Thefirst days of any voyage are admirable in proportion as little, or nothing, is said of them. In this, as in other phases of human intercourse, delicacy lies in restraint rather than in eloquence. Thus is the bloom of society preserved.
Mr. Dodge, the self-confident, the experienced, the ubiquitous, was first to "show up." The outer reefs of the California coast do not tend toward placidity. Even Dodge did not care to count the hours since he had begun to feel "sleepy" and had sought his cabin.
Mr. Todd next met the sun. To be more accurate, it was a fog, where only a small bright spot, rubbed as in the centre of a tarnished tray, indicated our chief luminary. Todd's cap was pulled very low, his ulster collar very high. His hands disappeared utterly into large pockets. He walked with the jerky directness of a marionette toward the smoking-room.
On the third day, when the sun actually shone and the pewter sky was undergoing a gradual transformation into blue enamel, Mr. Todd was able to sit on deck,—he still remained noticeably near the smoking-room,—and to enjoy unprintable yarns from fellow-smokers. Missionary children began to gambol around the promenade deck, and over the feet of swathed and flaccid mortals, lately exhumed, all with the blinking regard of insects suddenly disclosed beneath a garden stone. Dodge, for a wonder, was not in sight. Mr. Todd had his back toward the main-deck exit from the salon, when one of the group about him thumped a knee, stared up, crying, "By G—, look at that!" and called loudly upon his Maker to witness that the sight was fair.
Out to the deck had blown a golden apparition,—a tall, slim girl with yellow hair crushed under a wide and most unsailor-like hat of yellow sea-poppies. Her skirts and the rest of her were silken browns and yellows. She made straight for thegroup, rustling like a small eddy in a heap of autumn-leaves. Todd turned a few inches. At the expression on his face a third convive nudged the speaker. "Oh, er—beg ten thousand pardons—didn't have an idea—" mumbled the crimson one.
"Neither did I," said Todd, enigmatically, as he rose.
"Oh, dearest of dads," they heard a fresh voice cry. "Now isn't this a world with the top off? I feel like a bunk caterpillar turned into a butterfly."
Pierre followed his three emancipated comrades, immediately after "tiffin," as the midday meal hereafter must be called. He was, as usual, immaculate in attire, but bore an air of citric melancholy.
Next arose, in all her might, Mrs. Cyrus Carton Todd. In her aggressive costume of starched piqué, fortified by gold lorgnettes and an air carefully adapted from certain acknowledged "grandes dames" of Washington, she took immediate possession of the Captain, the best deck chair, and the passenger list. As wife of a senator and lady of the new American minister to Japan, she was accepted at once, without demur, reigning Empress of the voyage.
Sportive infants, oblivious of comfortably extended limbs of lesser mortals, skirted those of Mrs. Todd. Silent Chinese "boys," dispensing beef-tea and gruel, swung pigtails aside from her austere garments.
Of the party Yuki alone now abode in the mysterious seclusion of her stateroom.
Before sunset, on that third afternoon, the sea, to use the Captain's expression, quieted into a "bloomin' mill-pond." White birds fluttered incessantly about the stern of the ship, sometimes sinking to the waves for an unstable rest, or rising to visit, in one great silver swoop, the startled and delighted passenger deck.
Pierre found a chair beside his chaperon. He moved it a confidential three inches nearer before asking, "Will she not be able to come up sometime before to-morrow? This is perfect."
"She has commissioned me to say that she will try to make the effort this evening, after our dinner; that is, if—"here she shook a playful finger—"ifI will play propriety, and any kindly disposed person could be found to assist her upstairs."
"Ah! I'll go down now, and take seat upon her doormat," cried Pierre, in his excitement.
"The Chinese coolie might spill chicken broth upon you."
The day waned slowly. Passengers were beginning already their postprandial walks. Mrs. Todd nodded patronizingly to one and then to another.
"Madame," began Pierre, with his caressing look, "you have been almost as a mother—a good, indulgent mother—to me in that big land of yours. You will continue to be my very good friend in Japan, will you not?"
"Why, silly boy, of course I will," she cried. "Have not I always been your friend and Yuki's,—even to the point of what Cyrus called 'entangling alliances'?"
"It is because of its preciousness that I want to hear you say it, dear Mrs. Todd. After all, I am ignorant of Japan, and of what social phantoms Yuki and I may have to fight. But with your championship, I am strong, invincible!" He gave her fat hand just the most delicate of pressures. It might have been the touch of a devoted son; it might, had Mrs. Todd been twenty years younger, have been—well, almost anything. His dark, impassioned eyes, the color of new-opened violets, hung on her kindly face.
If fault could be found with Pierre, it would be in excess of beauty. From the old blood of France he had received refinement, poise, delicacy,—the throbbing of purple veins in temples as satin-smooth as young leaves, and thin nostrils that shivered at every passing gust of emotion. From the more barbaric, vivid Russian mother had come depth of coloring, the flash of sudden animation, deep blue in the eyes, and gold in the hair. Yet with all its fairness the face was not effeminate. One could think of it, without offence, in the armor of a young crusader, or even behind the mediæval visor of a robber-baron. There might be a hint of cruelty behind the wet crimson of the perfect mouth. To Yuki that face was the epitome of all earthly beauty. Before it, the artist in her knelt, in adoration.
Shortly after twilight came the reverberating clamor of the first dinner-gong. Mrs. Todd and her feminine satellites had agreed to "dress." Mrs. Todd had never made acquaintance with a décolleté gown until her entrance into Washington, not so many years before. Now she was wont to declare loudly that she could not really enjoy her evening meal in covered shoulders,—a statement which always brought the twinkles to Todd's eyes. He openly loathed his "tombstone shirt-front;" but Gwendolen, of a later and more favored generation, wore her pretty low-cut frocks as unconsciously as a flower wears its sheath.
Pierre sat through the interminable courses, scarcely knowing what he ate or to whom he spoke. His thoughts were all with Yuki. He was to see her again after three endless days! The little cool, slim palm would lie, perhaps, in his. He would hear her voice, as different from these chattering table women all around him as is the sound of running water to the whirr of machines. The past ten days of journeying—though indeed they had not been for a moment entirely alone—left a delicious aroma of familiarity, almost of married friendship. What hours the future was to hold for them in Japan, in Europe, in India!
Mrs. Todd's half-teasing voice drew him back from the dear reverie. "Come, Mister Le Beau, dinner is over at last. I noticed that you ate nothing. The Captain has been telling us the most delightful jokes. But we must not forget our promise to Miss Onda. Gwendolen, dear, will you go on deck and see that a chair is made ready for the poor child?" The speaker had been rising ponderously. She turned again to the Captain. "These Japanese are always wretched sailors, I am told."
"No good, any of them!" corroborated the Captain, with emphasis. "The sight of a floral anchor at a landlubber's funeral is enough to make them ill."
"I wonder how it will be with their admirals before the Russian navy," mused Todd, with pensive eyes on a blue-gowned Chinese steward.
"It wouldn't matter either way," sneered the Captain. "No fight is going to come off! I've known these YokohamaJaps for seventeen years, Mr. Todd. A bad lot! They are just trying a game of bluff borrowed from—no offence, gentlemen—from America." The Captain was a Liverpool Englishman.
"Just so!" grinned Dodge, "the kind of bluff that works,—recipe handed down by one G. Washington."
Pierre and Mrs. Todd approached Yuki's cabin. She heard them, and tottered to the entrance of the tiny passage. Her face shone ghastly white above the square black collar of her adzuma-coat. Pierre instantly drew her arm within his own. She clung to him helplessly for an instant, then, with an obvious effort, rallied and stood erect.
"There, there, now, keep to Pierre's arm," encouraged Mrs. Todd, with the smile of a patron deity. "If you'll promise to be good, I'll go ahead and not look around." She preceded them slowly along the passage. Her décolleté back loomed, in the dim light, like the half of a large, round cheese.
Yuki, once safely on deck, tucked lovingly among soft rugs and pillows by Gwendolen, found little indeed to say. Mrs. Todd gave orders, before sweeping off to her game of bridge whist, that Yuki must not be teased into talking, but must lie still, and let the night air and the breeze refresh her. Pierre, of course, remained by her side. He cared little though the whole ship knew that he loved the Japanese girl and longed to make her his wife. Dodge and Gwendolen had affairs of their own to settle, and disappeared around the other side. Gradually the deck was deserted by all but Pierre and his companion. He secured a small hand in his own. The girl was too languid, or perhaps too blissful, to demur.
"Oh, to be seasick is most unpleasantest thing of all!" she whispered once, with a short but very genuine shudder. "I shall never cross back on this water,—never, never! The little bed downstairs it seem like a grave, and one wish hard that it was truly a grave."
After another long silence, broken only by whispered sentences from Pierre, she pointed to a constellation. "How nice and kind the stars are to come out here with us, so far from home! That cluster is exactly the same one I used to watch from my little room at school. When I see it in Japan,and count the stars to be sure all have followed, it will be stranger feeling yet."
"Darling," said Pierre, "sometime we are to carry that little shining group the whole way round the world with us,—when you are my wife."
The great ship rose softly and sank again, as if breathing. The stars stared in, unwinking. Yuki's face was deepening in sweet content. Every shiver of the engine, every angry hurtling of the insulted waters, thrust them consciously nearer to Japan.
Roughening waves, toward the night of the fourth day, indicated, according to the Captain, approach to the Hawaiian Islands. He added, "If any one is keen enough on it to get up at daybreak, he will see the first outlying peaks."
Todd, in a passion of romantic interest that was part of the whole marvellous epic, climbed to the deck before dawn. The stars, he fancied, looked coldly upon him, as if they resented his presence at their coming defeat. He leaned far over, watching waves that lapped the sides of the ship in a strange rhythm. Under the brightening day he stared across an ocean apparently as eternal and infinite as space, that stretched, he knew, north and south beyond him, twelve thousand miles of unbroken liquid desert from pole to pole. And yet through the centuries, this perilous waste had been crossed from oasis to island oasis by the frail canoes of men;—dark Polynesian painted savages with marvellous powers of carving and inlaying, who had left traces of their coming from New Zealand to Alaska, and through the Philippines to Japan. He pictured the advent of that first dusky Ulysses who, in feathered armor and a Greek helmet carved from a cinnamon-tree, had here, ages before, terminated his thousand-mile wanderings from a forgotten South. All this had now become a new world for Todd's own light-haired Saxon race to fall heir to, stepping-stones in its inevitable stride to the teeming coasts of Asia.
Yuki, too, in such excitement that she could barely stop to dress, had been staring out of the port-hole of her stateroom since an early hour. If one of the great birds swooping incessantly along the sides of the ship had paused to look, he would have seen a small face, white as himself, fitted into theround brass frame. She was there before dawn had quickened under the sea. The mystery and the first unspeakable shiver of a newly created day had been hers. "'And God moved upon the face of the waters,'" whispered reverent Oriental lips. She saw the first dark triangle of land glide toward her through the thinning darkness,—the shimmer of rose and green on half-veiled slopes, the gradual lighting up of tapering peaks,—and then, the full orchestration of the risen sun.
She reached the deck to find not only Mr. Todd, but the greater number of the passengers, assembled to watch the gorgeous spectacle from the entrance of Honolulu Bay. Night had rolled up from the sleepy town, and surged in great sails of pearl-tinted cloud up dark blue-green gullies of the hills. Red scars of volcanic slopes burned through the morning, whole peaks seemed incandescent, and terraced gardens, cleared from lower mists, stood outlined in reflected orange light.
A few moments more, and the iridescent pageant vanished. Down on the shore, rude wharves and freight-sheds and cheap, new-painted boat-houses stared out impertinently. Back of the harbor front the little town nestled prettily enough in its setting of tropic greens, and half-way up the volcanic cliffs patches of tilled fields or clumps of forest-trees relieved the sandy wastes. At intervals a tall white house among its palms shone out like a child's block, half imbedded in moss.
As the ship touched the dock, and the company broke up to watch the native boys diving for coppers, Mrs. Todd gathered her clan together for a holiday on shore. Yuki had decided to wear a white American gown. Gwendolen also was in white, like a great lily. Dodge showed up in spotless duck and a pith helmet; Pierre wore immaculate flannels; while Mrs. Todd, in the stiffest of skirts, the thinnest of lawn waists, and a white linen Alpine hat a trifle too small, looked unfortunately like a perfume bottle with a white leather top.
They walked in radiant single-file down the gangway, the faces of all three women changing to sudden blankness at the appalling rigidity of earth, after recent days on a swaying deck. "I—I—don't believe I can walk at all, just yet,"said Mrs. Todd, and reached out for her natural protector. In an instant Dodge had whistled up two cabriolets driven by sleepy-eyed Kanakas in California hats. At the market, a low Spanish-looking edifice with no walls, Mrs. Todd insisted upon getting out. Some one on the ship had told her to be sure to see the market; and this the conscientious traveller intended to do, though the very peaks above them seemed to rock and leap with subconscious friskiness. Here thronged a mingled race, both buyers and sellers,—English, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiians, and Yankees. All the vegetable stands were owned by Chinese, all the fruit by Kanakas. Dodge insisted on the fact as eloquent of racial tendencies. In this magic climate the growth of vegetables is accompanied by an even more fervid growth of weeds, and so requires patient vigilance. Fruit, on the other hand, cultivates itself. "All the lordly Hawaiian has to do," said Dodge, "is to stand or sit under the tree, and let it fall into his lap." Gwendolen took the value from this last remark by indicating a heap of horny "jackfruit,"—a thing the shape and size of a watermelon, which grows out of the trunk, apparently, of live oaks, and asking, scornfully, how much Kanaka would be left when one of those had fallen.
The fish dealers' department gleamed with iridescent color. Shrimps and crabs seemed fashioned in Favrille glass. Lobsters wore polka-dots of blue. None of these crustacea had claws, but whether deprived of them by man or nature was never ascertained.
As they drove up the narrow avenues, the unique mixture of the population became more apparent. Chinese evidently formed the inferior caste of laborer, content with a daily wage. Cleverer Japanese bustled about newly opened shops of foreign wares, or hung out professional signs of doctor, lawyer, or notary public. The Yankee strolled about with a half-disdainful glance; but the lordliest was not so proud as the ragged sons of Kamehameha, who, preëmpting shady nooks in doorways, stared disapprovingly on the passer-by. In the grounds of the former "palace," members of a present legislature lolled on the green, and nibbled peanuts. Pert Kanaka girls, in New York shirt-waists and automobile veils, minced by the side offat mamas in Mother Hubbard gowns, generally of red, with huge ruffles about the yoke.
"Stop, Cy! Tell the man to stop. There's a druggist! I have several things to get!"
"And look! next to it a book-store advertising the latest novels," supplemented Gwendolen. "Doesn't that seem a joke? We must get some. I see souvenirs, and photographs, and—"
"I'll tell you what we'd better do. You women-folks get out and shop. Le Beau will stick to Yuki, I guess; while Dodge and I take this carriage around to the post-office,—I've heard there was one,—and try to find out the latest news about the war," cried Mr. Todd.
In a quarter of an hour they were back, breathless. "War's coming, and it's coming soon!" panted the senator.
"Yes, that's the ticket. Japan has called, and Russia must show her hand or crawfish," supplemented Dodge.
"But not really, really—yetbegun?" whispered Yuki, who had turned very pale.
"Whatdoesthe young man mean?" asked Mrs. Todd, anxiously, of her spouse. "I can't believe in irresponsible war rumors. Isha'n'tbelieve them. Why, only two days before we left Washington, Prince Breakitoff assured me solemnly that the difficulty would never be allowed to reach the point of war."
Mr. Todd winked toward his secretary. "Well," he said solemnly, "Prince Breakitoff ought to know more about the facts of the case than a Hawaiian newspaper."
"He certainlyoughtto," said Dodge, ambiguously.
"War! Who dares to hint of war?" cried Pierre. "Look at this sky above us, and that tangle of sun and shower dragging rainbow echoes across a peacock-colored bay! Who could be found to fight on such an earth? Do you not say so, too, my Yuki?"
Yuki started slightly, and hesitated, as if to form her words. Before she could speak, Dodge had interrupted: "As long as we are so close, would you-all mind walking one more block on foot? The prettiest sight in the town is just to the left of that jutting brick wall down there." He pointed. Mrs. Toddwas off. Yuki slipped in close to Gwendolen, and clung to her friend's arm. She did not want to think, just now, of war. Past new American shops they went, ice-cream "parlors," dry-goods displays of underwear,—"marked down" sales, of course,—and windows of ready-made gowns on insipid waxen dummies. Dodge had taken a few feet in advance. He now turned sharply, facing into a narrow street, one of the old native thoroughfares, bordered by walls of brick and stone where moss spread and dampness oozed. On an absurdly narrow pavement squatted a row of fat and shapeless beings, presumably women, half buried in wreaths and coils of strange flowers.
"Behold the far-famed lei sellers of Hawaii!" announced Dodge, with an histrionic gesture.
"I see no hens," said Mrs. Todd, through raised lorgnettes.
"These are a different brand of lei," explained Dodge, without a smile; "flower-wreaths that are to the hat of the Hawaiian dandy what an orchid or a gardenia is to the button-hole of a Fifth Avenue sport."
The sellers had sprung instantly into kneeling postures, all as if pulled by a single wire. Brown arms went forth, like those of crabs, flower hung. "Lei, lei, Honolulu lei! Prettie flower! Prettie ladees! Dollar—Fufty cents! Here, ladee, prettie lei, twunty-fi' cents!"
"Offer a quarter for three, and see them hustle," said Dodge.
"Oh, what visions of beauty!" breathed Gwendolen, and flung down silver coin at random. "See, ropes of carnations! Pink oleanders threaded into regular cables! And oh, the lovely yellow things,—my color,—golden acacias, I believe. I shall loop myself like an East Indian idol in these fragrant necklaces. And what are those purple things, and those? Why, why, I don't know the others at all. I thought I was friends with every flower. They smell like heaven!"
"Frangipani, ylang-ylang, stephanotis, plumaria, acacia," rattled Dodge, in the tone and manner of a professional guide.
"What a delightful courier you would make, Mr. Dodge!" cried saucy Gwendolen. "I think I'll bespeak your services, now, for my wedding journey."
"I'm jolly well apt to be along on that particular trip, you know," retorted the young man, with such cool assurance that all laughed—except Mrs. Todd. That good lady had begun to view, with some apprehension, the over-confident tactics of the attaché. Gwendolen, after an unsuccessful attempt to stare him "down," bent flushed cheeks and laughing eyes to the flowers. "We must all wearlei, of course," she cried, a trifle unsteadily. "It's positively the only thing to do on such a day! Yuki, pink carnations will be ravishing on your little white sailor-hat, and also, by a happy coincidence, on Pierre's new Panama. Dad, you and mother must have this divine stephanotis, mixed with a little smilax, for a green old age. Just think of buying strung stephanotis by the yard! And, Mr. Dodge,—last and not least, Mr. T. Caraway Dodge!—" Mockingly she caught up a string of magenta-colored "bachelor buttons," and would have offered them with a curtsey; but already Dodge had carefully wound his helmet in coils of acacia flowers until it had become, in shape and size, an old-fashioned beehive made of gold.
This time she presented her back squarely. The others withheld laughter until they should have read the expression on the chaperon's face. But she, oblivious apparently of this new bit of daring, had lorgnettes at her eyes, and was studying carefully a closely written list,—a composite of suggestions, made up for her by admiring ship friends. "Punch Bowl Crater, The Bishop Museum, Banana Plantations, Waki-ki Beach,—note colors on the shoals,—House where R. L. Stevenson resided," she was murmuring, as though to fix each in her memory. Suddenly she looked up. "Cyrus, the carriages! I doubt whether we can get them all in, but I intend to do my best."
"Mother!" began Gwendolen, in a note of protest. Yuki was smiling, and Pierre also. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. The countenance of Dodge, however, had an acrobatic fall from elation to horrified disappointment. At sight of this, Gwendolen actually glittered mischief.
"Certainly, mother dear," she hastened to answer. "Let us take everything in,—even a little more, if possible. We all need our minds improved,—and some of us our manners!"Dodge, darting a look into her face, found only trustful innocence. The carriages had arrived. With great ostentation he assisted Mrs. Todd into her place. "I think I shall be able to supply one or two interesting spots not down on that list," he suggested, with a tentative look at the empty cushion beside her. "Claus Spreckels' house, the Infirmary, the Honolulu University with miles of hedges made up of volcanic stone overgrown with night-blooming cereus—you mustn't miss that!" Dodge's eyes and his smile were frankness embalmed and irradiated. Mrs. Todd perforce smiled in reply. "Jump in," she said cordially. "You're quite a treasure in travelling, Mr. Dodge."
Gwendolen meekly took a rear seat by her father. As she pressed lovingly against him, sending upward the tiniest little teased smile of discomfiture, his face broke into merry wrinkles. "I think you've found your match this time, little girl," he whispered.
"You just wait," nodded the oracular Gwendolen.
It is a memorable experience, analogous to nothing else in the world, that landing, for one iridescent day, in the Pacific's mid-ocean, throwing one's fancies and one's heart into strange tropic scenes, and then returning at nightfall, like tired, happy children, to the great old mother-nursery of the ship.
By the next morning, not even a cloud on that horizon from which we are fleeing betrays the hiding-place of land. At once the island takes proper place as a vision, a mirage of the imagination, where souls of certain privileged beings have met, and are henceforth bound in a unity of mystic comradeship. After such a day, Pacific passengers turn to one another with kindlier smiles, the whole ship changes into one heaving picnic party, old Time himself joins in the holiday, and personal dislikes, brought on board, are flung to the waves. That most of these animosities, like the Biblical bread, return to the owners after not so many days, need not affect present hilarity.
As may be supposed, Gwendolen and her closest attendant, Dodge, were small whirling centres in the round of gay diversions.The conventional deck-games were started, and a terminating three days of competitive skill, with prizes bought at Honolulu and marked with the name of the ship and date of voyage, duly announced. Revelry was to culminate in a grand "fancy dress ball," the night before landing, a prize being given to the costumer who showed most skill in fashioning his or her attire from things procurable on board ship, and in carrying out the character assumed. In order to waste no more time upon this function, it may be stated that Mr. T. Caraway Dodge as "Dandy Jim,"—with painted purple rings on a dress shirt and a "claw-hammer" coat a size too small, ebony countenance, lips like two flaming sausages caught loosely at the ends, and a wig fashioned from the hair of his bunk mattress,—sang and cake-walked himself straight to the prize, while defeated contestants rent night with applause and acclamation.
From the smoking-room an incessant clinking, as of fairy castanets, fretted the ears of feminine curiosity. Mr. Todd explained that it was merely the sound of checkers and chessmen rattling to the shiver of the ship's screw.
The sun came up each morning, small and round, like a mandarin orange; expanded himself into a blinding deity; and at evening went down again, a blood-red orange, into the sea. The days he brought were long and golden, but not long enough for all the practising of bull-board, quoits, shuffle-board, and deck tennis. Each morning, after breakfast, certain acrobatic performances, free of charge, were held. Bag-punching was the children's favorite. One could count on an audience there, of upturned faces, wide-eyed and solemn with admiration. Some of the passengers saw fit to attach pedometers, and walk an incredible number of miles each day.
In the evening, Mrs. Todd and bridge whist reigned supreme. The Captain proved to be a player; so, to his present anguish, was Dodge. Gwendolen took an elfish delight in luring this young man to a table, under pretence of desiring to be his partner, and then, at the last moment, slipping in a foreordained substitute; after which she sped off, carolling, to a moonlit deck. Once there, the fuming and impotent Dodge recognized only too clearly what she would do. Atleast a dozen new acquaintances of the other sex had been made thus far by Gwendolen. It was her wont to dispense Emersonian philosophy and delicately portioned encouragement to those who were fortunate enough to secure her companionship. There was a young Dutch merchant on his way to coffee plantations in Java, very blond and fierce as to mustachios, and mild in the eyes. A Chicago representative, on his way to sell to Eastern potentates his particular make of automobile, had already needed, to quote Gwendolen's own, words, "a slight slackening of speed."
An English "leftenant" returning to South Africa, carried with him his own marvellous outfit for the making of afternoon tea, backed by a mammoth English plum-cake in a tin box. He was one to be propitiated, especially toward eight bells on an afternoon.
An Austrian viscount posed as the slayer of jungle beasts. "Beeg gam," he called them. He doted upon seeing this timid and shrinking maid cower beneath the bloody wonder of his yarns. No one before had inspired such thrilling denouements as Mees Todd. He recognized her at once for his affinity, and on the night before landing condescended to tell her so. The shock was rude, but he deserved what he got.
Pierre and Yuki joined in these several amusements and occupations during the morning and afternoon hours, both being much petted and nattered by the ladies of the ship, as beau ideals of young lovers. In the evenings, on the balmy deck, they were left to themselves. Wonderful talks grew between them,—whispers, sometimes, that the jealous wind tore from their lips before the last word came. Yuki had not won back the half-troth given, nor, on the other hand, had Pierre gained more.
Often their talk was of impersonal things. The young man delighted to draw from Yuki quaint phrases of comment, and hints of the Oriental imagery with which her fancy thrilled. She told him the story of the stars, Vega and Aquilla, called in her land the Herd-Boy and the Weaver-Girl; how, for some fault, committed before this little earth was made, they could cross the milky stream of Heaven, and meet, but one night in a year.
When he pointed to a flock of flying fish skimming in a blue and silver phantasy above a turquoise floor, she called them the souls of birds that had flown too far from land, and been drowned at sea.
Within a few days of landing, a certain change, perceptible, it may be, only to the most sensitive, crept into the elements of air and water, and tinged even the up-piling clouds. Yuki stared now, for long moments, in silence, toward that hidden bank of the West. Pierre felt a change in her; but when he questioned, she laughed a little nervously, and said it was merely the outer edge of Nippon's "aura." Undoubtedly she was restless, a little moody, a trifle excited, and touched, at times, with brooding thoughts. She dreaded the opening with Pierre of topics which, all along, she had tried to avoid. Yet now, so close to home, she must make stronger efforts to free herself.
One afternoon at sundown, when the great reverberating "dressing gong" had sent most of the ladies below-stairs, Pierre, hurrying up to Yuki, where, for a half-hour past she had sat alone in a far corner of the deck looking outward, leaned and said:
"This promises to be the most wonderful sunset of all. It may be our last. The Captain has just told me that, with good luck, we sight land to-morrow. Do you dare come out with me to the very prow of the ship?"
"Yes, I dares," smiled Yuki, rising instantly. "I have wished often to go to that small, lonely point of ship." As they started, he caught up a discarded wrap. "The wind is fresher there," he said.
In a few moments she remarked, in a slightly embarrassed tone, "That will be a very good place to say—something."
Pierre made no reply. He also had been thinking of it as an excellent place in which to say—something.
Together, in silence, they made way over the aerial bridge that connects the triangular front deck with the main one; moving over the heads of steerage passengers, principally Chinese, who squatted in the sunken square to breathe in what they could of the cool, evening breeze. The sun was setting,—"a polished copper gong like that ship one which makesmuch noise," said Yuki. It sank, clear-cut and very round, just at that point of the horizon where Nippon might be thought to lie.
Pierre placed the girl in the small angle at the peak. An arm was stretched behind her, and a hand clung to the rail, to protect them both. He leaned forward until his cheek almost pressed against her own. The soft incessant rush of wind blew her heavy hair back from a forehead spiritually pure and white. Her long, delicately modelled nose and small curved chin made a cameo against the blue-gray stone of dusk. Pierre, watching her intently, saw the last red ray of the sun quiver on her lips. The little hands were raised, as if unconsciously, and clapped thrice, very softly.
"Are you praying to your sun-god, little Christian Yuki?"
"Oh, no, indeed," said Yuki, quickly. "It is not prayer as we Christians call praying; it is only just our Japanese way of thanking Sun San for his great beauty, and the much good he does flowers, and people, and everything. In Japan we often thanks things just for being beautiful." She smiled up confidingly into his face. Her little hands, now lowered, flecked the rail like bits of white foam.
"Then I should pray to you, my darling, for in all this world never was anything more beautiful."
She made no effort to answer this, not even by her usual small, deprecating smile and shake of the head. The necessity of what she was to say, blotted from those first moments by visual beauty, now came heavily back to her. She steadied herself, turning slightly to see his face.
"Pierre, trust me a little more. Give back that promise,—the promise you won from my weakness. It holds me from my path like a thorn. Our cause will be better without it."
Pierre started, and looked at the girl incredulously. "Have you let me lead you here deliberately to ask me such a thing?"
"Do not admit anger to your thought, dear Pierre," she pleaded. "I must have said some time. I should have said to you long before this; but we have been so—happy."
"Yes," said Pierre, doggedly. "We have been happy; and I intend that we shall be happier still. That promiseis all I have to hold you by. I'd draw it tighter if I could."
"You will not understand,—you will not try to understand me," said the girl, in a despairing voice. "Such promise given is disrespect to my parents, particularly to my father. If you do not release, I must tell to him, of course. It will be bad for you and me. Can you not trust me? Oh, Pierre, for love's sake, release—!"
"Release you!" he interrupted wildly. "This is my answer. It is for love's sake that I hold you, and will hold." He seized her in his arms, and held her with cruel strength. The night had come in fast. He did not care that the watchman by the tall, straight mast might see them. No one could hear the wind-driven, hurrying words. "This is my answer. I hold thus all you have given,—and more. You are sincere, I believe, but mistaken. A weak yielding on my part would make your parents, and perhaps yourself, despise me. I keep what I have, I say, and I demand still more. You must be true to me, no matter what occurs!"
"Pierre, Pierre, you trample on your own hope, though you will not see it! To release me generously is your own best way!"
"You are the self-deceived," cried Pierre. "Pledge yourself irrevocably. Then only are we strong."
In the western sky an orange strip of day remained. A single bird, black against the glow, flew screaming across it, beating curved wings in the wind. "He will not see at all," whispered Yuki, as if to the bird.
"Oh, dearest, you cannot know in your calm, innocent heart the scourge of a love like mine! I hunger for you, I thirst! Sobbing, I dream of you, and I wake to new tears that you are still so far away. In pity, in mere mercy to human suffering, say that no other man shall marry you. Say this much at least, that if prejudice and war hold us apart awhile, you will be true to me until we can seek some new road to happiness!"
"Do I not know,—do I not know?" she shivered, in answer to the first part of his speech. "Every day my heart is torn to small pieces, all of different size and shape. I do notunderstand how in sleep they come together once more. You are not lonely in that human suffering."
"Oh, you love me!" cried the man. "And on this voyage you love me as you had not done before! Is it not true?"
"It is true," sobbed Yuki.
"Mine is not love," said Pierre, again holding her fast; "it is hell,—a raging hell of ecstasies! Oh, kiss me, Yuki; give me your lips before I die of joy! Now swear,—swear,—that no word but my own,—no circumstance but death, can loose you from me!"
"You torture like the old monks," she panted. "Oh, do not make me say!"
"I command you, Yuki," he persisted, feeling new strength as she faltered. "It is my right. We belong to each other. Promise,—promise,—promise,—nothing but death or my word to loose you!" He kissed her again and again, like a madman, pressing his lips down upon hers, catching her hands to kiss, devouring her eyes, cheeks, forehead, hair; while the girl, beaten down by the whirlwind, made no effort to resist.
Pierre took the long white ivory pin from her hair, and split it, thrusting the smaller portion into his coat, and returning that, with the ornament still attached, to her hair.
"I take this pledge, Yuki," he cried. "You have told me that it binds to the death a Japanese lover. We are bound. I hold you by a tangible bond. The next shall be a small, bright circle on this little hand. Give me the promise, Yuki,—no need to struggle now. Give it me!"
"Kwannon protect me," gasped the girl; "I promise!"
A sudden vacuum fell. Pierre's breath was hard to recapture. He thought that Yuki had fainted, for her trembling had stopped. He shook one shoulder and bent down to gaze into her set, white face. Her eyes were wide open, and held two stars. She moved her lips now, and leaned far outward, gazing intently, as if watching the flight of an unseen thing.
"Yuki, Yuki, what is it,—what do you see?" he cried, in terror.
"My soul! I think a small soul fled!" All at once shecollapsed into unconsciousness. As Pierre lifted her, he shook springing tears away, and bit his quivering lips as he muttered,—"I feel as if I tortured a child; but she does not realize our perils. Her fast promise is our only hope. Thank God that I could win it!"
Thenearness of land as yet invisible gave to the ship next morning that access of animation noted in the approach to Hawaii, and in the day-distant interval from the Golden Gate.
Most of the passengers, scorning to notice a few rough waves, buzzed or moved in groups about the deck. Games were put away. Marine glasses and kodaks came into vogue. Gwendolen's bright eyes, with a pair equally alert and bright beside them, strained vision for the first land. The increase of motion, however slight, served to excuse Yuki's absence. Two persons only assigned a different reason,—her roommate, Gwendolen, and her fiancé, Pierre Le Beau.
Pierre had not breakfasted in the salon,—a fact noted by Gwendolen. He came to the upper deck very late, and lacked his usual eager look. Gwendolen saw him instantly. Making some excuse to the group about her, she went to him, saying in her direct, disconcerting way,—"What have you done to my Yuki-ko? She did not sleep all night, and I am sure she was crying! To cry is an unknown thing for Yuki."
Pierre met her indignation with pathetic sweetness. He smiled. It was difficult to be harsh with Pierre. He looked past her to the shining water. "If Yuki did not speak of her feeling, should I, even though I knew?" he asked, with the extreme of gentleness.
Gwendolen flushed under the implied rebuke. Her purpose, however, was not turned aside. "Yuki is a person whose confidence or whose love should not be forced. From what I know of you both, I believe you coaxed and persuaded her, last night, into some new pledge that her own heart shrank from giving. If this is true, allow me to tell you that you have made a fatal error, Pierre Marie Le Beau."
Pierre wheeled to the sea. It was as well that she could not see his face. No longer gentle, it flared into a cruel anger. His sole answer was the slightest, most exasperating of shrugs.
Gwendolen saw these signs of irritation, and cried to herself, "Halt." With a laugh that was quite successful for its kind she exclaimed, "Come, Pierre, we must not quarrel just because we both love Yuki. I know I seem rude, but I became Yuki's champion at school, and the habit clings. Forgive me for Yuki's sake."
He took the slim, outstretched hand and kissed it, but allowed himself no further words. The girl felt baffled and uncomfortable. She recalled a saying of her father's, "Free speech is a luxury possible only to those whose opinions mean nothing." She felt herself herded with that undesirable class.
"Well, I must get back to them," she cried, nodding in the direction of the group lately deserted. "I promised them I'd come back at once."
"Is Yuki indisposed this morning?" asked Pierre. "May I not expect her on deck?"
His tone was condescending. Gwendolen writhed under it. "She'll be up in half an hour, I guess," she gave answer, and hurried away, rubbing the back of her hand against her dress as she went.
Dodge made room for her at the rail. She wedged herself in place with a sigh of content. "Look hard, now!" whispered her companion. "The others haven't a hint. Yes, right out there in front,hard!"
Gwendolen stared obediently. Surely there was something strange, prophetic on that far blue rim. "Is it—oh, can it be—that little roughened thread in the warp and woof of blue—is it—Japan?"
The rumor spun about the ship,—was caught up in whispers,—tangled,—tossed on to the next group. "Japan,—some one has seen Japan!"
Men, with feet very much apart, steadied themselves behind beetle-like marine glasses. "By Jove, there she is!" The waves outside fawned and bounded in answering excitement.Dolphins leaped high in air. A whole fleet of "Portuguese men-o'-war" rose to the surface and scurried on before them as if leading a swifter way.
"I shall simply pass away with ecstasy!" cried Gwendolen. "Oh, why doesn't Yuki come? Look, Mr. Dodge; I believe I see sails—away off there, between us and the phantom land!"
"Doubtless a squad of detached fishing-smacks," said Dodge, with that courier-like precision which seemed part of him on land or in sight of land.
"Oh! oh! oh!" shrieked she, jumping up and down like a child. "We are rushing straight for one. It has a square sail laced across the slits with white shoestrings. Oh, we are going to run it down!"
"Mydear!" remonstrated Mrs. Todd at the girl's impetuous manner. Her own kindly face beamed.
"Not on your life," said Dodge the Oracle. "They know how to look out for number one. You just watch 'em." Even as he spoke the small skiff darted impudently into the very shadow of their looming bulk, and sped off again like a swallow. Two impassive brown faces lifted for an instant from the great shining heap of bonito in the bottom of the boat, and were lowered.
"Not much floral-anchor business about those two, eh, Captain?" asked Mr. Todd, genially, of that magnate, as he strolled toward them.
"I admit the coast population to be amphibious," laughed the Captain, "but you can't make admirals out of fishermen. Miss Gwendolen, it will soon be time to look for Few-ji."
"Oh, oh!" cried Gwendolen again. She was made up, this morning, of wind-tossed golden hair and expletives. "Certainly no one ever saw it, truly, at such a distance!"
"I have," boasted Dodge. "On a clear day I've seen the thing a hundred miles off, when it looked like a little white tee on a blue golf links, don't you know."
"Golf links!" echoed Gwendolen. "What an unworthy simile!"
"Why not links?—first-class thing, a good links! Don't you play, Miss Todd?"
"No," answered Gwendolen, truthfully, "I don't play, but I like to pose, the costumes are so utterly fetching; and I dote on standing with my driver behind me, like girls in illustrated picture papers."
She turned to search the shimmering horizon for the vision it would not yield. "Oh, where is that mountain! I wish Yuki would come. It might appear directly for Yuki-ko."
"Here is Yuki," said the low, strange voice that could have belonged to no other.
Gwendolen seized her. "Good-morning, Miss Onda," smiled Dodge. "Now we are all fit. Kindly invoke your enchanted summit to our wondering gaze. I have been told that it was bad luck to land after a long journey without a glimpse of Fuji-san."
"I think the bad luck for only Nipponese," said Yuki.
"And the good luck too, I presume, if it turns that way? How inhospitable!"
"Yes, I think so. The good luck and the bad luck," was Yuki's serious reply.
Pierre, strolling at the rear end of the passenger deck, must have seen Yuki. He made no sign, however, and continued to stroll alone, smoking cigarettes, with a pleasant look or reply for any chance acquaintance, but a mind evidently involved in its own problems.
Neither of the girls saw him. They leaned together now upon the rail. Gwendolen had an arm about her friend. Together they stared out toward the land. Dodge had been called away. Mr. and Mrs. Todd were seated, the former carefully counting out bills for various "tips" soon to be distributed. The schoolmates were practically alone.
The land showed clearly now its hill and rock formation. Layer after layer, set upright from the sea, vanished into hazy distance. Promontory after promontory tapered down at the far point to a surf-beaten line of rocks. Farther peaks rose in tones of blue,—some thin as water, others rich and dark, like great gentians. On the nearer hills, forests and shaven spots of green appeared. The water around them shone and stirred with sails, the square-laced sails of junks. Bronze-colored boatmen, scantily clad, stood on the swayingedge of a boat and shaded their eyes to peer upward at the strange, white-faced "seiyo-jin." Among the junks, sailless sampan, propelled by one crooked oar, tumbled like queer sea-beetles with a single jointed leg.
"Gwendolen," said Yuki, in a very low voice, "do you see a long, green patch, like moss, over on that brown slope?"
"Yes; I was thinking it looked like curled parsley."
"That is really a forest,—quite a big little forest,—made of sugi, and camphor, and camellia trees. Listen; I thought then that I heard the deep sound of a bell!"
"I hear nothing but water and the wind."
"It was the temple bell," insisted Yuki. "And now, dear, look more close. Do you not see, right on the edge of beach, a small red something?"
"Why, yes; there is a little square of red like the framework of a door."
"It is torii,—red torii, or sacred gate; and beyond that gate are many, many stone steps leading up to the temple. Ah! such steps as those,—so quiet, so deep, so still! They lead the heart up before ever the clumsy feet have climbed."
A little steam launch, bearing the flag of the rising sun, came puffing and squealing toward them. The ship's steps were lowered. Grave, correct Japanese officers took possession. Their news was astounding. War's breath already heated the land. The Japanese minister at St. Petersburg even then made preparation for instant departure, and his Russian colleague in Yedo did the same. The severance of diplomatic relations between the countries meant, of course, no less than a declaration of war.
From the moment of hearing this, neither Mr. Todd nor his secretary had a thought for anything besides,—no, not even for pretty Gwendolen, who, for a while, sulked alone, then, seeing it useless, sought consolation in engaging herself to all the unmarried male passengers, one after the other, and most of the ship's officers, irrespective of connubial ties.
Pierre and Yuki had met, neither looking with entire frankness into the eyes of the other. To Yuki the promise given meant a haircloth shirt beneath her robe of gladness,a stone dragging her back from flight. To Pierre it was, in all sincerity, their one substantial pledge of future happiness. He was the man. It was for him to judge, not Yuki; and he believed the very reluctance with which she gave the word, a proof of its necessity. It was characteristic of both that no reference was made to the subject most vital in their thoughts. Yuki watched with apparent composure the slow approach to Yokohama Bay, Awa's cone-shaped masses, and the long, green northern coast fading into eastern haze. Fuji had not shone for them,—in spite of a cloudless day. "It sometimes went away like that," Yuki had assured the disappointed ones. "Children thought that it went visiting to the gardens of the gods."
The harbor channel was free. The ship went slowly, majestically, like a great deliberate swan, sheer to the stone steps of the wharf. Yuki's reserve faltered. "My people,—oh, my dear people! I think I see their faces in that waiting crowd!" they heard her whisper. She stretched out her arms. A sob choked in her throat. Four years,—four long, long years, and yet how familiar the look of her native land! The little wind-bent pines along the stone dyke had not changed a leaf. Those long, waiting rows of empty jinrikishas might hold one that had been waiting for her through an hour of shopping in the foreign stores of Yokohama. And, oh, the dear welcoming friends there on the steps!
Their party was the first to cross the platform of the lowered flight of stairs. Yuki touched the first stone step, and gazed eagerly above her. Yes, that was her mother, that gentlest, sweetest, most beautiful face among them all! Behind her stood Onda Tetsujo, Yuki's father, with his plain blue robes, and gray, nobly poised head.
"Mother! Okkasan,—Shibaraku!" (How long the absence!) cried the girl, with a broken note of rapture in her voice. Bounding up the steps, she clasped and was clasped again by the slender gray figure. Tetsujo drew back, a fleeting look of perplexity in his face. He had not recognized Yuki, thus seen, for the first time, in her perfectly adapted foreign garments; but Iriya had known, from the moment her eyes caught the small brown-clad figure at the rail. The motherin her swept away, for the instant, high barriers of Japanese etiquette. She clung to her child, fondling her, pressing trembling lips to the soft young cheeks, and murmuring, "My baby,—my little one,—my treasure, who has come back to me!"
A moment later they had drawn apart, both with wet eyes and quivering lips, and small, bashful side-looks of love; for such public demonstration is practically unknown among samurai women. Already these two were a little ashamed of it. Tetsujo realized at last that it was his daughter, but, because of her strange conduct, wore still an uncomprehending wrinkle between his heavy brows.
The Todd party, Pierre and Mr. T. Caraway Dodge included, came hesitatingly near. The Japanese crowd drew back, some in distaste, some in politeness, some because their own friends had arrived, and there was no longer a reason for staying. Yuki, with a hand on Gwendolen's arm, began the introductions. When it came to the two young men, she hesitated slightly. Her father's deep, keen eyes rested on the faces first of one, then of the other. The two names, as she hurried them over, were practically unintelligible.
Kind-hearted Mrs. Todd, observing Yuki's embarrassment and feeling that she had at least a hint as to its cause, rushed gallantly into the breech. Her efforts centred on shrinking Mrs. Onda. "Are you really Yuki's mother?" she demanded in a loud, playful voice. "You look to me like her sister. I wouldn't believe, unless I were told, that you had more than five years between you."
Yuki threw a glance of gratitude toward the speaker. "Mother, Mrs. Todd says that you appear augustly young to be indeed the daughter of a big girl like me."
Iriya flushed and bowed, looking more than ever like her daughter. She answered in Japanese, "Please honorably to thank the lady for her compliment, but acquaint her with the fact that I am already lamentably old. On my next birthday I shall be thirty-nine."
Tetsujo, having accomplished his share of stiff bows,—not forgetting an extra one for the new American minister,—said to his daughter, "My child, we are indeed happy to welcomeyou. Now thank your good friends in my name. Suitable presents shall be sent them. We must depart for Yedo." He moved one finger toward three waiting jinrikisha men near-by, and the vehicles, like magic, stood beside him.
"Now, already it must be 'Sayonara.' My father desires me to go," said Yuki, and smiled a little tremulously from one foreign face to another. These farewells at the end of a long and pleasant journey are never careless things to say. "Of course I will see all—every one—very soon!"
"Yuki! Why, we never thought of this. You mustn't leave us so!" cried Gwendolen, in consternation.
"No!" added Pierre, with more vehemence. "It isn't to be thought of. Tell your father that we are counting on you for the day." He stepped close to her. Yuki instinctively shrank. The puzzled look came again to the face of Tetsujo.
"Be careful, Pierre! Look at his face! You will make a false move at the start," came Gwendolen's whisper.
"Do you expect me to stand here patiently and see her carried away? Non! Mon Dieu, it was to have been the consecrating day of our lives! I do not give it up. I will try speaking myself with her father."
"Gwendolen is right. Do not speak!" panted Yuki.
But Pierre was not one to relinquish bliss so easily. No move seemed to him quite as undesirable as the one about to take place. Facing the astonished samurai, he began a series of bows which he fondly conceived to embody the finer points of both French and Japanese etiquette.
"Monsieur Onda,—Onda San," he commenced eagerly, "Miss Yuki must not go. Ikimasen! Stay here with friends,—tomodachi. She can go your house—afternoon. Please do not take her now."
Onda looked blankly and in silence upon the antics of the strange creature. Not one gleam of comprehension enlivened his fixed gaze.
"Here, man, let me get to him," said Dodge, thrusting himself in front of Pierre. "I'll translate what you are trying to say, though it isn't a particle of use. Shall I go on?"
"Merci."
Speaking slowly, in fairly good Japanese, Dodge said, "Wehaving hoped to enjoy the company of your daughter on this first day of landing, I am requested to entreat your august permission to allow her to remain. If you and your wife will join our party also, we shall feel honored by your condescension." "Never told a bigger lie in my life!" was his mental note after this last remark.
Tetsujo replied by the courtesy of a stiff bow. With no further glance or word for the speaker, he stepped up into his jinrikisha, and once seated, said to Yuki, "Reply to the speech of the foreigner, my child."
"I am to go with my parents, of course," said Yuki, nervously. "I wish it. I did not know you were planning so sure for me to remain. I must go now, at once, but will see you as soon as I may, to-morrow, or perhaps this very afternoon."
Iriya had bowed to the foreigners and entered her jinrikisha immediately after Tetsujo. Yuki now climbed into the remaining one, neither Dodge nor Pierre retaining enough self-possession to assist her. The three coolies caught up the shafts for starting.
"Here, stop, stop!" cried Gwendolen, springing forward. "Yuki, we don't even know your Tokio address!"
Tetsujo gave a gesture and a "cluck." The coolies sprang into action.
"Ko-ishikawa, Kobinata, Shi—jū—" trailed off Yuki's voice into the rattling of the streets.
"The ogre! I'll catch the next train for Tokio," cried Pierre.
"Better stay with us and see about your baggage, Pierre," said Mr. Todd, speaking for the first time. "The girl should go with her people, and you know it."
"But, poor boy," said Mrs. Todd, soothingly, her hand touching his arm, "I know how he has counted on seeing the sights with Yuki."
Onda Tetsujo's spoken order had been "stenshun!" (station), for so have the Japanese incorporated our familiar word. A train was just leaving for Yedo. Three second-class tickets were bought, and the kuruma-men overpaid and dismissed. Had they been merely "paid," a later train would have been taken.
The short encounter on the Yokohama pier evidently remainedin the master's mind as a most disagreeable impression. While in no sense a stupid man, the quality of Onda's intellect was torpid rather than alert. Things came to him slowly, and remained long.
It happened that their train was a "local," stopping at all the small intermediate stations. Between Yokohama and the next stop,—Kanagawa,—not a word was spoken. Yuki felt bewildered, dazed, distressed. What had happened? What was spoiling her home-coming? The promise was not all, for here were her parents, moody and ill at ease, and they as yet knew nothing of her pledge. Surely the few injudicious words Pierre tried to speak should not have wrought all this. Poor Pierre, with his hurt blue eyes and outstretched hand of longing! Well, the American girls used to say that true love never did run smooth. Here she gave a sigh so deep that Iriya started. All three gazed heavily from the windows, only half seeing the villages sweep past, and the wide, gleaming rice-fields in their winter flood, and the long edge of Yedo Bay set with pines, and flecked with shining sails. The gaudy fluttering of small banners above the tea booths of Kawasaki brought a momentary light of pleasure into the girl's eyes. It died down as quickly. Her father's averted face clouded her sun. Yet unconsciously the charm and the glamour of the country was stealing back. At Omori, perhaps the most beautiful of these suburban villages, their compartment, being toward the rear of the train, stopped, it would seem, in the very midst of a grove of "umè" flowers, just coming into bloom. It is an old orchard, knowing many generations of loving care. It is trimmed and tended for beauty alone, the small sour fruit called by foreigners "plums" being uneatable, and no more to the Japanese marketer than are "rose-apples" to us. The trees, set close together so that tips of branches met, were entirely leafless, and frosted over with a delicate lichen growth. On this silver filigree of boughs the blossoms shone, white, crimson, or pink,—translucent gems of flowers. The odor, stealing softly to Yuki in little throbs, smote her as with an ecstasy of remembrance. There is no subtler necromancer than perfume. Through it the past may be reconstructed, dead love quiver into life, and sorrow,often more precious than joy itself, steal back like a loving ghost.
Yuki seemed to wake suddenly, as from a troubled sleep. "Why," she cried to herself, "I am at home again! This is Japan!" She sat upright now, eager and vivid, looking from one window to another, a new brightness in her face. The locomotive, which had been restlessly inactive for a few moments past, gave a long, shrill whistle, drew itself together, and prepared for another run. Just as the wheels were turning, a broad-faced woman of the peasant class, with a fat baby on her back, a toddler of two years led by one hand, and a pair of squawking geese held in the other, wriggled herself through the turnstile and waved the shrieking fowls, as signal for the train to stop. The gatekeeper, clutching after her, seized a limb of the sleeping infant. Instantly a human scream added to the clamor of the geese. Heads were thrust from car windows,—the guard, dropping the infant's leg, seized its mother by the sash. He chanced to be a small man, she an unusually large woman. As a consequence she dragged him after her. At this sight a train official, leaning as far outward as he could for laughing, signalled the engineer to "back." The victorious one hurled herself and her living burdens into an already overcrowded third-class car. A place was made for her, not without many exclamations, such as "Domo! Osoi!" (It is late.) "Kodomo-san itai ka!" (Is Mr. Baby hurt?) and a few gruff sounds of "Iya desu yo!" (How disagreeable!) The locomotive, as if conscious of a good deed, tooted more loudly than before, and made another start.
Yuki sparkled with delight. "Think of a train official doing that in America!" she laughed aloud.
Iriya's answering smile was pathetic in its quickness of response. She moved closer, pressing against Yuki's smart, foreign shoulder. The two began to watch, like happy children, the passing scenes.
Tetsujo drew forth his pipe and smoked himself into serenity. He listened now to what the women said. There were other passengers, of course, but Tetsujo and his companions had preëmpted a little corner in the rear. Iriya spoke of old Suzumè, who was waiting so impatiently at home to see hercharge,—of little Maru San, a distant connection of Suzumè, who, since Yuki's departure, had been employed as maid-of-all-work about the house. Messages of welcome from friends and relatives were given. At the last, dropping her voice impressively, Iriya spoke of the coming war. "It is inevitable," she said. "Prince Haganè informed Tetsujo only this morning. There can be no doubt."
The old scenes, the old interests, glowed anew in the girl's heart. Really they had never left it, but, like certain writing, illegible except in warmth, the pictures slept until the breath of her own land awaked them. She had a strange sense of being slowly turned back to a child. In an English fairy-book a certain Alice could grow tall or short at will by nibbling at a magic mushroom. There had always been magic mushrooms in the East, long, long before that book was written,—strange mountain growths which are the only food of the ghost deer that attend the genii of the forest. Perhaps the little brown sembei which she had just bought at Omori from an insistent peddler was, in reality, a scrap of an enchanted mushroom. Perhaps she was really turning back into the little Japanese Yuki who had never been to America at all, who had never known a foreign lover, or given a promise which her reason told her to refuse. Her heart stopped beating for an instant. She took a second bite of sembei. Again the trouble faded. Yes, surely, it was a magic mushroom.
Now merry talk flowed from her smiling lips. Tetsujo moved nearer. She called him "Chichi Sama," as in baby days, and her mother "Haha San."
The train made its final stop. A torrent of blue-robed occupants poured out from every car. The sound of wooden clogs upon the concrete floor was like innumerable hollow shells scraped, lip down, upon an empty box. Yuki's heart swept in with the throng. She loved the noise, the bare station, the hissing car, the very dust of the travellers' feet. Tetsujo and Iriya exchanged glances behind her back, and smiled. Their eyes said, "This is our dear one,—our own; not an American changeling, but the daughter for whom we have been yearning."