Now, even when Arisuga had spoken of marriage, he had the thought that it would probably not be longer than for his stay in China. At his going there would be a happy understanding that this meant divorce and that she might marry again. For he was bound by his oath to the great death, that she knew; and if this were to be all, it mattered little that Hoshiko was an eta. In China it was not heinous.
Yet even thus early the thought of some one else finding this wild flower when he was gone as he had found it—and, alas! of doing as he was about to do—he did not like that. He did not like his part in it. It haunted his dreams there in the room next to her and he woke.
She was sobbing. Then he heard her mother:
"Here is the sword," she said, in a voice hard as steel. "Be brave! First pray!"
"Yes," sobbed Hoshiko.
Arisuga crashed through the paper wall between them like the thunder-god. Before him was Hoshiko, preparing the sword for its work. About her, on the floor, was spread the pitiful evidence that she had tried to improvise a trousseau out of her funeral garments. There was a sheer white kimono of silk, the sleeves of which she had lengthened to the wedding size. (Death and marriage are both white in Japan.) She had just laid it down. It was with this—all useless now—that she had wrapped the sword. Above her stood her mother.
"What does this mean?" demanded Arisuga, taking the sword from Hoshiko.
"My mother wishes me to die," sobbed the girl.
"And you?" asked Arisuga, savagely.
"I wish to live. To marry you, lord."
"There are no wedding garments," said the mother.
"Nor any funeral garments now!" said Arisuga, slashing them with the sword.
"You wish my daughter for only a little while—then go!"
"That is my affair. Itakeher!"
"O Jizo," Hoshiko whispered within herself, "I thank you! Do not let your mercy stop! Perhaps—perhaps—O Benten!"
"You become an eta if you marry her," Hoshiko's mother was saying.
"In Japan," admitted Arisuga. "That is the way the unwise men of old worked to prevent the marriage of etas—and so blot out the caste. But this is China."
And now as the young soldier looked down upon the pitiful little heap at his side, a great shame rose in his soul that he had ever thought of marrying her for a little while, and, quite like Arisuga, he rushed in his penitence from one extreme to the other.
"By all the eight hundred thousand gods, I will marry her for all my lives!"
No adjuration, no promise, could be greater than that. Some men had sworn fealty to a woman for two lives—some for three or four—and it was said that once a man had sworn to love a great poetess for seven lives; but no one had ever yet, so it was said, sworn his love, much less marriage, for all his lives. Yet even this did not stop the savage mother of Hoshiko, bent upon her daughter'shonorable death rather than her dishonorable marriage.
"How will you assure me of this?" demanded she.
"By nothing but my word," said Shijiro, with all his samurai's haughtiness.
"Gods! Gods! How mighty and wise you are, lord!" sobbed Hoshiko, kissing his feet.
"But you will not be satisfied to live in China. You will take her to Japan, where both will be accursed etas," went on the implacable mother. "You are a soldier."
"I am a soldier," answered Shijiro Arisuga. "In the army there is neither eta nor samurai. All are equal. All are sons of the emperor. This is Yamato Damashii. The New Japan! And I am Shijiro Arisuga! That is the end!"
And it was the end. Here was a soldier who could vanquish the Medusa mother of Hoshiko by the cold process of words.
"Witnesses! Saké! I will not leave this lady again until she is my wife!"
And so terrible was this Shijiro Arisuga in his wrath that everything happened as he ordered—and they were married. I wish they might have lived happily ever after. But it was onlya few glad weeks. Yet, in those little days and hours, she did what she had threatened: crept into his heart so deeply that he was never to dislodge her quite until he died. And it was here Shijiro Arisuga thought for the second time, without suspicion to mar it, that the happiest moment of his life had come.
Fancy the joy of it all! Sure, I cannot tell it. I have no fit words. It was infinitely better than either had dreamed. The dainty little creature known as Hoshiko bloomed into splendor as Madame Shijiro—perhaps because she had no thought—absolutely none—for anything but him. And he was daily more and more amazed at the number of thoughts he spent upon her, who, he had once fancied, he could leave behind for some one else—for many others.
Indeed, it came to such a state that he had little thought for anything but her. The military death was forgotten—Yoné was.
"Now if we dream," he laughed to her one day, "take heed that we do not wake. For this dream is such as I have never dreamed before. In it are perfumes and melodies, caresses and touches, passions and calms, sleeps and wakings, and all delights."
"And you," laughed his wife, flinging herself upon him.
"And you," he laughed back, not putting her away.
"And that thing the foreigners call love."
"Grown larger in our sunny East than they know it in their chilly West!" added her husband.
But the little paradise she had made for him there was one day invaded by two soldiers with some mysterious order, the command of which was that he must rejoin his regiment at once, though there was now no war.
"It is 'on to the emperor,'" laughed Arisuga, "and I must go. I had forgotten—thankyou! Forgotten the emperor! The death!"
"Is it far to the emperor?" asked his little wife.
"Yes," sighed and laughed Arisuga, rubbing her cheek against his—you know they were of precisely the same height.
"And there is danger?"
"Oh, yes," said her husband, indifferently.
"If you should be killed, you will let me know at once?"
"Certainly, I will tell you myself," laughed he. "For what is that killing to this going away from you!"
"Oh—it is not so sad as waiting—waiting—waiting—for you to come again! Have I made you happy?"
"As a god," he said.
"Then, if you should not be killed—you will come back to be happy again?"
"Nothing but death shall keep me from you!"
"Swear—by your eyes—by your heart—by your soul—by your mother's, your father's memory!"
All of which he did—still laughing.
"What more, beloved one?"
"Only your own sweet word, my beautiful lord, that you will come back. Say this: 'Beloved who loves me more than the rest in Buddha's bosom, and whom I love as much—' That is true, is it not?"
"That is true," he laughed.
"'I will come back at the first moment of opportunity, if I live, to my—wife!'"
He repeated this after her.
"Now go! The waiting will be ecstasy. Go! The sooner you go, the sooner you will return. I am not afraid. I am your wife. You have said it. Here or there, in the earths or the heavens! For all your lives—all, all!And I will be no other man's wife while I live! Or after death. And some day you shall have a son—like you in everything!—to keep the lamps alight when you are dead. For there will be for you a soldier's shrine. Now go or my heart will burst. And remember that in China or America or Germany I am your wife! But in Japan I am an eta—and you. Remember! Some day there will be a son, some day—soon!"
For if nothing else would bring him back, she thought this untrue promise would!
And so they parted—she pulling him back and pushing him off—there by the Sacred City he had helped to win—until she closed her eyes and clenched her hands and flung herself on the ground, face down, and would not touch or speak to him again. When he was out of sight she was sorry, and ran to the roof whence she could see the hills. There he was, walking between the two soldiers! And he turned because she so desperately wished him to—the gods made him do it, of this she was certain—and waved a hand to her; and with both of hers she sent after him all the blessings of the immortal gods.
"I will—I will be brave," she cried terribly to Isonna, who had said nothing. "I will be brave as he!"
"But how can we when all our life has gone yonder!"
And the maid sobbed in utter abandon.
"You love him too? You! Isonna, the savage, the eta, the man-hater! The declaimer against him, and me, and love! You! Oh, gods!"
"Yes," whined the maid.
"Come," cried her mistress, with tears and laughter. "He shall have two widows!"
She embraced her maid violently enough for bodily injury.
"Oh, is not the world beautiful!" cried Hoshiko. "I, who never hoped to be a wife at all, am the wife of a god. And he who had no thought of one goes yonder leaving two widows! Oh, girl brute, we are his wife for all his dear lives! Yes, we will be brave! We are a soldier's wife!"
But the mystery of his summoning was no more than this: One morning the regiment was aligned on Miyagi field, in parade uniforms, and in such a tremendous spirit as was never before known. Yet no one seemed to understand the purpose of it. And, there, at about the centre of all the glory, was Shijiro Arisuga himself, with his beloved colors once more above his head—the same that he had twice fallen and risen with! Pale he was, and ill-looking still. And the bandage on his head yet smelled of drugs—for this excitement was a bit too much for him after the quiet of China. Nevertheless it is not safe to let you fancy how happy little Arisuga was—nor how his heart thumped. You will be likely to fall short of the fact.
Now, far away on his right, came a glittering cavalcade, and the regiment began to sing withthe bands massed in his front: first, his own exultant song, then the Kimi Gayo—hoarse, iron, terrible—announced the coming of the emperor of Japan. This gave way to acclaim, and, to the mongolian roll of on-coming "Banzais!" the emperor galloped down the line, with all his resplendent suite, and, by all the gods, stopped directly in front of Arisuga and faced the regiment! At that the singing stopped and the playing of the bands, and there was that silence before the sovereign which is more impressive than any acclaim. All the colors of the regiment were trooped in a little square before Arisuga into which the emperor rode—all the colors but his, whereat he wondered.
To his last day the little color-guard does not know precisely what happened after his name was called.
"Shijiro Arisuga, attention! Forward! To the emperor!"
Though choked with amazement, the little color-guard forgot nothing of his mechanical duty. At "Attention!" his flag went straighter, higher, his chest bulged, his legs grew stiff, and his hand flew to his visor. "Forward to the emperor!" and, almost unconsciouswith his emotion, he yet stepped straightly forward until he stood directly in the Presence. He knew that before him was a white horse with very pink nostrils, which gently raised and lowered a hoof, now and then. That on the horse sat a grave, sad man, the plumes of whose kepi, as he looked kindly down upon the little color-guard, half veiled his eyes.
A bit of a smile grew there as his sovereign, for the first time, saw how small he was. Arisuga did not know the reason for that smile, but he felt it all through, and a tear started to his eyes. For you will remember that he was not meant for a soldier, but for simple and beautiful things.
Then Mutsuhito spoke to him.
"Shijiro Arisuga, the emperor is proud of such sons as you! Let him never regret his pride. It is upon you and such as you that the empire rests and must always rest. Be steadfast in your patriotism. No one in the army bears so great a responsibility as he who guards the colors. With them in sight my sons will follow anywhere—everywhere. When they are down, their guiding-star has set. For your flag is your whole country, all your ancestors,your myriad gods, your emperor—your all! And every eye watches it! Twice in battle, you have raised your flag when it has fallen. The circumstances show great valor. Your emperor has a thousand eyes. He is everywhere, and always he knows and sees all the acts of his sons. He knows and has seen yours. And for them he decorates you with the order—"
Shijiro Arisuga's sick head drooped upon his breast and would hold no more. But presently he knew that the glittering cavalcade had wheeled and was out of sight, that the colors had returned to their places, that the regiment singing again his song was marching home, and that, for a very inadequate reason to him, he wore a medal over his heart and was nominated by the emperor himself Hero!
Well, that was all. But for the third time Shijiro Arisuga was certain that the happiest moment of his life had come—as well as that he had made a tremendous fool of himself. The tears rolled down his face all the way to the barracks.
But after that do you suppose he would ever let the flag go down? Do you suppose that he could love anything more than hiscolors? Well, you are to judge at the end. For now this last obligation was added to that which first made him a soldier. And the gods, his ancestors, his father, the emperor, the world, looked always on!
Whatever we may think, it was true that this tremendous moment blotted out all others. Long ago he had forgotten Yoné. Now he forgot Hoshiko. He saw before him nothing but the sun-gilt path of glory. The emperor, the flag, the gods, the shades, his father's honor, were in his thoughts, and nothing of love.
But presently the glory faded (alas! nothing fades more quickly than glory!) and Arisuga thought again of Hoshiko. Yet it was still good to be back among those whose trade like his own was war. And there were pretty words to listen to—which made the heart swell—and friends joyously to caress one, and others to recount one's courage—for at least two weeks: then all was as before, and Arisuga had only his medal as a surety that all the heroic splendor of Miyagi Field had ever been. It was then that he began not only to think of but to wish for Hoshiko—her hands—her voice—her laughter. In another week he would have given it all for these! And he had sworn to go back. But how could he—now? It was like open treason. Yea, so it is! Glory may fill our lives for a while, but presently it becomes smaller than a woman's steadfast love—as itis smaller. Then he began to think of bringing Hoshiko to Japan. There was that theory, you will remember, that in the army there were neither samurai nor eta—only soldiers. Only sons of the emperor! Understand what that means—to be a son of the emperor. Yet no one but a Japanese can. Remember that the emperor is a god!
The yearning for Hoshiko grew upon him until he knew that he must do something definitive. Either she must come to him, or he must go to her, or he must forget her. Forget her! For three nights he strove to keep her out of his thoughts. When she came he would sing—shout madly. But she came quite easily through the songs. Then he cursed—everything which had conspired to bring about his unhappy status, pausing only before the emperor. She came smiling, seductive, through the curses.
Then he remembered the kindly face of the emperor and took a moment's hope. He would understand, and perhaps permit him to live in China. But when he told Zanzi his hope, that officer grew savage:—
"What! After the emperor has decorated you, touched you, you want—actuallywant—to go away from him? Adopt another country? Sir, if he should know that you have such small purposes, I think he would recall your medal."
Then he thought it might be looked at differently, if they knew that he was married. Especially if they could see Hoshiko. Of course this was impossible, since she could not come to Japan. But he felt that, if he could interest his colonel in the facts, he could give him an adequate description of Hoshiko. No one, he thought, need know that she was an eta. Having secured so much, he would intimate that he had no intention of adopting another country, but that the air of China was necessary for his recovery; that the retrogression in his convalescence, which all noticed and spoke of, was because of the now unaccustomed air of Japan.
He told Colonel Zanzi tentatively, not that he was married—but that he wished to marry. Zanzi was opposed to marriage for soldiers.
"I am sorry," grinned the colonel, with a shrug. "Why must you many? It is peace. Are the yoshiwara and Geisha street empty?"
"I have given my promise," said Arisuga.
"Oh, well," replied the colonel, with the air of dismissing a hopeless and useless topic, "if she is a samurai—"
"I have not inquired concerning that," said the color-bearer, untruthfully.
"But you must," said the officer, sharply.
"The old order is no more," quoted Arisuga against him. "I have heard you say yourself, Colonel Zanzi, that in the army there is neither eta nor samurai,—only sons of the emperor."
"In time of war, yes," finished the colonel. "We need them all then. But, these are times of peace. And the old order lives always. I have never said otherwise. You, sir, the son of a samurai who died at Jokoji, even if he died on the wrong side, ought not to need to be told that. Sir, no member of this regiment marries below his caste! If you are thinking of such a thing, I regret it. Your decision lies between this woman and the emperor, who gives you life, and who, when he accepts you as his son, takes back that life again to himself to dispose of at his will. You cannot have forgotten the samurai obligation,—not to liveunder the same heavens nor to tread the same earth with the enemy of your lord. You must leave it, or the enemy must. This woman, sir, puts herself in opposition to your emperor. She is, therefore, his enemy, and consequently yours. Nevertheless the emperor is gracious. He leaves the choice to his sons. But they must take the consequences. Good morning, sir."
But the color-bearer did not move. He stood there still with his hand to his forehead.
"Good morning!" thundered the colonel.
And even that could not frighten him. He was momentously deciding between the emperor and Hoshiko.
"I desire to say, sir, that I shall not marry," said Arisuga.
"I am glad to hear it. The soldier who marries is a fool."
And therefore the little color-guard set himself to fight again, and to the end, against the invincible thing called love. It makes me smile as I think of it. Who has ever vanquished it? At first he stubbornly thought of other battles he had fought and won. But hewas surprised that this brought no courage to the new kind of conflict. She came in the visions of night, like the sappers and miners, when he was least defended against her, smiling, beckoning. He could see her and touch her, and know that she was at his side.
Now all things mightily conspired to make that thing he had once thought of in China—a temporary alliance,—a going away, an easy forgetting, another marriage, many—to be more fully than he could have hoped.
It was only necessary that he should remain in Japan. Time would do the rest. He used to wonder, in the night, under the stars, how long it would take her to understand, then forget, then to take another husband. He never got over this latter without waking his sleeping comrade by a certain wild violence of passion.
He thought of it with a pitying laugh at himself—now mad to go back where he was denied the going—to have her there who must not come—whose coming would be ruin.
One night he spoke wildly to this comrade:—
"I tell you that she will never forget, never take another: if she did, I would kill her!But I am the liar and the scoundrel—I. She chose me." Concerning which interruptions of his repose his sleeping-mate continued to complain to headquarters.
A dozen times he sat down to write to her. But what comfort was that? It was herself he wanted: the bodily presence which could softly touch him, the voice which could gently speak to him, all the beauty which he might see! A dozen times he threw the unfinished letter from him.
And so, finally, this fight against Hoshiko became a rout. Every night, when he should have slept, it came on—like an enemy who knew the time and place of the weakness of his adversary. If there had only been no nights to fight through! At last his bunk-mates so complained of him that the doctor sent him to live out of the barracks, where he would disturb no one. He had a small house to himself.
But in this new solitude she came and stayed and possessed him. She made him again to possess her. She was there always. The night mattered no more. He saw her eyes in the dusk, heard her voice in daylight. He oftenparted the shoji—sometimes to find vacancy—when his mood was practical and he had slept well; but often when he had not eaten or slept, and the visions came—to have her swiftly in his arms.
Presently a certain infidelity came and lodged in him, and the knowledge of it spread through the army.
"What a spirit must that be of the emperor—the gods—the augustnesses—even a father waiting in the Meido—which would not permit him to have one small woman!"
That is what he publicly said. And, worse, he had once thought of throwing his medal into the moat near by and of escaping to China. Of deserting the emperor he had doubly sworn to serve. His gods, his father, the shades. Perhaps there was but one thing in the old days, worse than the eta—the deserter. He thought of this and took terrible pause.
Finally it was known in the army that Arisuga was mad—quite mad. The wound in his head had done it. His talk was of a woman: an houri, if ever there was one, should his talk of her be believed. He had cursed thegods, reviled the augustnesses, the spirit of his father, the emperor who had pinned the medal on his coat. Certainly Shijiro Arisuga was mad. He himself heard this, and thought to take a cunning advantage of it. If he were mad, he would be invalided, and then he would see China again.
But one night there came a gentle tapping on his shoji—like the dream. He sat up and listened. There was more tapping—still like the dream. And then a whispered voice—not the dream—which woke him to mutiny:—
"Ani-San! Beloved! Do you no more wish me? Oh, it is so long—so long! And we have walked—walked—walked. I would rather know and die. At first I thought you dead—you said nothing but that should keep you from me—death! death! And I could not sleep—I never slept! At last I decided to come and get your body, steal it out of the grave, and take it back with me, where I might weep over it and make the offerings—only your dear, dead body I have loved and which has loved me—lain down by my side, held me in its arms! And so I came with Isonna—faithful Isonna is here—andlearned that you are not dead, and all the glory. O beloved! My soul swells with joy of you. You, mine, once mine, so glorious in the eyes of our country! For, oh, Ani-San, it ismycountry, too! They shall not take that from me, though it makes me an outcast. And my feet touch it now. My country! Nippon! Nippon! After all the evil years of exile. My emperor! My gods! Forgive me, beloved, but it must all come out of my heart, or it will burst. I know you are there. I know you listen! I see—touch—adore—your shadow. I have seenyou! I have hid in the trees—Isonna and me—for three days, until we are very hungry and have begged rice. Three times—on each day—we have seen you. Three nights we have watched your dear shadow. Once it prayed and then rushed upon the outside and spoke loudly to the heavens—words which we could not hear. Were they of me? Were they hate or love? To-night I touch your shadow—put my lips upon it on the paper. For—yes—I know that is all I am ever to have: the shadow of you. You do not wish me! That is what my mother said; and laughed. She struck me and said her wordsconcerning you had all come true. Ah, pardon, lord. What matter that? It is three days! Three days! We could not die until the moon was dark; for some one, passing, might see and find our bodies. But I am glad for those three days. Now the moon is gone—the moon which sees our deeds and tells them to the gods of night; and, lord, only to-night, when the moon was gone, could I come to you to say farewell—Ani-San, to-night we die—Isonna and I. Unless you still wish me? No! Pardon that. But—if you should! Ah! if you should! Speak one word though it be Go! Only one word, that I may die in the blessed sound of your voice! Oh, it has been so lonely! For you first taught me how to be happy—to laugh, to love. And then you went, and took it all away—all, all away. Beloved, you do not wish us—No? so, to-night we die. We shall not harm you, even in our death. As long as this little paper wall is between us you are not contaminated even while we live. No one will know us in this far land; and we shall die where no one will ever find us; only the gods, only the pitying gods. So we do not harm you in cominghere. We would not have come had we known you lived. Ani-San, it is finished—all quite finished; you wish me no more. I hear no blessed word. Lo! I listen—listen with my soul—but I hear no word! All the gods in all the skies bless you. All the gods in all the skies make you happy. All the gods in all the skies make you glorious. Ani-San, beloved, farewell, forever and forever, farewell!"
At first the little color-bearer put his hands madly to his ears; but not for long. Could you? And at the end he heard her sink slowly to the earth, slipping, sighing, down the shoji.
At that moment he would have had her if the empire itself had fallen for it. He did not wait to part the shoji. He plunged through them as he had done once before in China. And there at his feet was the pitiful little heap. Too numb she was to be wakened by his tumult.
He carried her within and laid her in the lamplight. The pretty face was ghastly with starvation. The feet were nearly bare, for walking had worn out her sandals. The kimono was one he knew. But it had been in the rain and had trailed many tired miles in thedust. He did not need the light of the andon to tell him of her sufferings. Nor even her voice. And presently when she woke it was not of that she told. Indeed, of that she never spoke. It was all forgotten in that waking in his arms. And all she said—all she ever said of it—was to ask him, with a breath, if she dreamed.
She slept a little, then woke and said with terror:—
"Isonna!"
"Yes, beloved," answered Arisuga. "Where is she? You have slept sweetly."
"Has the clock struck?"
"The clock has struck."
"Then she is dead," whispered Hoshiko. "She was to die first—when the clock struck. And I was sleeping—sweetly, you said. Oh, gods! Go to the moat. I will pray."
At the moat there was nothing but some pebbles dislodged where small feet might have tracked. Some fresh soil was uncovered, where two large stones had been taken. One was gone, the other waited at the edge of the waters. And in this he knew how the manner of their death had been planned. Each wasto take a great stone in her small arms and wade into the moat until—At the piteous picture he who had seen death by thousands choked in his throat and followed Isonna into the water.
But it was too late—much too late. And so he left her there, where she had chosen to be, for him and for Hoshiko, quite at rest, with her burden still clasped strongly in her arms, and only a little prayer to Buddha—nembutsu—Isonna!
It was three days before she could smile. Then she said wanly:—
"What will you do withme, Ani-San? Must I die, too? You cannot go back to China with me."
"By all the gods in all the skies we shall part no more! We can die—yes—together—but part never!"
"Alas! that is all we can do now, beloved, for I have harmed you in coming here."
"You have brought me the happiness I do not deserve. I will never again put it in jeopardy."
But you are to understand that even that, dying together, perhaps, with her obi binding them close to each other, walking arm in arm, into the sea, or the moat, until they could but dimly know that the sun was yet in the heavens, on through the green water, moreand more dim unto darkness, peace, sleep—you are to understand that this, death with him, was next in its sweetness to life with him.
He meant to go to the colonel; but not yet. You remember how she raped those few days of happiness out of the very hand of fate in China. So now Arisuga said Tadaima! Wait!
For again his little wife had to have a trousseau, and she was yet very weak and tired. And on the way she had sold her pretty hair-pins for food—these had to be replaced. But so potent is happiness, that it was not three days more till all her loveliness had returned and bloomed again—just in time to be adorned by the new kimono of blue crêpe, and the new kanzashi of tortoise-shell and gold.
Still it was Tadaima!
For three days more Arisuga lived in his paradise and then went resolutely to the colonel.
"I am married," he said bluntly, with his salute.
"What?" roared the colonel.
"I was married when I was here before."
Finally the officer smiled. That is the wayhe would have been likely to do it at the color-bearer's age.
"I remember that you said you did not mean to marry! Youweremarried! Well, well, if she is a samurai—"
"She is an eta," said Arisuga. "That one in China."
"Ah! After a little while you can divorce her. No one need know of it."
"I beg your pardon."
"You will not?"
"I cannot."
"You understand your position the moment this becomes public?"
"You cannot make me an eta in the army. I am a soldier."
"You will ask for a furlough. Time indefinite upon recall. It will be granted," said Zanzi, coldly.
This was the color-bearer's dismissal from the regiment. For a moment he could not speak.
"You are too ill for service," continued the colonel, less coldly. "If, however, you should think it best to take my advice, let me know of your recovery."
"I thank you, sir," said Arisuga, chokingly,"it is impossible. The flag—my flag—?" he begged.
"Good morning," said the officer; "I will find some one for the flag."
But, after he was gone the colonel determined to see what manner of woman this was who could make Arisuga give up his flag. Orojii had said, in China, that she was pretty! He pictured her an Amazon, with tremendous force, and painted cheeks, who had enslaved the little color-bearer, and he meant to exhibit his authority against hers and save Arisuga from her.
"It is always so," he was thinking as he arrived at the little house, in some haste to be ahead of Arisuga, "a little fellow like Shijiro is sure to choose some woman twice his size for a wife, and to be under her thumb ever after."
You may fancy, therefore, his surprise, when a little flower of a maiden pushed aside the door for him, and, to his question, announced that she was Shijiro's wife. For a moment the colonel did not speak. Tremendous readjustment was necessary. In the meantime she had led him within.
"Sit down," she said. "I will bring you sometea. My husband will be here very soon. He has gone to see his colonel. Alas! you must sit on the floor in the Japanese fashion. We have none of the new foreign chairs!"
In an instant she had the tea before him.
"I do not care for tea," said the soldier. "I am Colonel Zanzi."
"His colonel!" gasped the little wife. "And—and—you have come to be—"
"As kind to you as I can be," said the soldier, hastily. "Be at peace!"
"Oh! Is it true?" The tears ran over her eyes at once. "You know? And yet you will be kind? Oh, Jizo—that is my favorite goddess—look upon you! But you will smoke a little? See, here is my own pipe." She cleansed it and filled it and put it to his lips, and he who smoked only cigars smoked Hoshi's little metal pipe. "And he is not disgraced? I have not ruined him? No! Or you would not be here smoking my pipe. You would be savage. You would wish to kill me. Oh, I know he is the emperor's and you, also, even me! I know how that is. Everything for the emperor! Wives! Children! Even parents! Why, was it not Akima Chinori who killed hischild, which was too small to be left alone, so that he might obey the call? 'I have given you life,' so says the imperial call, 'now give it back to me.' But I will not harm him. I will help him to be a soldier. Oh, I am brave! You cannot think how brave. It is only waiting, waiting, waiting, that I cannot endure. Do you know that we were married away down there? And that Arisuga-Sama left me to go to the emperor? Did you know that? And that it was I came to him? He did not bring me. I meant to die here without harm to him. But only Isonna died. He is not to blame."
"Who was Isonna?" asked the soldier.
"She was my little maid. She was to die first when the clock struck, die there in the moat—then I. But first I came to see his shadow on the shoji—touch it. Say farewell. To hear a word, if there were one. I am afraid I wept, fainted with hunger, and he heard me and took me in and kept me. Hedidwish me! Hedid!But Isonna was dead. Yes, while I slept in his arms! Dead for us. The tea is very good, excellency?"
And because she put it into his hands with that fear in her great eyes, and because ofthat shaking of the little hand, and that chattering story in the quavering voice, and those tears, he drank the tea, who drank only hot brandy.
"Do you mean to say that Isonna killed herself so that—so that—"
Even the grizzled soldier choked at the thought.
"So that no disgrace might come to him. And I—I, also, should have died—before he knew. Then he would not have been harmed. As long as the thin paper was between us he was safe—safe as if I were yet in China. But you do not know how sweet that was—to sleep in his arms, to wake in his arms—with the words he spoke that night he married me again in my ears? But while I slept the clock struck. Ah, you know him only as a soldier! I know him as a lover! A husband! A god!"
Still this soldier, brought up to the religion of sacrifice, thought of the serving-woman sacrificially dead there in the moat.
"Was Isonna an eta, too?"
"She was an eta, too," said Hoshiko.
"Gods! And we think you lack spirit—courage—devotion!"
"No! We are brave!" she said piteously. "We are as ready as you to die for the emperor! If you will only learn to let us!"
"I believe you!" said Zanzi.
"Shall I tell you?" she begged. "He is not at fault. Let me plead for him!"
"Yes, tell me," he said.
But she could only repeat the old story:—
"We came because we thought he was dead—he said that only death should keep him from us—to take his body back with us—only his dear, dead body. That would have been no disgrace. For the Lord Buddha does not permit any one to disgrace the dead who cannot help themselves. But when we knew that he was alive, we knew also that, by coming to Japan, we had harmed him. Then we meant to die without him knowing, keeping always the thin wall between us. Where no one could find us after. But I could not without one word of farewell to his shadow—only his shadow! And one word from him—if there was one. That would not harm him. Oh, yes, I knew that I must not touch his body in Japan! But his shadow! Was that harm? And one word? Would not you havetouched his shadow? And hedidwish me—hedid! And then—I woke in his arms!
"But the clock had struck while I slept. Eight. And that was the signal for Isonna to take a stone in her arms and walk into the moat. And Isonna was faithful. For there he found her afterward, asleep, with the gods, the great stone in her arms. And that one I was to take is still there, on the edge of the moat, waiting. But now I cannot die. He has made my life sweet again. Would you die with life all sweet again, as the morning glories in the morning? So the stone must wait there. Perhaps he and I shall carry it together. For, so he says, we shall die, together, rather than part again."
"You shall not part. Would you like to go to America?" asked the officer.
"No. Nowhere but here."
For America to her was the country of the barbarians—a horrid waste, where no flowers grew.
"But if your husband should go there?"
"Yes!"
It did not matter then.
The colonel rose.
"Tell him to come to see me again."
"And you will be as kind to him as you have been to me?"
"No," smiled the colonel. "He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve you." But, then, seeing that she did not quite understand his pleasantry, he added: "I shall be as kind to him as I can be, as I am permitted to be, for your sake. And you are to tell him that!"
"Shaka, and all the augustnesses bless you!"
He held the tiny hands a moment at parting.
"Once I knew a little lady like you. It was long ago, and there is a tomb for her in Asakusa. Perhaps she wasnotlike you, not as lovely. But so it seems now—after the years. If she had not died, I would not have been a soldier."
And no one had ever heard the grizzled colonel's voice so soft.
She sent Arisuga back. But she did not tell him that.
There seemed little kindness in Colonel Zanzi's greeting when Arisuga arrived. He did not even look up.
"You will be transferred to a Hakodate regiment," he said in a monotone; "they are ruffians, but good soldiers. You will report to your new regiment when you are recalled. Your furlough must be spent in America and in communication with headquarters."
This was exile, but mitigated by every possible circumstance.
"Sir," said Arisuga, with emotion, "I do not deserve this consideration."
"No," answered his colonel; "but your wife does."
Have I let you suppose that Hoshiko accepted all this perilous happiness without question? No Japanese woman ever does that. It is true that, at first, there was no thought—there could be none. The gods had put them both suddenly into a position from which they could not retreat. But after that, when thought came, and Hoshiko knew that it had all been for her, and how much it was that he had given—then she began to prepare her recompense. To you it would have been a strange one, but it was not so to her. What she had taken beyond her share from the universal happiness, that she would balance with such suffering as came.
What she had taken from him, the shade of his father, that she would restore. What he stood in danger of losing because of her, that she would insure against loss. And the gods would help her. For they always heeded such constant and faithful praying as she meant to render. At last she knew that they would. For they sent her a sign. But before I speak of that I must go on and make plain what her purpose came finally to be. Nothing less than to make sure in some way (she waited on the gods to make the way plain to her) that since she prevented Shijiro from dying for his emperor in his father's stead, his reparation should come aboutin some other way—perhaps some way not thought of as yet—even by the gods. All she could do now was to pray that if he should die the small white death, the gods would sendhersome sort of reincarnation in whichshemight accomplish his purpose, though he were dead. And of course, whether she survived him or not, this was possible, to the immortal gods. But I think she had no idea that she—she herself—might herself be the instrument—that the gods meant anything as strange and startling as that—nor that her reincarnation might be in the very form of her husband while she yet lived. She would not be likely to think of precisely that. Until that day of the sign from heaven itself—that day while they were playing as children might do on the mats. Their feet were against the groove which held the fusuma. The little soldier reached upward above his head.
"I can touch the other mat," laughed Arisuga.
"And I," laughed his wife, doing the same.
"What!" cried the soldier. "I am taller than you are."
Then Hoshiko understood that she ought not to have said that. It was heinous to make herself the equal of her lord in anything.
"No, lord," she hastened to say, "I lied—a little lie—while we sported. I am sorry."
"It is no lie," laughed happy Arisuga once more; for you will remember that all her daintiness was then his, and that he was not like other Japanese husbands; "we are exactly the same height."
"No, no, no, lord," pleaded Hoshiko, who fearfully knew that it was so, "you are much taller than miserable small me."
And, to prove it, she bent her knees within her kimono and stood beside him, for he had risen to prove the matter.
But he detected the bent knees and straightened them, and, lo! there was not a shadow of difference in their height.
And when the little soldier laughed and was very happy about it, she laughed too, timorously at first, then more joyously than he. For to be his equal in something, and to see him happy about it—well, she supposed that no Japanese girl had ever before such felicity, and perhaps she was right.
So, in their playing and laughter, he cried:
"And I shall be punished for my haughty spirit in thinking I was, and you shall berewarded for the humility of yours in thinking you were not."
And the manner of this punishment and reward was for him to strip off her kimono and put it on himself, and his uniform and put it on her. Oh, you may be sure that she tried to fly in her terror of him, that she fought and wept and at last utterly exhausted had to let him have his way—even to tucking her splendid hair under his military cap. She lay there happily crushed and disgraced until he had made himself so like her that she hardly knew him.
But she would not see herself until he brought the mirror and told her that he was looking at himself. Then she looked, and it was true. With staring eyes she stood upon her feet and passed the mirror up and down.
Then suddenly she saw the smiling face of a god in the mirror also, and knew that this was to be the fashion of the reincarnation she had begged of the gods.
She whispered her husband to look into the mirror.
"There is the face of a god there!"
Arisuga looked and laughed, but saw no god.
"It is the reflection of your Jizo," he said, pointing to the goddess behind her.
But Hoshiko said it was not that. For, you see, she knew what it was, and her husband did not—and must not—the sign.
Now after that Shijiro Arisuga was amazed, considering the terrors out of which it had first been accomplished, to find his little wife often in his uniform. And more, to learn that this gentle creature was mad for the learning which is a soldier's. Of course it was great sport in this happy time, and Arisuga taught her all he knew!—how to stand and step and march, to load and fire and intrench herself, and all the hoarse songs and sayings of the army—among others that battle song of his. But most of all he taught her how to carry the sun-flag, and how to keep it, nay, how to retake it if it should be captured—which, however, he instructed her, illogically, must never happen.
"Our method of advance," he told her, "is never in thick fat lines—such delectable food for the shrapnel. One at a time we run to a position we have fixed in advance. Then we dig. Sometimes there are as many as five all scattered—never more. After digging holes we makeanother rapid advance and do the same, and then, again, until there are three chains of holes parallel to the enemy. Then other troops advance. They have the first holes to hide in. They make them deeper and wider and advance as we did until we have a solid line out near the enemy, the holes being joined to form a trench. And by that time there are two such trenches to our rear for those who support us—or to retire to—"
Here he laughed, and added impressively:—
"If that should ever become necessary. But a Japanese soldier goes only in one direction—forward where the flag is. And as to the flag," he went on, "that goes forward with the first advance, like this—"
He rolled it into a ball.
"But, once it is there, the lines formed, the advance ordered, it is raised, like this, so that the artillery know where we are when they fire at the enemy. So," he laughed happily, "when you take my flag forward, you will go like this—"
He made her run with bent supple back the length of the apartment.
"Drop like this; now there is nothing buta small lump of earth to see; dig like this, lying on the flag, and so on till, out there, in the first trench, you raise it never to return with it. Then you will hear the bursting of the gates of all the hells. For our enemies are stupid and never understand, until they see the flag, what our purpose is, then they waste their ammunition and weuseours. But then it is too late for them and it is ours only to go forward and defeat them, led by the sun-flag."
There was nothing of this which the girl did not treasure up. And Arisuga laughed, she laughed, and he never asked or wondered why.
So, presently, they were in America. On the way over they were quite happy once more.
"For there are no etas in America," said Hoshiko.
But therewasthe Japan Society in America, which turned its back on them, etas, whereby they were left in a strange land, with only a strange language and half pay, all of which would have been beggarly enough.
However, that is how it happened that Moncure Jones, who had made a sudden fortune and wanted a Japanese butler, became the happy master of Arisuga. He had found them in one of his "raids" upon southern New York, where they had a little room and were starving and studying the language.
Arisuga told his small wife one day that the thing called divorce was going on in the Jones household and in the courts. They laughedtogether about it. Divorce in America meant something very different from what it did in their country. It appeared that it had been preceded by tremendous quarrels in the house of Jones, of which Arisuga was a witness, and an amazed one. For Mrs. Jones had rather the better of the quarrelling.
"It is not certain that the divorce will be granted by the judges," said Arisuga.
"Do they make people live together who do not wish to?" asked his wife.
"So it seems," laughed Shijiro.
From day to day Arisuga went with Jones to the courts to testify of the quarrelling. Then one day he told Hoshiko that the divorce would be granted because of the cruel and barbarous treatment of Jones by his wife. But even then the court was many months in doing what would have been executed in a few minutes in their country.
Finally the decree was perfect and Jones needed a housekeeper. He asked Arisuga if he knew of one as efficient as he was. He spoke to Hoshiko. An income was more and more needed to provide the money for his return when his summons should come. For it hadsurprised them, in the auriferous American country, how their expenditures grew and their income failed.
Well, it pleased Hoshiko: for there would be only so much more time in her husband's company. Shijiro's time spent with Jones had grown much more than the time spent with her. Indeed, it was here where the rift began to show in the little lute of their joy. For Shijiro also learned some habits in America, save for which they would have had a fair start on their fund for the return: he gambled.
Jones, it seemed, was vexed with ennui. To teach Arisuga how to gamble, and even to let him win, gave him both employment and amusement. Indeed, with his little winnings, Arisuga began to feel opulent. He put away, now and then, something for his return, and was more often in good humor. And as he was happy, so was Hoshiko. For she always reflected only him. Her one great unhappiness was that he was so constantly away from her, and more and more so as the time went on, so that often he forgot to come home to her for several days. Then he would explain that he with Jones had been on a gambling tour.
So the little unhappiness which had threatened her life fled quite away the moment she knew that Jones wanted an honorary housekeeper. In her innocence she did not reason why he might want to set up such an establishment. Nor did Shijiro.
Jones! He had watery gray eyes and thick lips. He stooped a trifle and was not so shockingly firm in his gait as most Americans are. Yet he would smile betimes, and then his mouth seemed armed with yellow fangs.
"Like the dragon on Hanayama," breathed Hoshiko, shivering herself into Arisuga's arms the night after she had gone for inspection. "He smiled at me."
"A smile is good," said Arisuga.
"You did not see that smile! It was not good!"
"Hereafter I shall watch it," laughed Shijiro.
For Jones's maiyi, or "look-at-meeting," as they called it in their own language, Hoshiko had dressed her hair anew, put her best kanzashi into it, brought out that worn but still beautiful kimono in which she had been married, full still of the flower perfume of her maiden-hood,put her feet into the tall, ceremonious geta of her own land, and so went, quite in oriental state (Shijiro would have it so), in a hansom to Mr. Moncure Jones. No wonder he stared and put on his glasses. In all his sordid life Jones had not had so fresh a sensation as this. In all his life he had seen no creature at once so dainty and fragile and splendid.
When they were home again, came that shuddering of which I have spoken. And since Hoshiko did not at once take to his plan, but shuddered anew whenever it was mentioned, Arisuga let her wait, putting Jones off, until he could convince her rather than command her. For more than ever it, presently, became necessary for her to go to Jones. Now, strangely, since that day of the look-at-meeting Arisuga did not often win. On the contrary Jones did, until there was not only nothing for the passage being put aside, but a huge debt which appalled Arisuga. So that, in the end, the only argument he used to Hoshiko was of Jones's wealth.
"I shall win yet—Jones-Sama says so—all I have lost and more in one great stake. It is always so, therefore it is lucky to lose. I am not downcast."
"But, O beloved, that smile!" pleaded the girl.
"Nevertheless Jones is rich," said Arisuga.
"Yet a dragon!" cried the girl.
"And I kill dragons which frighten little wives," laughed her husband, without fear. "Besides," he said, "it is well to remember that otherwise we shall not have the money for the passage when my call comes! You will go? Yes, you will go. Let us make a friend of this Jones."
Suddenly Hoshiko saw the hand of the gods in this, also, and went to Jones. Was not this a part of the way she had prayed to be shown? And she had impiously rebelled! Because of her rebellion she went with a certain alacrity.
Jones smiled often at Hoshiko. So often that Arisuga could not but notice it.
"The yellow dragon of Hanayama covets the dove of Arisuga," he laughed. "Yet doves are not good for dragons. This will be better."
He handed her the small toilet sword which Japanese women carry.
"I have heard," said Jones to Shijiro one day, "that Japanese husbands often rent their wives to pay their debts."
"That is true, lord," bowed his little butler.
"For a year, don't you know, or six months, or something like that?"
"It is true, lord," repeated the butler.
"And that the wives really like it?"
"True, lord," answered Arisuga.
"They don't lose caste after the—er—debt has been paid, but go back to their husbands?"
"True, lord."
"Well, that's a pretty sensible arrangement. You Jap chaps are always sensible; and"—the yellow fangs came out—"I am your creditor for a couple of thousand dollars. Arisuga, I am willing to be so paid and to pay you a couple more thousand than you owe me! Then your passage will be safe. I don't believe, now, it will be otherwise. I have got you in too deep a hole."
Jones laughed hoarsely at his own cunning.
Arisuga received the suggestion as he would have received an unimportant business proposition.
"I will consider and let the enlightened eijinsan know," he said. This, also, as if it were the mere oriental courtesy of bargaining—the sloth which is polite.
"I guess it will be all right," laughed Jones. "Take your time. No one is proof against the blandishments of American gold. Even oriental virtue yields to it. Don't you think it will be all right?"—a bit anxiously.
"Let the honorable American lord so think," said Arisuga. "I will consider."
"I shan't be niggardly, understand. If you are not satisfied with a couple of thousands, we'll make it a quartette. She is about the dearest little morsel I have ever seen."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Arisuga, with American politeness, this time.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Jones.
And Hoshiko, taking her cue, laughed too, out of the palest face she had ever had. For she was present—though she was not thought to know English enough to understand what was said.
But that night Jones was awakened by something strange at his throat. It was a steel blade—and an ominous Arisuga. In one hand he had a candle. In the other Hoshiko's sharp little sword—close against his skin.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Arisuga.
Jones was in no laughing mood.
"Laugh!" said Arisuga.
Then Jones brought forth a sickly cachinnation which stopped at the first note; for it made the sword to penetrate his skin.
"Lie still—quite still!" admonished the Japanese, with deadly quiet, and Jones did not move a muscle for a moment, which seemed years.
Then the light went out and Jones expected death. But nothing happened. He waited long. The sweat poured out until his bed was wet. He was certain that he felt that blade still at his throat—and the little stream of blood from it. But there was no more. He was not dead. At last he cautiously put his hand out. It encountered nothing. Then he raised it to his throat. Nothing was there. He leaped out of bed on the other side. Nothing further happened. He did not even call for the police.
So the opportunity which Jones had seemed to offer for preparation to return to Japan when the call came vanished, leaving only the vain thing he had taught Arisuga—his little skill at cards. This he still tried to use. But though he sometimes won, he more often lost.Yet he played on, certain of the great luck which would not only recoup all in one night, but establish his circumstances far beyond what they had ever been. It was the old, old gambler's lust. It was the old, old consequence. Luck seemed cruelly delayed, and they fell into desperate poverty.
And, worse than all, this—the gambler's fetish—was now the thing which possessed him. But though he loved the life of chance for itself, he never lost sight of the more and more frenzied necessity of providing for his return. For, rumors of war began to hover in the air. Hoshiko saw less and less of him. And he often forgot her for days together. If he were mad, for another reason, in Japan, he was mad equally in America.
Yet nothing was saved; always such pittances as he could raise, or she, were spent upon the small gambling devices in which the city abounded, no matter whether he had food or not. Presently his life was that and no more: a vain search for luck. But miserable as it was, there was hope in it, and a certain exhilaration. He was like one who has no doubt of ultimate good fortune, and wakesdaily with the uplifting thought that this may be the grateful day. And his hope and happiness in it brought hope and happiness, in the brief whiles it reigned, to Hoshiko, where happiness came of late not often. Nor hope.
So the little exiles lived and starved, and feasted and loved on; happy sometimes, sorrowing more often, while Japan was yet at peace.
Always Arisuga kept his address at headquarters, and always he waited—listened almost—for the call. But it was long—very long. And his face grew sharp and his eyes narrow. And more and more in the waiting and listening he forgot, in America, Hoshiko—his Eastern Dream-of-a-Star.
For, presently, it was nearly ten years of this exile. Ten years of prayer which grew only more fervid as the years doubled upon themselves, and the hope so long deferred made the heart of Arisuga ill. Ten years of yearning for their own country, which fate denied them and which nothing but war could again give to them! The heartof Hoshiko sickened, too. But it was thus because Arisuga more and more often forgot her rather than with the homesickness which she suffered as he did. Yet she guiltily knew that while there was no war she might keep him, even though he forgot her. So it was he alone at last who prayed for war. It was sacrilege to obstruct the gods; it was impossible to pray to be kept from her own perfumed land, so—she stubbornly prayed not at all.
And then it did come: the great war—though not as he had fancied it would. Slowly it got into the air. Every day he spent at the bulletins. But they said Japan would not fight. Russia was getting and would get what she wished. She was too great for Japan. And some of the newspapers began to pour contempt upon his country. She was baying the moon, one said.
"What! are there no more samurai in Japan?" Arisuga cried out to his wife that night. She did not reply. Her silence was almost guilt. For as the threat of war went on, and as Arisuga grew older, he valued the more what he had lost for her. "Gods," he proceededwith a hollow laugh, "I am not a samurai myself. And I must wait my call to be even allowed to fight."
"Forgive me, dear lord," said his wife. And the words and her attitude recalled that other time she was servilely at his feet.
"Rise!" he commanded impatiently. "And do not call me lord. I am no more—nothing more—than you—eta! It cannot be helped. We must suffer it." But there were no caresses—there were never any now.
Then it came, quite according to Arisuga's fancy—a thunder-clap from the heavens! Togo had sunk the "Tsarevitch"!
"At last," cried Arisuga, that day, "I am a soldier once more, if not a samurai! A son of the emperor! Banzai!" And that night it seemed as if all the old sweetness had come back and she slept in his arms as she had used to sleep.
"All that remains now is the call," he said the next day, still happy.
He went to the consulate to see that they had his address correctly, but on the way home he remembered that there was no money for the passage. For, strangely, this passion ofwar had obliterated that other passion of chance! He ran all the way.
"I must—I must," he said roughly to Hoshiko, "have money for the passage! When my call comes I shall not be ready. And there is none!"
"I have not forgotten it, lord," she answered, giving him the little she had been secretly able to save from his gambling for the purpose.
Arisuga counted it. He did not even stop to thank her for this unexpected sacrifice and munificence.
"Gods! It is not one-tenth," he accused. "We must have more at once. Jones liked you. Why not?"
"Yes, lord," said Hoshiko, growing pale.
"Remember the wives of the forty-seven ronins. They gave themselves to harlotry for their husbands' cause."
"Yes, lord, to-morrow," answered the trembling little woman. And though each day there was a little more money, she did not go to Moncure Jones. She could not. Some things are impossible!
All day she was gone, and he thought her there, with the yellow-fanged dragon, and didnot care! Nothing had hurt her heart so much as that. Each night she came back to him with her pitiful wage in her sleeve. Arisuga might have thought this strange had he not ceased all thought of her—that Jones permitted her to come home to him each night with each day's wages. And he might have noticed, if he had still adored the hands of satin, that they were stained: now with red, now with blue, yellow, green. But he never touched the hands any more, and was become impatient when they touched him void of money. But the little wage, the sixty or seventy cents which he seized eagerly and put away—you will want to know how she got them.
Try, then, to fancy as she did that this was the beginning of her punishment for the happiness of being his wife. To stay away from the chance of being with him, from early morning until late night. To watch the slow-going clock; the shadows as they crept up the wall to the red stain first, then the blue, then that pale yellow one, scarcely to be seen at seven o'clock; and then still (for her wish always outran the shadow) to wait until the clock in the cathedralstruck before she might stop making muslin flowers "for the happy occasions" and go wanly home to unhappiness. She was a flower-maker—this flower of another land made flowers for weddings, christenings, festivals, soiling them only, now and then, with a tear. Yet no one had ever made prettier flowers "for the happy occasions" than she who had, now, no happy occasions.
But the war went on, on, and he was not called.
"Gods!—yes!" he cried to her in his madness. "I understand. I am an eta! The damned word has passed all through the army. It stands opposite my name. It makes all my oaths, all my obligations before the gods, naught. There is but one hope. They will not call me unless the last man must be put into the field. Then—thenthey will take the eta. Gods of the skies! Gods of the earth! Gods of the seas and caverns below—let it be so! Let my country be among the dregs at the bottom of the cup of the nations' despair! I—I, Shijiro Arisuga, will bring it—lead it—to victory with my flag! I! For my father's ghosts will fight with me.That is what we need! The ghosts of our ancestors! Who can vanquish them? And, O ye augustnesses,—" he addressed the spirits of his own ancestors,—"bring it about! For ye—ye alone can vanquish this upstart foe. And ye must—yemustpermit me to make for my father the red death! Ye must—ye must."
Do you not see that he was gone quite mad?
Yet every insane word was a stabbing accusation upon the soul of Hoshiko, for whom it had all been. And she fancied that she was no more worth the sacrifice than was one of the morning-glories which were now only a memory. For she was now as pale, as sad, as evanescent and fleeting, as they: those morning-glories in their garden in happy China, unto whose beauty in the dewy morning she had once been wont to liken her life with this mad Arisuga. Unto whose beauty he had used to liken her!