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220 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
the origin of the sun-flag as a national emblem,
though it had long been in use in an irregular way.
The military scholar, Egawa, who had learned gunnery
from the Dutch at Nagasaki, was released from
prison and made instructor in musketry.
All this was so different from the treatment which
other proposers of new things had received imprisonment,
hara-kiri, exile, and decapitation that
the teacher, being a man of sanguine temperament,
began to hope that the Yedo government had come
into new light,
and that a new era was about to
dawn at once on Japan. Alas ! no.
" The rat-catching
cat hides its claws." The poor scholar was as a
mouse under the playful strokes of the cat's velvet
paws. As for his pupil, Noge* Toro, he heard early
in the opening of autumn that a ship flying the
double-eagle flag of Russia was at Nagasaki. Thereupon,
without saying a word to a soul, he dropped
his books, and packing his traveling-basket, called
on his teacher to say good-by. His home was in
Choshiu, not many scores of miles from Nagasaki.
" So you are going to visit Nagasaki also, are
you " ? asked the teacher, who knew that night and.
day for months his pupil had pondered and dreamed
of voyaging to the great world of Europe.
"Yes; but do not let any one know it. I shall
visit my home."
"
Ah !
yes here is a little shinjo ; [gift]
and here is
a farewell stanza," said his teacher, as he thrust a
package of oval gold coins and a piece of poetry
into his pupil's sleeve.