e
Yorimo began to talk to me in French.

He proved to be a most fascinating companion. Old enough to remember
the feudal age, which was still in full vigor in Japan forty years
ago, he had since mastered most of the knowledge of the West.

I soon found that the Prince was by no means disposed to treat the
adoption as a mere form. It was evident that the old gentleman had
taken a strong fancy to me. He gave me a most affectionate welcome on
the threshold of his house, and immediately calling his servants
around him, introduced me to them as their future master, and bade
them obey me as himself.

I was more touched than I care to say by this kind treatment. My own
parents have long been dead; I know nothing of any other relations,
if I have any; I have long been a wanderer and an adventurer on the
face of the earth, and now, at last, I felt as though I had found a
home.

Something of this I tried to convey to his imperial highness.

"My son," he replied with deep tenderness, "I feel that to me you
will be a son indeed. You shall learn the language of our beautiful
country, you shall grow used to our national ways. Before long you
will let me provide you with a daughter of the Chrysanthemum to be
your wife, and my grandchildren shall be Japanese indeed."

A sound of bells was heard outside.

"My friends are coming to pay the customary congratulation," the aged
prince explained. "As it is necessary that you should have a name
suited to your new rank, I ask you to take that of my father,
Matsukata."

A few words of direction were spoken to the steward of the chambers,
who went out. Immediately afterward he returned, throwing open the
doors widely, and announced:

"The Marquis Yamagata to congratulate his imperial highness Prince
Matsukata!"

And the Prime Minister of Japan came toward me.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SUBMARINE MINE

Having told the reader as much as was necessary to enable him to
understand my subsequent proceedings, and the real forces at work in
the underground struggle which produced the tragedy of the Dogger
Bank, I will suppress the remainder of my adventures in Tokio.

When I left the capital of my new country I wore around my neck,
under the light shirt of chain mail without which I have never
traveled for the last twenty years, a golden locket containing the
miniature portrait of the loveliest maiden in the East or in the
West.

It was a pledge. When little, tender fingers had fast