By that time the wind was tearing down through what seemed to be a very deep, and what certainly was a very dark, canyon, and it was raining steadily. My coolies lagged behind and the first thing I knew I found myself entirely alone. The others had gone so far ahead that I couldn’t even hear the sound of their ’ricksha wheels, though the ’ricksha of those days was a very noisy little vehicle. I had been nearly two months in Japan, had had plenty of experience with ’ricksha coolies and I knew them to be the most inoffensive little men in the world, but the darkness and the wind-driven rain and the discomfort generally, must have got on my nerves because I began to be perfectly sure that my two men were nothing less than brigands and that the separation from my party was a prearranged plan for murder and robbery. I didn’t know how wide the road was, but I knew that on one side there was a very deep chasm because I could hear the roar of a mountain torrent far down and directly below me. Then the coolies chattered and grunted incessantly, as Japanese coolies always do, and I was convinced that they were arguing about which should take the initiative in violence.