who had fled Japan with his faithful samurai nearly
three hundred and fifty years before upon the overthrow of the Ashikaga
Dynasty.

Upon this unfrequented and distant Japanese isle the exiles had retained
all of their medieval military savagery, to which had been added the
aboriginal ferocity of the head-hunting natives they had found there and
with whom they had intermarried. The little colony, far from making any
advances in arts or letters had, on the contrary, relapsed into primeval
ignorance as deep as that of the natives with whom they had cast
their lot--only in their arms and armor, their military training
and discipline did they show any of the influence of their civilized
progenitors. They were cruel, crafty, resourceful wild men trapped in
the habiliments of a dead past, and armed with the keen weapons of their
forbears. They had not even the crude religion of the Malaysians they
had absorbed unless a highly exaggerated propensity for head-hunting
might be dignified by the name of religion. To the tender mercies of
such as these were the castaways of the Halfmoon likely to be consigned,
for what might sixteen men with but four revolvers among them accomplish
against near a thousand savage samurai?

Theriere, Ward, Simms, and the remaining sailors at the beach busied
themselves with the task of retrieving such of the wreckage and the
salvage of the Halfmoon as the waves had deposited in the shallows of
the beach. There were casks of fresh water, kegs of biscuit, clothing,
tinned meats, and a similar heterogeneous mass of flotsam. This arduous
labor consumed the best part of the afternoon, and it was not until it
had been completed that Divine and his party returned to the beach.

They reported that they had discovered a spring of fresh water some
three miles east of the cove and about half a mile inland, but it was
decided that no attempt be made to transport the salvage of the party to
the new camp site until the following morning.

Theriere and Divine erected a rude shelter for Barbara Harding close
under the foot of the cliff, as far from the water as possible, while
above them Oda Yorimoto watched their proceedings with beady, glittering
eyes. This time a half-dozen of his fierce samurai crouched at his side.
Besides their two swords these latter bore the primitive spears of their
mothers' savage tribe.

Oda Yorimoto watched the white men upon the beach. Also, he watched the
white girl--even more, p