Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/19

Rh and sailed for Japan, where the high authorities received him very amiably and most willingly showed him their army and fleet. He was so completely reassured by what he saw that he returned to Vladivostok buoyant and full of hope and, when cheered by the sailors as he mounted to the bridge of the flagship, pointed toward the island of the Rising Sun and exclaimed:

"We shall soon be there, boys!"

Back in St. Petersburg, General Kuropatkin opposed energetically the fears of the cautious Witte and threw his support behind the plans of empire being urged by Bezobrazoff. The War Minister had no idea of the existence in Japan of the powerful new Shimose powder and was blissfully ignorant of the fact that a gigantic scene from an opéra bouffe had been staged for him, when the Japanese marched past him an army clad in the earlier feudal Japanese uniforms and displayed to him a navy of old ships that looked as though they could not leave the docks.

After the departure of Kuropatkin from Vladivostok, the word "war" never left the lips of the inhabitants of the town and a mysterious, sarcastic smile seemed glued to the usually enigmatic faces of the Japanese residents. This smile was worn alike by barbers, tailors, bootmakers, merchants and laundresses, because they all shared the indomitable certainty of their leaders that the flag of the Rising Sun would fall neither on the land nor on the sea. They knew the real facts, as most of them were military spies and had minute information about the equipment and spirit of their army, which was thoroughly trained and understood to a man the aims of the coming war.

As I was hunting from time to time on the peninsula of Muravieff-Amursky or was visiting some of the