CHAPTER IX
THE WEB OF THE SPIDER
Bersonin walked on, fighting desperately with his ghastly spasm ofmerriment.
It was a nervous affection which had haunted him for years. It datedfrom a time when, in South America, in an acute crisis of desperatepersonal hazard, he had laughed the first peal of that strange laughterof which he was to be ever after afraid. Since then it had seized himmany times, unexpectedly and in moments of strong excitement, to shakehim like a lath. It had given him a morbid hatred of laughter in others.Recently he had thought that he was overcoming the weakness--for in twoyears past he had had no such seizure--and the recurrence to-nightshocked and disconcerted him. He, the man of brain and attainment, to beheld captive by a ridiculous hysteria, like a nerve-racked anaemic girl!The cold sweat stood on his forehead.
Before long the paroxysms ceased and he grew calmer. The quiet road hadmerged into a busier thoroughfare. He walked on slowly till his commandwas regained. West of the outer moat of the Imperial Grounds, he turnedup a pleasant lane-like street and presently entered his own gate. Thehouse, into which he let himself with a latch-key, was a rambling,modern, two-story structure of yellow stucco. The lower floor waspractically unused, since its tenant lived alone and did not entertain.The upper floor, besides the hall, contained a small bedroom, a bath anddressing-room and a large, barely-furnished laboratory. The latter waslined on two sides with glass-covered shelves which gave glimpses ofrows of books, of steel shells, metal and crystal retorts and crucibles,the delicate paraphernalia of organic chemistry and complicatedinstruments whose use no one knew save himself--a fit setting for thegreat student, the peer of Offenbach in Munich and of Bayer in Vienna.Against the wall leaned a drafting-board, on which, pinned down bythumb-tacks, was a sketch-plan of a revolving turret. From a bracket ina corner--the single airy touch of delicacy in a chamber almost sordidin its appointments--swung a bamboo cage with a brown _hiwa_, orJapanese finch, a downy puff of feathers with its head under its wing.
In the upper hall Bersonin's Japanese head-boy had been sitting at asmall desk writing. Bersonin entered the laboratory, opened a safe letinto a wall, and put into it something which he took from his pocket.Then he donned a dressing-gown the boy brought, and threw himself into ahuge leather chair.
"Make me some coffee, Ishida," he said.
The servant did so silently and deftly, using a small brass _samovar_which occupied a table of its own. With the coffee he brought his mastera box of brown Havana cigars.
For an hour Bersonin sat smoking in the silent room--one cigar afteranother, deep in thought, his yellow eyes staring at nothing. Into hiscountenance deep lines had etched themselves, giving to his coldlyrepellant look an expression of malignant force and intention. With hispallid face, his stirless attitude, his great white fingers clutchingthe arms of the chair, he suggested some enormous, sprawling batrachianawaiting its more active prey.
All at once there came a chirp from the cage in the corner and its tinyoccupant, waked by the electric-light, burst into song as clear andjoyous as though before its free wing lay all the meads of Eden. A lookmore human, soft and almost companionable, came into its master'smassive face. Bersonin rose and, whistling, opened the cage door andheld out an enormous forefinger. The little creature stepped on it, and,held to his cheek, it rubbed its feathered head against it. For a momenthe crooned and whistled to it, then held his finger to the cage and itobediently resumed its perch and its melody. The expert took a darkcloth from a hook and threw it over the cage and the song ceased.
Bersonin went to the door of the room and fastened it, then unlocked adesk and spread some papers on the table. One was a chart, drawn to theminutest scale, of the harbor of Yokohama. On it had been marked a groupof projectile-shaped spots suggesting a flotilla of vessels at anchor.For a long time he worked absorbedly, setting down figures, measuringwith infinite pains, computing angles--always with reference to a smallsquare in the map's inner margin, marked in red. He covered many sheetsof paper with his calculations. Finally he took another paper from thesafe and compared the two. He lifted his head with a look ofsatisfaction.
Just then he thought he heard a slight noise from the hall. Swiftly andnoiselessly as a great cat he crossed to the door and opened it.
Ishida sat in his place scratching laboriously with a foreign pen.
Bersonin's glance of suspicion altered. "What are you working at soindustriously, Ishida?" he asked.
The Japanese boy displayed the sheet with pride.
It was an ode to the coming Squadron. Bersonin read it:
"Welcome, foreign men-of-war! Young and age, Man and woman, None but you welcome! And how our reaches know you but to satisfy, Nor the Babylon nor the Parisian you to treat, Be it ever so humble, Yet a tidbit with our heart! What may not be accomplishment Rising-Sun?
"_By H. Ishida, with best compliment._"
Bersonin laid it down with a word of approbation. "Well done," he said."You will be a famous English scholar before long." He went into thedressing-room, but an instant later recollected the papers on the table.The servant was in the laboratory when his master hastily reentered; hewas methodically removing the coffee tray.
Alone once more, Ishida reseated himself at his small desk. He tore thepoem carefully to small bits and put them into the waste-paper basket.Then, rubbing the cake of India-ink on its stone tablet, he drew a massof Japanese writing toward him and, with brush held vertically betweenthumb and forefinger, began to trace long, delicate characters at thetop of the first sheet, thus:
[Japanese: Ouryuu no fusetsusuirai ni oyobosu eikyou hidarino toori kinji]
In the Japanese phrase this might literally be translated as follows:
cross-current of, laying water thunder on, work-effect left hand respectively
Which in conventional English is to say:
A STUDY OF CROSS-CURRENTS IN THEIR EFFECT ON SUBMARINE MINES SUBMITTED WITH DEFERENCE
This finished, he sealed it in an envelope, took a book from the breastof his _kimono_ and began to read. Its cover bore the words: "SecondEnglish Primer, in words of Two Syllables." Its inner pages, however,belied the legend. It was Mahan's _Influence of Sea-Power on History_.
Yet Lieutenant Ishida of the Japanese Imperial Navy, one time student inMonterey, California, now in Special Secret-Service, read abstractedly.He was wondering why Doctor Bersonin should have in his possession atechnical naval chart and what was the meaning of certain curiousmarkings he had made on it.
The Kingdom of Slender Swords Page 11