it was Tanaka who brought the early tea.
"Hello," said Geoffrey, "I thought you were in Tokyo."
"Indeed," grinned the guide, "I am sorry for you. Perhaps I have commit great crime so to come. But I think and I think Ladyship not so well. Heart very anxious. Go to theatre, wish to make merry, but all the time heart very sad. I think I will take last train. I will turn like bad penny. Perhaps Lordship is angry."
"No, not angry, Tanaka, just helpless. There was an earthquake last night?"
"Not so bad _jishin_ (earth-shaking). Every twenty, thirty years one very big _jishin_ come. Last big _jishin_ Gifu _jishin_ twenty years before. Many thousand people killed. Japanese people say that beneath the earth is one big fish. When the fish move, the earth shake. Silly fabulous myth! Tanaka say, 'It is the will of God!'"