Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/199

Troops were still marching in never-ending files, like a long, coiling snake with innumerable, bobbing heads, and crowds of people were packing the side walks in a dense mass, from the Brandenburger Thor to beyond the Schloss.

They whirled about Takagawa. A few noticed him—only a few, since he was so small—but these few glared at him. They halted momentarily, mumbling: "A Japanese!"

"Ein Ausländer!" ("A foreigner!")

There was sullen, brooding hatred in the word where, only yesterday, it had held kindliness and hospitality and tolerance.

Takagawa stepped back into a doorway. Not that he was afraid. He did not know the meaning of the complicated emotion called fear, since he was a samurai. But something intangible, something nauseating and hateful, seemed to float up from the crowd, like a veil in the meeting of winds—the air, the people, the music, everything, suddenly shot through with peculiar, disturbing, prismatic diffractions.

He was glad when the baron's tall form came from the laboratory building.

"Sorry I kept you waiting," said the officer, slipping his white-gloved hand through the other's arm. "I've only a minute for you at that. Got to rush back to headquarters, you know. But—a word to the wise—is your passport in order?"

"Yes. Why?"

The baron did not seem to hear the last question. He took a visiting card from his pocketbook and scribbled a few rapid words. "Here you are," he said, giving the card to Takagawa. "Take this to my friend Police Captain von Wilmowitz, at the Presidency of