It was the first dictionary he had ever seen, and the first English-Japanese, Japanese-English ever.

Babcott had built on lists of words and phrases gathered by himself, traders and priests, both Catholic and Protestant, with others translated from Dutch-Japanese equivalents. At the moment the book was short.

But daily it grew and it fascinated him.

Folklore had it that, two centuries or so ago, a Jesuit priest called Tsukku-san had written out a form of Portugese-Japanese dictionary. Before that no dictionary of any sort had ever existed. In time, a few Dutch-Japanese ones appeared, to be zealously guarded. "No need to lock this up, Nakama," Babcott had said yesterday to his astonishment, "that's not the British way.

Spread the word, let everyone learn, the more educated everyone is the better the country." He had smiled. "Of course not everyone agrees with me. In any event, next week with the help of our printing presses I'll--"' "Printing press, so sorry?"' Babcott had explained. "Soon we'll start printing and if you promise to write a history of Choshu I will promise to give you a copy of my dictionary for yourself alone."

A week or so ago, in wonder, Hiraga had shown Akimoto a copy of the Yokohama Guardian. "It is the news of the day, from all over the world, and they prepare a new version every day, as many copies as they like--thousands if necessary..."

"Impossible!" Akimoto said. "Our best block printers can't poss--"' "I've seen them do it! Machines do it, Akimoto. They showed me their machines! They set all the words in what they call type in lines, they read left to right, the opposite to us, right to left and down our columns of characters, column by column. Unbelievable. I saw the machine man make words out of individual symbols, called "roman rett'rs"--they say that all words in any language can be written with only twenty-six of these symbols an--"' "Impossible."

"Listen! Each rett'r or symbol always has the same sound so another person can read individual letters, or words made out of them.

To make this "news paper," the printer uses combinations of little pieces of iron with the symbol cut into the end of it--sorry not iron but a kind of iron called "stee'r," some name like that. This man put the letters in a box that somehow was inked, paper run over it and here was a new printed page that contained something I had written a moment ago.

Taira read it out exactly! A miracle."

"Eeee, but how can we do that with our language, each word is a special character with as many as five or seven different ways of saying it and our writing's different an--"' "The Doctor Giant listens when I say a Japanese word, he writes it down in their roman rett'rs then Taira says the word just by reading them!"

It had taken Hiraga much more explanation to convince Akimoto. "Eeee," he said exhausted, "so many new things, new ideas, so difficult for me to understand myself, let alone explain. Ori was such a fool not to want to learn."

"Good for us he's dead, buried and forgotten by the gai-jin. For days I thought we were lost."

"So did I."

Hiraga found the English word he sought, "reparations." The Japanese translation was: "money to be paid for an agreed crime." This puzzled him. The Bakufu had committed no crime. Two Satsumas, Ori and Shorin, had merely killed a gai-jin, both were now dead, two for the death of one gai-jin was certainly fair. Why should they demand "re-par-at-eeons," he said aloud, the nearest his tongue could get to the word.

He got up from the desk to ease his knees, difficult to sit like a gai-jin all day long and went to the window. He was wearing Western clothes but soft tabe on his feet, English boots still very uncomfortable for him. The day was still good, the ships at anchor, fishing boats and others vessels moving back and forth. The frigate beckoned. His excitement grew. Soon they would see into its bowels, see the great steam machines Taira had told him about. He caught sight of a reproduced photograph cut out of a magazine and stuck on the wall, of the Great Ship, an enormous iron ship being built in the British capital city, London, the biggest that had ever been, twenty times bigger than the frigate in the bay. Too enormous to conceive--even "fo-to-gr-aff" for him impossible to understand, eerie, almost a form of evil magic. He shuddered then noticed the door to the corridor was ajar and across it Sir William's door. As far as he knew there was no one in the Legation, everyone at the football match and not expected until later this afternoon.

Soundlessly he opened Sir William's door. The elaborate desk had many papers on it, half a hundred books on untidy shelves, a portrait of their Queen and other paintings on the walls. Something new on a sideboard. A photograph in a silver frame. He saw only ugliness, a curiously dressed gai-jin woman with three children, and realized it must be Sir William's family, Tyrer had mentioned they were expected soon.

How lucky I am to be Japanese, and civilized, with a handsome father and mother and brothers and sisters and Sumomo to marry if it is my karma to marry. Thinking about her safe at home warmed him, but then, standing there in front of the desk, the good feeling quickly turned sour. He remembered all the sickening, uneasy times he had stood there before the seated gai-jin leader, answering questions about the Choshu, Satsuma, Bakufu, Toranagas, the questions inquiring into every aspect of his life and Nippon's life, now almost a daily occurrence, the fish eyes scouring the truth out of him, much as he would have preferred to lie and confuse.

He was careful not to touch anything, presuming a trap had been laid for him as he would certainly have done if he had left a gai-jin alone in such an important place. His ears caught an angry voice outside and he scurried back to peer out of Tyrer's window. To his astonishment Akimoto was at the gate, bowing to the sentry who had him covered with his bayoneted rifle and was shouting at him. His cousin wore gai-jin laborer's clothes and was clearly very nervous.

Hastily he went outside, put a smile on his face, and raised his hat. "Good day, sir sentry, this my friend."

The sentry knew Hiraga by sight, that he was some sort of interpreter, also that he had a permanent Legation pass. He replied caustically with incomprehensible words, waving Akimoto away, ordering Hiraga to tell "th's ere monkey t'pushawf or'e'll g't'is bloody 'ead shot awf."

Hiraga's smile never wavered. "I take him away, so sorry." He took Akimoto by the arm and hurried him into an alley that led to the village. "Are you mad? To come here y--"

"I agree." Akimoto was not over his fright at having a bayonet shoved within an inch of his throat. "I agree, but the shoya, the village elder, asked me to find you urgently."

The shoya motioned Hiraga to sit on the other side of the low table. These private quarters, behind his deliberately drab and untidy shop, were spotless, the tatami and shoji window papers the best quality. The tabby cat sat comfortably in his lap, her eyes malevolently fixed on the intruder. White-green porcelain teacups sat around a small iron teapot. "Please, some tea, Otami-sama, so sorry to cause you inconvenience," he said pouring and using the name Hiraga used, then stroked the cat. Her ears twitched nervously. "Please excuse me for interrupting you."

The tea was aromatic and noteworthy.

Hiraga mentioned it politely, feeling awkward in front of the shoya in his European clothes, difficult to sit in them, and uncomfortable without swords. After the customary courtesies, the shoya nodded, half to himself, and looked at his guest, eyes flinty in the mask of graciousness. "Some news has arrived from Kyoto. I thought you should have it at once."

Hiraga's disquiet increased. "So?"

"It seems that ten shishi of Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa, attacked Shogun Nobusada at Otsu. The assassination attempt failed and all were killed."