Explore "The Shogun's Daughter" by Robert Ames Bennet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For a full half-minute I leaned out, listening intently. No alarm broke the peaceful stillness of the night. I closed the window and drew the curtains. Having carefully covered the panes, I struck a lucifer match and crossed over to light my large swinging lamp. Three more steps brought me to the stateroom door, which I locked and bolted. Turning about as the lamp flamed up to full brightness, I saw my guest standing well to one side of the window, his narrow oblique eyes glancing about the room with intense yet well-bred curiosity.
His dress was far different from what it had been aboard the guard-boat. In place of the baggy trousers and flowing robes of silk, his body was now scantily covered with a smock-like garment of coarse blue cotton, and his legs were wound about with black leggings of still coarser stuff. On his feet were straw sandals, secured only with a leather thong that passed between the great and second toes. His bare head gave me my first chance to view at close quarters the curious fashion in which, after the manner of his country, his hair was shaved off from brow to nape, and the side locks twisted together and laid forward on the crown in a small gun hammer cue.