diff options
Diffstat (limited to '42427-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 42427-0.txt | 11010 |
1 files changed, 11010 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/42427-0.txt b/42427-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96c0899 --- /dev/null +++ b/42427-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11010 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42427 *** + + THE KINGDOM OF + SLENDER SWORDS + + + + + BY HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES + (MRS. POST WHEELER) + + + SATAN SANDERSON + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + + TALES FROM DICKENS + Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch + + THE CASTAWAY + Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy + + HEARTS COURAGEOUS + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + + A FURNACE OF EARTH + + + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + INDIANAPOLIS + + + + + [Illustration] + + + + + THE KINGDOM OF + SLENDER SWORDS + + + BY + HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES + (MRS. POST WHEELER) + + + _With a Foreword by His Excellency Baron Makino_ + + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + A. B. WENZELL + + + INDIANAPOLIS + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1910 + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO. + BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS + BROOKLYN, N.Y. + + + + + TO + CAROLYN FOSTER STICKNEY + + + + + FOREWORD + + +It has been my happy fortune to have made the acquaintance of the gifted +author of this book. From time to time she was kind enough to confide to +me its progress. When the manuscript was completed I was privileged to +go over it, and the hours so spent were of unbroken interest and +pleasure. + +What especially touched and concerned me was, of course, the Japanese +characters depicted, the motives of these actors in their respective +roles, and other Japanese incidents connected with the story. I am most +agreeably impressed with the remarkable insight into, and the just +appreciation of, the Japanese spirit displayed by the author. + +While the story itself is her creation, the local coloring, the moral +atmosphere called in to weave the thread of the tale, are matters +belonging to the domain of facts, and constitute an amount of useful and +authentic information. Indeed, she has taken unusual pains to be +correctly informed about the people of the country and their customs, +and in this she has succeeded to a very eminent degree. + +I may mention one or two of the striking characteristics of the work. +The sacrifice of the girl Haru may seem unreal, but such is the dominant +idea of duty and sacrifice with the Japanese, that in certain +emergencies it is not at all unlikely that we should behold her real +prototype in life. The description of the Imperial Review at Tokyo and +its patriotic significance vividly recalls my own impression of this +spectacle. + +It gives me great satisfaction to know that by perusing these pages, the +vast reading public, who, after all, have the decisive voice in the +national government of the greatest republic of the world, and whose +good will and friendship we Japanese prize in no uncommon degree, should +be correctly informed about ourselves, as far as the scope of this book +goes. We attach great importance to a thorough mutual understanding of +two foremost peoples on the Pacific, in whose direction and coöperation +the future of the East must largely depend. It is, therefore, incumbent +upon us all to do our utmost to cultivate such good understanding, not +only for those immediately concerned, but for the welfare of the whole +human race. + +In the chapters of this novel the author seems always to have had such +high ideals before her, and the result is that, besides being an +exciting and agreeable reading, the book contains elements of serious +and instructive consideration, which can not but contribute toward +establishing better and healthier knowledge between the East and West of +the Pacific. + + N. MAKINO. + + Sendagaya, Tokyo, 9th of August, 1909. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I WHERE THE DAY BEGINS 1 + + II "THE ROOST" 13 + + III THE LAND OF THE GODS 27 + + IV UNDER THE RED SUNSET 42 + + V THE MAKER OF BUDDHAS 52 + + VI THE BAYING OF THE WOLF-HOUND 62 + + VII DOCTOR BERSONIN 72 + + VIII "SALLY IN OUR ALLEY" 78 + + IX THE WEB OF THE SPIDER 86 + + X IN A GARDEN OF DREAMS 92 + + XI ISHIKICHI 101 + + XII IN THE STREET-OF-PRAYER-TO-THE-GODS 107 + + XIII THE WHORLS OF YELLOW DUST 113 + + XIV WHEN BARBARA AWOKE 119 + + XV A FACE IN THE CROWD 125 + + XVI "BANZAI NIPPON!" 133 + + XVII A SILENT UNDERSTANDING 142 + + XVIII IN THE BAMBOO LANE 149 + + XIX THE BISHOP ASKS A QUESTION 154 + + XX THE TRESPASSER 160 + + XXI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 169 + + XXII THE DANCE OF THE CAPITAL 181 + + XXIII THE DEVIL PIPES TO HIS OWN 194 + + XXIV A MAN NAMED WARE 198 + + XXV AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX-GOD 206 + + XXVI THE NIGHTLESS CITY 213 + + XXVII LIKE THE WHISPER OF A BAT'S WINGS 224 + + XXVIII THE FORGOTTEN MAN 233 + + XXIX DAUNT LISTENS TO A SONG 244 + + XXX THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT 252 + + XXXI THE COMING OF AUSTEN WARE 266 + + XXXII THE WOMAN OF SOREK 276 + + XXXIII THE FLIGHT 284 + + XXXIV ON THE KNEES OF DELILAH 288 + + XXXV WHEN A WOMAN DREAMS 292 + + XXXVI BEHIND THE SHIKIRI 297 + + XXXVII [Japanese: Donto] 303 + + XXXVIII THE LADY OF THE MANY-COLORED FIRES 308 + + XXXIX THE HEART OF BARBARA 320 + + XL THE SHADOW OF A TO-MORROW 326 + + XLI UNFORGOT 334 + + XLII PHIL MAKES AN APPEAL 338 + + XLIII THE SECRET THE RIVER KEPT 345 + + XLIV THE LAYING OF THE MINE 353 + + XLV THE BISHOP ANSWERS A SUMMONS 360 + + XLVI THE GOLDEN CRUCIFIX 366 + + XLVII "IF THIS BE FORGETTING" 371 + + XLVIII WHILE THE CITY SLEPT 379 + + XLIX THE ALARM 389 + + L WHOM THE GODS DESTROY 396 + + LI THE LAUGH 401 + + LII THE VOICE IN THE DARK 409 + + LIII A RACE WITH DAWN 414 + + LIV INTO THE SUNLIGHT 425 + + LV KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS 428 + + + + + THE KINGDOM OF + SLENDER SWORDS + + + + + THE KINGDOM OF + SLENDER SWORDS + + CHAPTER I + + WHERE THE DAY BEGINS + + +Barbara leaned against the palpitant rail, the light air fanning her +breeze-cool cheek, her arteries beating like tiny drums, atune with the +throb, throb, throb, of the steel deck as the black ocean leviathan +swept on toward its harbor resting-place. + +All that Japanese April day she had been in a state of tremulous +excitement. She had crept from her berth at dawn to see the hazy sun +come up in a Rosicrucian flush as weirdly soft as a mirage, to strain +her eyes for the first filmy feather of land. Long before the gray-green +wisp showed on the horizon, the sight of a lumbering _junk_ with its +square sail laced across with white stripes, and its bronze seamen, with +white loin-cloth and sweat-band about the forehead, naked and thewed +like sculptures, as they swayed from the clumsy tiller, had sent a +thrill through her. And as the first far peaks etched themselves on the +robin's-egg blue, as impalpable and ethereal as a perfume, she felt warm +drops coming with a rush to her eyes. + +For Japan, every sight and sound of it, had been woven with the earliest +imaginings of Barbara's orphaned life. Her father she had never seen. +Her mother she remembered only as a vague, widowed figure. In Japan they +two had met and had married, and after a single year her mother had +returned to her own place and people broken-hearted and alone. In the +month of her return Barbara had been born. A year ago her aunt, to whom +she owed the care of her young girlhood, had died, and Barbara had found +herself, at twenty-three, mistress of a liberal fortune and of her own +future. Japan had always exercised a potent spell over her imagination. +She pictured it as a land of strange glowing trees, of queer costumes +and weird, fantastic buildings. More than all, it was the land of her +mother's life-romance, where her father had loved and died. There was +one other tangible tie--her uncle, her mother's brother, was Episcopal +bishop of Tokyo. He was returning now from a half year's visit in +America, and this fact, coupled with an invitation from Patricia +Dandridge, the daughter of the American Ambassador, with whom Barbara +had chummed one California winter, had constituted an opportunity wholly +alluring. So she found herself, on this April day, the pallid Pacific +fuming away behind her, gazing with kindling cheeks on that shadowy +background, vaguely intangible in the magical limpidity of the distance. + +The land was wonderfully nearer now. The hills lay, a clear pile of +washed grays and greens, with saffron tinted valleys between, wound in a +haze of tender lilac. By imperceptible gradations this unfolded, caught +sub-tones, ermine against umbers, of warmer red and flickering emerald, +white glints of sun on surf like splashes of silver, till suddenly, +spectral and perfect, above a cluster of peaks like purple gentians, +glowed forth a phantom mountain, its golden wistaria cone inlaid in the +deeper azure. It hung like an inverted morning-glory, mist and +mother-of-pearl at the top, shading into porphyry veined with streaks of +verd and jade--Fuji-San, the despair of painters, the birthplace of the +ancient gods. + +The aching beauty of it stung Barbara with a tender, intolerable pang. +The little fishing-villages that presently came into sight, tucked into +the clefts of the shore, with gray dwellings, elfishly frail, climbing +the green slope behind them--the growing rice in patches of cloudy gold +on the hillsides--the bluish shadows of bamboo groves--all touched her +with an incommunicable delight. + +A shadow fell beside her and she turned. It was her uncle. His +clean-shaven face beamed at her over his clerical collar. + +"Isn't it glorious?" she breathed. "It's better than champagne! It's +like pins and needles in the tips of your fingers! There's positively an +odor in the air like camelias. And did any one ever see such colors?" +She pointed to the shore dead-ahead, now a serrated background of deep +tones, swimming in the infinite gold of the tropic afternoon. + +Bishop Randolph was a bachelor, past middle age, ruddy and with eyes +softened by habitual good-humor. He was the son of a rector of a rich +Virginian parish, which on his father's death had sent the son a +unanimous call. He had answered, "No; my place is in Japan," without +consciousness of sacrifice. For him, in the truest sense, the present +voyage was a homeward one. + +"Japan gets into the blood," he said musingly. "I often think of the old +lady who committed suicide at Nikko. She left a letter which said: 'By +favor of the gods, I am too dishonorably old to hope to revisit this +jewel-glorious spot, so I prefer augustly to remain here for ever!' I +have had something of the same feeling, sometimes. I remember yet the +first time I saw the coast. That was twenty-five years ago. We watched +it together--your father and I--just as we two are doing now." + +She looked at him with sudden eagerness, for of his own accord he had +never before spoken to her of her dead father. The latter had always +seemed a very real personage, but how little she knew about him! The +aunt who had brought her up--her mother's sister--had never talked of +him, and her uncle she had seen but twice since she had been old enough +to wonder. But, little by little, gleaning a fact here and there, she +had constructed a slender history of him. It told of mingled blood, a +birthplace on a Mediterranean island and a gipsy childhood. There was a +thin sheaf of yellowed manuscript in her possession that had been left +among her mother's scanty papers, a fragment of an old diary of his. +Many leaves had been ruthlessly cut from it, but in the pages that were +left she had found bits of flotsam: broken memory-pictures of his own +mother which had strangely touched her, of a bitter youth in England and +America overshadowed by the haunting fear of blindness, of quests to +West-Indian cities, told in phrases that dripped liquid gold and +sunshine. The voyage to Japan had been made on the same vessel that +carried her uncle, and they two had thus become comrades. The latter had +been an enthusiastic young missionary, one of a few chosen spirits sent +to defend a far field-casement thrown forward by the batteries of +Christendom. His sister had come out to visit him and a few months later +had married his friend. + +Such was the story, as Barbara knew it, of her father and mother--a love +chapter which had soon closed with a far-away grave by the Inland Sea. +Her fancy had made of her father a pathetic figure. As a child, she had +dreamed of some day placing a monument to his memory in the Japanese +capital. She possessed only one picture of him, a tiny profile +photograph which she wore always in a locket engraved with her name. It +showed a dark face, clean-shaven, finely chiseled and passionate, with +the large, full eye of the dreamer. She had liked to think it looked +like the paintings of St. John. Perhaps this thought had caused the +projected monument to take the form of a Christian chapel. From a +nebulous idea, the plan had become a bundle of blue-prints, which she +had sent to her uncle, with the request that he purchase for her a +suitable site and begin the building. He had done this before his visit +to America and now the Chapel was completed, save in one particular--the +memorial window of rich, stained-glass stowed at that moment in the +ship's hold. The bishop had not seen it. From some feeling which she had +not tried to analyze, Barbara had said nothing to him of the Chapel's +especial significance. Now, however, at his unexpected reference, the +feeling frayed, and she told him all of her plan. + +He gazed at her a moment in a startled fashion, then looked away, his +hand shading his eyes. When she finished there was a long pause which +made her wonder. She touched his arm. + +"You were very fond of father, weren't you?" + +"Yes," he said, in a tone oddly restrained. + +"And was my mother with you when he fell in love with her?" + +"Yes," and after a pause: "I married them." + +"Then they went to Nagasaki," she said softly, "and there--he died. You +weren't there then?" + +"No," he answered in a low voice. His face was still turned away, and +she caught an unaccustomed note of feeling in his voice. + +He left her abruptly and began to pace up and down the deck, while she +stood watching the shoreline sharpen, the tangled blur of harbor resolve +and shift into manifold detail. Shapeless dots had become anchored +ships, a black pencil a wharf, a long yellow-gray streak a curved +shore-front lined with buildings, and the warm green blotch rising +behind it a foliaged hill pricked out with soft, gray roofs. There was a +rush of passengers to one side, where from a brisk little tug, at whose +peak floated a flag bearing a blood-red sun, a handful of spick-and-span +Japanese officials were climbing the ship's ladder. + +At length the bishop spoke again at her elbow, now in his usual voice: +"What are you going to do with that man, Barbara?" + +A faint flush rose in her cheek. "With what man?" + +"Austen Ware." + +She shrugged her shoulders and laughed--a little uneasily. "What can one +do with a man when he is ten thousand miles away?" + +"He's not the sort to give up a chase." + +"Even a wild-goose chase?" she countered. + +"When I was a boy in Virginia," he said with a humorous eye, "I used to +chase wild geese, and bag 'em, too." + +The bishop sauntered away, leaving a frown on Barbara's brow. She had +had a swift mental vision of a cool, dark-bearded face and assured +bearing that the past year had made familiar. It was a handsome face, if +somewhat cold. Its owner was rich, his standing was unquestioned. The +fact that he was ten years her senior had but made his attentions the +more flattering. He had had no inherited fortune and had been no idler; +for this she admired him. If she had not thrilled to his declaration, so +far as liking went, she liked him. The week she left New York he had +intended a yachting trip to the Mediterranean. When he told her, coolly +enough, that he should ask her again in Japan, she had treated it as a +jest, though knowing him quite capable of meaning it. From every worldly +standpoint he was distinctly eligible. Every one who knew them both +confidently expected her to marry Ware. Well, why not? + +Yet to-day she did not ask herself the question confidently. It belonged +still to the limbo of the future--to the convenient "some day" to which +her thought had always banished it. Since she had grown she had never +felt for any one the sentiment she had dreamed of in that vivid girlhood +of hers, a something mixed of pride and joy, that a sound or touch would +thrill with a delight as keen as pain; but unconsciously, perhaps, she +had been clinging to old romantic notions. + +A passenger leaning near her was whistling _Sally in our Alley_ under +his breath and a Japanese steward was emptying over the side a vase of +wilted flowers. A breath of rose scent came to her, mixed with a faint +smell of tobacco, and these and the whistled air awoke a sudden +reminiscence. Her gaze went past the clustered shipping, beyond the gray +line of buildings and the masses of foliage, and swam into a tremulous +June evening seven years past. + +She saw a wide campus of green sward studded with stately elms festooned +with electric lights that glowed in the falling twilight. Scattered +about were groups of benches each with its freight of dainty frocks, and +on one of them she saw herself sitting, a shy girl of sixteen, on her +first visit to a great university. Men went by in sober black gown and +flat mortar-boards, young, clean-shaven, and boyish, with arms about one +another's shoulders. Here and there an orange "blazer" made a vivid +splash of color and groups in white-flannels sprawled beneath the trees +under the perfumed haze of briar-wood pipes that mingled with the +near-by scent of roses. From one of the balconies of the ivied +dormitories that faced the green came the mellow tinkle of a mandolin +and the sound of a clear tenor: + + "Of all the girls that are so smart, + There's none like pretty Sally. + She is the darling of my heart--" + +The groups about her had fallen silent--only one voice had said: "That's +'Duke' Daunt." Then the melody suddenly broke queerly and stopped, and +the man who had spoken got up quickly and said: "I'm going in. It's time +to dress anyway." And somehow his voice had seemed to break queerly, +too. + +Duke Daunt! The scene shifted into the next day, when she had met him +for a handful of delirious moments. For how long afterward had he +remained her childish idol! Time had overlaid the memory, but it started +bright now at the sound of that whistled tune. + +Her uncle's voice recalled her. He was handing her his binoculars. She +took them, chose a spot well forward and glued her eyes to the glass. + +A sigh of ecstasy came from her lips, for it brought the land almost at +arm's length--the stone _hatoba_ crowded with brown Japanese faces, +pricked out here and there by the white Panama hat or pith-helmet of the +foreigner; at one side a bouquet of gay muslin dresses and beribboned +parasols flanked by a phalanx of waiting _rick'sha_,--the little +flotilla of crimson sails at the yacht anchorage--the stately, columned +front of the club on the Bund with its cool terrace of round tables--the +_kimono'd_ figures squatting under the grotesquely bent pines along the +water-front, where a motor-car flashed like a brilliant mailed +beetle--farther away tiny shop-fronts hung with waving figured blue and +beyond them a gray billowing of tiled roofs, and long, bright, +yellow-chequered streets sauntering toward a mass of glowing green from +which cherry blooms soared like pink balloons. Arching over all the +enormous height of the spring-time blue, and the dreamy soft witchery of +the declining sun. It unfolded before her like a panorama--all the +basking, many-hued, polyglot, half-tropical life--a colorful medley, +queer and mysterious! + +Nearer, nearer yet, the ship drew on, till there came to meet it two +curved arms of breakwater, a miniature lighthouse at each side. The +captain on the bridge lifted his hand, and a cheer rose from the group +of male passengers below him as the anchor-chain snored through the +hawse-holes. + +Barbara lowered the glass from her eyes. The slow swinging of the vessel +to the anchor had brought a dazzling bulk between her gaze and the +shore, perilously near. She saw it now in its proper perspective--a trim +steam yacht, painted white, with a rakish air of speed and tautness, +the sun glinting from its polished brass fittings. It lay there, +graceful and light, a sharp, clean contrast to the gray and yellow +_junk_ and grotesque _sampan_, a disdainful swan amid a noisy flock of +teal and mallard. + +Adjusting the focus Barbara looked. A man in naval uniform who had +boarded the ship at Quarantine was pointing out the yacht to a +passenger, and Barbara caught crisp bits of sentences: "You see the +patches of green?--they're decorations for the Squadron that's due +to-morrow. Look just beyond them. Prettiest craft I've ever seen east of +the Straits.... Came in this morning. Owner's in Nara now, doing the +temples.... Has a younger brother who's been out here for a year, going +the pace.... They won't let private yachts lie any closer in or they'd +go high and dry on empty champagne bottles." + +Barbara was feeling a strange sensation of familiarity. Puzzled, she +withdrew her gaze, then looked once more. + +Suddenly she dropped the glass with a startled exclamation. "What are +you going to do with that man?"--her uncle's query seemed to echo +satirically about her. For the white yacht was Austen Ware's, and there, +on the gleaming bows, in polished golden letters, was the name + + BARBARA + + + + + CHAPTER II + + "THE ROOST" + + +The day had been sluggish with the promise of summer, but the failing +afternoon had brought a soft suspiration from the broad bosom of the +Pacific laden with a refreshing coolness. Along the Bund, however, there +was little stir. A few blocks away the foreign dive-quarter was +drowsing, and only a single _samisen_ twanged in Hep Goon's saloon, +where sailors of a dozen nationalities spent their wages while in port. +At the curbing, under the telegraph poles, the chattering _rick'sha_ +coolies squatted, playing _Go_ with flat stones on a square scratched +with a pointed stick in the hard, beaten ground. On the spotless mats +behind their paper _shoji_ the curio-merchants sat on their gaudy wadded +cushions, while, over the glowing fire-bowls of charcoal in the inner +rooms, their wives cooked the rice for the early evening meal. The +office of the Grand Hotel was quiet; only a handful of loungers gossiped +at the bar, and the last young lady tourist had finished her flirtation +on the terrace and retired to the comfort of a stayless _kimono_. In the +deep foliage of the "Bluff" the slanting sunlight caught and quivered +till the green mole seemed a mighty beryl, and in its hedge-shaded +lanes, dreamy as those of an English village, the clear air was pungent +with tropic blooms. + +On one of these fragrant byways, its front looking out across the bay, +stood a small bungalow which bore over its gateway the dubious +appellation "The Roost." From its enclosed piazza, over which a wistaria +vine hung pale pendants, a twisted stair led to the roof, half of which +was flat. This space was surrounded by a balustrade and shaded by a +rounded gaily striped awning. From this airy retreat the water, far +below, looked like a violet shawl edged with shimmering quicksilver and +embroidered with fairy fishing _junk_ and _sampan_; and the subdued +voices of the street mingled, vague and undefined, with a rich dank +smell of foliage, that moved silently, heavy with the odor of +plum-blossoms, a gliding ghost of perfume. Thin blue-and-white Tientsin +rugs and green wicker settees gave an impression of coolness and +comfort; a pair of ornate temple brasses gleamed on a smoking-stand, and +a rich Satsuma bowl did duty for a tobacco jar. + +Under the striped awning three men were grouped about a miniature +roulette table; a fourth, middle-aged and of huge bulk, with a cynical, +Semitic face, from a wide arm-chair was lazily peering through the +fleecy curdle of a Turkish cigarette. A fifth stood leaning against the +balustrade, watching. + +The last was tall, clean-cut and smooth-shaven, with comely head well +set on broad shoulders, and gray eyes keen and alert. Possibly no one of +the foreign colony (where a Secretary of Embassy was by no means a _rara +avis_) was better liked than Duke Daunt, even by those who never +attempted to be sufficiently familiar with him to call him by the +nickname, which a characteristic manner had earned him in his salad +days. + +At intervals a player muttered an impatient exclamation or gave a +monosyllabic order to the stolid Japanese servant who passed +noiselessly, deftly replenishing glasses. Through all ran the droning +buzz of bees in the wistaria, the recurrent rustle of the metal wheel, +the nervous click of the rolling marble and the shuffle and thud of the +ivory disks on the green baize. All at once the marble blundered into +its compartment and one of the gamesters burst into a boisterous laugh +of triumph. + +As the sudden discord jangled across the silence, the big man in the +arm-chair started half round, his lips twitched and a spasm of something +like fright crossed his face. The glass at his elbow was empty, but he +raised it and drained air, while the ice in it tinkled and clinked. He +set it down and wiped his lips with a half-furtive glance about him, but +the curious agitation had apparently been unnoted, and presently his +face had once more regained its speculative, slightly sardonic +expression. + +Suddenly a distant gun boomed the hour of sunset. At the same instant +the marble ceased its erratic career, the wheel stilled and the youngest +of the gaming trio and the master of the place--Philip Ware, a graceful, +shapely fellow of twenty-three, with a flushed face and nervous +manner--pushed the scattered counters across the table with shaking +fingers. + +"My limit to-day," he said with sullen petulance, and flipping the +marble angrily into the garden below, crossed to a table and poured out +a brandy-and-soda. + +Daunt's gray eyes had been looking at him steadily, a little curiously. +He had known him seven years before at college, though the other had +been in a lower class than himself. But those intervening years had left +their baleful marks. At home Phil had stood only for loose habit, daring +fad, and flaunting mannerism--milestones of a career as completely +dissolute as a consistent disregard of conventional moral thoroughfares +could well make it. To Yokohama he was rapidly coming to be, in the eyes +of the censorious, an example for well-meaning youth to avoid, an +incorrigible _flanêur_, a purposeless idler on the primrose paths. + +"Better luck next time," said one of the others lightly. "Come along, +Larry; we'll be off to the club." + +The older man rose to depart more deliberately, his great size becoming +apparent. He was framed like a wrestler, abnormal width of shoulder and +massive head giving an effect of weight which contrasted oddly with +aquiline features in which was a touch of the accipitrine, something +ironic and sinister, like a vulture. His eyes were dappled yellow and +deep-set and had a peculiar expression of cold, untroubled regard. He +crossed to the farther side and looked down. + +"What a height!" he said. "The whole harbor is laid out like a +checker-board." He spoke in a tone curiously dead and lacking in +_timbre_. His English was perfect, with a trace of accent. + +"Pretty fair," assented Phil morosely. "It ought to be a good place to +view the Squadron, when it comes in to-morrow morning. It must have cost +the Japanese navy department a pretty penny to build those temporary +wharves along the Bund. They must be using a thousand incandescents! By +the decorations you'd think the Dreadnaughts were Japan's long lost +brothers, instead of battle-ships of a country that's likely to have a +row on with her almost any minute. I wonder where they will anchor." + +The yellowish eyes had been gazing with an odd, intent glitter, and into +the heavy, pallid face, turned away, had sprung sharp, evil lines, that +seemed the shadows of some monstrous reflection on which the mind had +fed. Its sudden, wicked vitality was in strange contrast to the toneless +voice, which now said: "They will lie just opposite this point." + +"So far in?" The young man leaning on the balustrade spoke interestedly. + +"It seems as though from here one could almost shoot a pea aboard any +one of them." + +"You might send me up some sticks of _Shimosé_, Doctor," said Phil with +satiric humor, "and I'll practise. I'll begin by shying a few at this +forsaken town; it needs it!" + +The big man smiled faintly as he withdrew his eyes, and held out his +hand to the remaining visitor. The degrading lines had faded from his +face. + +"I'm distinctly glad to have seen you, Mr. Daunt," he said. "I've +watched your trials with your aëroplane more than once lately at the +parade-ground. I saw the elder Wright at Paris last year and I believe +your flight will prove as well sustained as his. It's a pity you can't +compete for some of the European prizes." + +"I'm afraid that would take me out of the amateur class," was the +answer. "It's purely an amusement with me--a fad, if you like." + +"A very useful one," said the other, "unless you break your neck at it. +I wonder we haven't met before in Tokyo. I have an appointment to-night, +by the way, with your Ambassador. Come in to see me soon," he said, +turning to Phil. "I'm at home most of the time. Come and dine with me +again. I've only an indifferent cook, as you have discovered, I'm +afraid, but my new boy Ishida can make a famous cup of coffee and I can +always promise you a good cigar." + +"Doctor Bersonin's the real thing!" said Phil, when the other had +disappeared. "He's a scientist--the biggest in his line--but he's no +prig. He believes in enjoying life. You ought to see his villa at +Kisaraz on the Chiba Road. He's worth a million, they say, and he must +make no end of money as a government expert." He paused, then added: +"You seem mighty quiet to-night! How does he strike you?" + +Daunt was silent. He had seen that strange look that had shot across the +expert's face--at the sound of a laugh! He was wondering, too, what +attraction could exist between this middle-aged scientist with his cold +eyes and emotionless voice and Phil, sparkling and irresponsible +black-sheep and ne'er-do-well, who thought of nothing but his own coarse +pleasures. Frequently, of late, he had seen them together, at theater or +tea-house, and once in Bersonin's motor-car in Shiba Park in Tokyo. + +"You don't like him! I can see that well enough," went on Phil +aggressively. "Why not? He's a lot above any man _I_ know, and I'm proud +to have him for a friend of mine." + +"There's no accounting for tastes," returned Daunt dryly. "At any rate, +I don't imagine it matters particularly whether I like Doctor Bersonin +or not. There's another thing that's more apropos." He pointed to the +decanter in the other's hands. "You've had enough of that to-night, I +should think." + +Phil reddened. "I've had no more than I can carry, if it comes to that," +he retorted. "And I guess I'm able to take care of myself." + +Daunt hesitated a moment. To-day's call had been a part of his +consistent effort, steadily growing more irksome, to keep alive for the +sake of the old college name, the _quasi_ friendship between them and to +invoke whatever influence he might once have possessed. + +"I'm thinking of your brother," he said quietly. "You say his yacht came +into harbor from Kobe to-day. He'll scarcely be more than a week in the +temple cities, and any train may bring him after that. You'll want all +the time you've got to straighten out. You'll need to put your best foot +forward." + +A look that was not pleasant shot across Phil's face. "I suppose I +shall," he said savagely. "A pretty brother he is! He wrote me from home +that if he found I'd been playing, he'd cut his allowance to me to +twenty dollars a week. I'd like to knock that smile of his down his +throat--the cold-blooded fish! _He_ spends enough!" + +"He's earned it, I understand," said Daunt. + +"So will I, perhaps, after I've had my fling. I'm in no hurry, and I +won't take orders always from him! I've had to knuckle down to him all +my life, and I'm precious tired of it, I can tell you." + +Daunt's eyes had turned to the broad expanse below, where the white +sails of vagrant _sampan_ drifted. In the road he could hear the sharp +tap-tap of a blind _amma_--adept in the Japanese massage which coaxes +soreness from the body--as he passed slowly along, feeling his way with +his stick and from time to time sounding on his metal flute his +characteristic double note. Across the moment's silence the sound came +clear and bird-like, very shrill and sweet. + +"What business is it of his," Phil added, "if I choose to stay out here +in the East?" + +Daunt withdrew his gaze. "Take his advice, Phil," he said. "The East +isn't doing you any good. You're doing nothing but dissipate. And--it +doesn't pay." + +Phil gave a short, sneering laugh. "Why shouldn't I stay abroad if I can +have more fun here than I can at home?" he returned. "If I had my way, +I'd never want to see the United States again! This country suits me at +present. When I get tired, I'll leave--if I can raise enough to get out +of town." + +A flush had risen to Daunt's forehead, but he turned away without reply. +At the stair, however, he spoke again: + +"Look here, Phil," he said, coming slowly back. "Why not come up to +Tokyo for a while? It's--quieter, and it will be a change. I have a +little Japanese house in Aoyama that I leased as a place to work on my +Glider models, but I don't use it now, and it's fairly well furnished. +The caretaker is an excellent cook, too." He took a key from its ring +and laid it on the table. "Let me leave this anyway--the address is on +the label--and do as you like about it." + +Phil looked at him an instant with narrowing eyes, then laughed. "Tokyo +as a gentle sedative, eh? And pastoral visitations every other day!" + +"You needn't be afraid of that," replied Daunt. "I'll not come to +lecture you. I haven't set foot in the place for a month, and probably +shan't for a month to come. Go up and try it, anyway. Drop the Bund and +the races for a little while and get a grip on things!" + +Phil looked away. A sudden memory came to him of a face he had seen in +Tokyo--at one of the _matsuri_ or ward-festivals--a girl's face, oval +and pensive and with a smile like a flash of sunlight. Her _kimono_ had +been all of holiday colors, and he had tried desperately to pick +acquaintance, with poor success. A second time he had seen her, on the +beach at Kamakura. Then she had worn a _kimono_ of rich brown, soft and +clinging, and an _obi_ stamped with yellow maple leaves and fastened +with a little silver clasp in the shape of a firefly. She was with a +party of girls bent on frolic; they had discarded the white cleft _tabi_ +and clog and were splashing through the surf bare-kneed. He could see +yet the foam on the perfect naked feet, and below the lifted _kimono_ +and red petticoat, the gleam of the white skin that is the dream of +Japanese women. A flush crept over Phil's face as he remembered. He had +had better success that time. She had dropped her swinging clog and he +had rescued it, and won a word of thanks and a smile from her dark eyes. +She herself had unbent little, but the girls with her were full of +frolic and the handsome foreigner was an adventure. He had discovered +that she spoke English and lived in Tokyo, in the ward of the _matsuri_. +But though he had strolled through that district a score of times since, +he had not seen her again. + +"You're not a bad sort, Daunt," he said. "I don't know but I--will." + +"Good," said Daunt. "I'll send a chit to my caretaker the first thing in +the morning, and I'll put your name on the visitors' list at the Tokyo +Club. Well, I must be off." + + * * * * * + +Phil saw him cross the fragrant close to the gate with a growing sneer. +Then he threw himself on a chair and gazed moodily out across the +deepening haze to where, just inside the harbor breakwater, lay the +white yacht of whose coming Daunt had spoken. + +A bitter scowl was on his face. Far below, at a little wharf, he could +see a tiny red triangle; it marked his sail-boat, the _Fatted-Calf_, so +christened at a tea-house on the river where he and other choice spirits +maintained the club whose _geisha_ suppers had become notorious. Japan, +to his way of life, had proven expensive. He had drawn on every +available resource and had borrowed more than he liked to remember, but +still his debts had grown. And now, with the coming of the white yacht, +he saw a lowering danger to the allowance on which he abjectly depended. +He knew his brother for one whom no plea could sway from a +determination, who on occasion could hew to the line with merciless +exactitude. Suppose he should cut off his allowance altogether. An ugly +passion stole over his countenance. He sprang up, filled a glass from +the decanter and drank it thirstily. With the instant glow of the liquor +his mood relaxed. He picked up the key from the table and stood +thoughtfully swinging it a moment by its wooden label. Then he put it in +his pocket and, looking at his watch, caught up a straw hat and went +briskly down to the street. + +He swung down the steep, twisting, ravine-like road to the Bund with +less of ill-humor. He had no thought of the dark blue sky arching over, +soft with vapors like a smoke of gold, or of the glimpses of the sea +that came in sharp bursts of light between the curving walls that +towered on either side. He sniffed the thick, Eastern smells as a cat +sniffs catnip, his eye searching the stream of brown, shouting coolies +and toiling _rick'sha_, to linger on a satiny oval face under a shining +head-dress, or the powdered cheek of a gold-brocaded _geisha_ on her way +to some noble's feast. + +At the foot of the hill, stood a sign-board on which was pasted a large +bill in yellow: + + AT THE GAIETY THEATER + LIMITED ENGAGEMENT OF + THE POPULAR HARDMANN COMIC OPERA COMPANY + WITH + MISS CISSY CLIFFORD + +He paused in front of this a moment, then passed to the Bund. At its +upper end, near the hotel front, great floating wharves had been built +out into the water. They were gaily trimmed with bunting and electric +lights in geometrical designs, and were flanked by arches covered with +twigs of ground-pine. A small army of workmen were still busied on them, +for the European Squadron in whose honor they had been erected would +arrive at dawn the next morning. Just beyond the arches, under a row of +twisted pines, were a number of park benches, and from one of these a +girl with a beribboned parasol greeted him. + +"You're a half hour late, Phil," she complained. "I've been waiting here +till I'm tired to death." She made place for him with a rustle of +flounces. She was showily dressed, her cheeks bore the marks of habitual +grease-paint and the fingers of one over-ringed hand were slightly +yellowed from cigarette smoke. + +"Hello, Cissy," he said carelessly, and sat down beside her. In his mind +was still the picture of that oval Japanese face suffused with pink, +those pretty bare feet splashing through the foam, and he looked +sidewise at his companion with an instant's sullen distaste. + +"I had another row with the manager to-day," she continued. "I told him +he must think his company was a kindergarten!" + +"Trust you to set him right in that," he answered satirically. + +"My word!" she exclaimed. "How glum you are to-day! Same old poverty, I +suppose." She rose and shook out her skirts. "Come," she said. "There's +no play to-night. I'm in for a lark. Let's go to the Jewel-Fountain +Tea-House. They've got a new juggler there." + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE LAND OF THE GODS + + +In the first touch of the shore, where the Ambassador's pretty daughter +waited, Barbara's problem had been swept away. Patricia had rushed to +meet her, embraced her, with a moist, ecstatic kiss on her cheek, +rescued the bishop from his ordeal of hand-shaking and carried him off +to find their trunks, leaving Barbara borne down by a Babel of sound and +scent whose newness made her breathless, and to whose manifold +sensations she was as keenly alive as a photographic plate to color. + +A half-dozen gnarled, unshaven porters in excessively shabby jackets +and straw sandals carried her hand-baggage into the hideously +modern, red-brick custom-house, over whose entrance a huge golden +conventionalized chrysanthemum shone in the sunlight, and as she watched +them, a dapper youth in European dress, with a shining brown derby, a +bright purple neck-tie, a silver-mounted cane and teeth eloquent of gold +bridge-work, slid into her hand a card whose type proclaimed that Mr. Y. +Nakajima "did the guiding for foreign ladies and gentlemans." The air +was fragrant with the mild aroma from tiny Japanese pipes and a-flutter +with moving fans. A group of elderly men in hot frock-coats and tiles of +not too modern vintage were welcoming a returning official, and sedate +gentlemen in sad-colored _houri_ and spotless cleft foot-wear, bowed +double in stately ceremonial, with the sucking-in of breath which in the +old-fashioned Japanese etiquette means "respectful awe bordering on +terror." + +Barbara had found herself singularly conscious of a feeling of universal +good-nature. It came to her even in the posture of the resting coolies, +stretched at the side of the quay, lazily sunning themselves, with +whiffs of the omnipresent little pipe, and in the faces of the +bare-legged _rick'sha_ men, with round hats like bobbing mushrooms, arms +and chests glistening with sweat, and thin towels printed in black and +blue designs tucked in their girdles. She smiled at them, and they +smiled back at her with that unvarying smile which the Japanese of every +caste wears to wedding and to funeral. She even caught herself patting +the tonsured head of a preternaturally solemn baby swaddled in a +variegated _kimono_ and strapped to the back of a five-year-old boy. + +The _rick'sha_ ride to the _stenshun_ (for so the Japanese has adapted +the English word "station") was a moving panorama of strange high lights +and shades, of savory odors from bake-ovens, of open shop-fronts hung +with gaudy figured crape, or piled with saffron _biwa_, warty purple +melons, ebony eggplant, shriveled yellow peppers and red Hokkaido +apples, of weighted carts drawn by chanting half-naked coolies, and +swiftly gliding victorias of Europeans. From a hundred houses in the +long, narrow streets hung huge gilded sign-boards, painted with +idiographs of black and red. At intervals the tall stone front of a +foreign business building looked down on its neighbors, or a tea-house +towered three stories high, showing gay little verandas on which stood +pots of flowers and dwarf trees; between were smaller houses of frame +and of cement, and thick-walled _go-downs_ for storing goods against +fire. + +Here and there, from behind a gateway of unpainted wood, showing a +delicate grain, a pine thrust up its needled clump of green, or a +cherry-tree flung its pink pyrotechnics against the sky's flood of +dimming blue and gold. At a crossing a deformed beggar with distorted +face and the featureless look of the leper, waved a crutch and wheedled +from the roadside, and a child in dun-colored rags, unbelievably agile +and dirty, ran ahead of Barbara's _rick'sha_, prostrating himself again +and again in the dust, holding out grimy hands and whining for a _sen_. +In the side streets Barbara could catch glimpses of bare-breasted women +sitting in shop doors nursing babies, and children of a larger growth +playing Japanese hopscotch or tossing "diavolo," the latest foreign toy. + +When the _rick'sha_ set them down at the station she felt bewildered, +yet full of exhilaration. As they drew up at its stone front, a porter +with red cap and brass buttons emerged and began to ring a heavy bell, +swinging it back and forth in both hands. The bishop bought their +tickets at a little barred window bearing over it the sign: "Your +baggages will be sent freely in every direction." + +Making their way along the platform, crowded with Japanese, mostly in +native dress, and filled with the aroma of cigarettes and the thin +ringing of innumerable wooden clogs on stone flags, Barbara was +conscious for the first time of a studious surveillance. A young +Japanese passed her carrying his bent and wizened mother on his back; +the old woman, clutching him tightly about the neck, turned her shaven +head to watch. Children in startling rainbow tinted _kimono_ stared from +the platform with round, serious eyes. A peasant woman, with teeth +brilliantly blackened, peered from a car window, and a group of young +men turned bodily and regarded her with gravely observant gaze, in a +prolonged, unwinking scrutiny that seemed as innocent of courtesy as of +any intent to offend. In European cities she had felt the gaze of other +races, but this was different. It was not the curious study of a +phenomenon, of an enduring puzzle of far origins, nor the expression of +the ignorant, vacantly amused by what they do not understand; it was a +deeper look of inner placidity, that held no wonder and no awe, and +somehow suggested thoughts as ancient as the world. A curious sense +began to possess Barbara of having left behind her all familiar +every-day things, of being face to face with some new wonder, some +brooding mystery which she could not grasp. + +They entered the car just behind an ample lady who had been among the +ship's passengers--a good-natured, voluble Cook's tourist who, the +second day out, had confided to Barbara her certainty of an invitation +to the Imperial Cherry-Blossom party, as her husband had "a friend in +the litigation." She wore a painted-muslin, and the husband of +influential acquaintance and substantial, red-bearded person showed now +a gleaming expanse of white waistcoat crossed by a gold watch-chain that +might have restrained a tiger. The lady nodded and smiled beamingly. + +"Isn't it all perfectly splendid!" she cried. "There was a baby on the +platform that was too _sweet_!--for all the world like the Japanese +dolls we buy at home, with their hair shingled and a little round spot +shaved right in the crown! My husband tried to give it a silver dollar, +but the mother just smiled and bowed and went away and left it lying on +the bench." She found a seat and fanned herself vigorously with a +handkerchief. "I just thought I never _would_ get through that car +door," she added. "It's only two feet across!" + +The road was narrow gage and the seats ran the length of the car on +either side. Hardly had its occupants settled themselves when, to the +shrill piping of a horn, the train started. + +"Goodness, this is a relief!" sighed Patricia, as the bishop opened the +first Japanese newspaper he had seen for many months. "I hate +_rick'sha_--they're such unsociable things! I haven't said ten words to +you, Barbara, and I've got oceans to talk about. But I'll be merciful +till I get you home. What a good-looking youth that is in the corner!" + +The young man referred to had a light skin and long, almond-shaped eyes. +He wore a suit of gray merino underwear, and between the end of the +drawers and the white, cleft sock, an inch of polished skin was visible. +His hat was a modish felt. His _houri_, which bore a woven crest on +breast and sleeves, swung jauntily open and above his left ear was +coquettishly disposed an unlighted cigarette. Next him, under a brass +rack piled with bright-patterned carpet-bags, an old lady in +dove-colored silk was placidly inflating a rubber air-cushion. Her face +had an artificial delicacy of _nuance_ that was a triumph of rice-powder +and rouge. Beside her was a girl of perhaps eighteen, in a _kimono_ of +dark blue and an _obi_ of gold brocade. The latter wore white silk +"mits" with bright metal trimming and on one slender finger was a +diamond ring. Her hands were delicately artistic and expressive, and her +complexion as soft as the white wing of a miller. She gazed steadfastly +away, but now and then her sloe-black eyes returned to study Barbara's +foreign gown and hat with surreptitious attention. + +"What complexions!" whispered Patricia. "The old lady made hers this +morning, sitting flat on a white mat in front of a camphor-wood +dressing-chest about two feet high, with twenty drawers and a round +steel mirror on top. It beats a hare's-foot, doesn't it! The daughter's +is natural. If I had been born with a skin like that, it would have +changed my whole disposition!" + +Having settled her air-cushion, the old lady drew from her girdle a +lacquer case and produced a pipe--a thin reed with a tiny silver bowl at +its end. A flat box yielded a pinch of tobacco as fine as snuff. This +she rolled between her fingers into a ball the size of a small pea, +placed it carefully in the bowl and began to smoke. Each puff she +inhaled with a lingering inspiration and emitted it slowly, in a thin +curdled cloud, from her nostrils. Three puffs, and the tiny coal was +exhausted. She tapped the pipe gently against the edge of the seat, put +it back into the case and replaced the latter in her girdle. Then, +tucking up her feet under her on the plush seat, she turned her back to +the aisle and went to sleep. + +Three students in the uniform of some lower school with foreign jackets +of blue-black cloth set off with brass buttons, sat in a row on the +opposite side. Each had a cap like a cadet's, with a gilt cherry-blossom +on its front, and all watched Barbara movelessly. The man nearest her +wore a round straw hat and horn spectacles. He was reading a vernacular +newspaper, intoning under his breath with a monotonous sing-song, like +the humming of a bumblebee. Between them a little boy sat on the edge of +the seat, his clogs hanging from the thong between his bare toes, the +sleeves of his _kimono_ bulging with bundles. He stared as if hypnotized +at a curl of Barbara's bronze hair which lay against the cushion. Once +he stretched out a hand furtively to touch it, but drew it back hastily. + +"If I could only talk to him!" Barbara exclaimed. "I want to know the +language. Tell me, Patsy--how long did it take you to learn?" + +"I?" cried Patricia in comical amazement. "Heavens and earth, _I_ +haven't learned it! I only know enough to badger the servants. You have +to turn yourself inside out to think Japanese, and then stand on your +head to talk it." + +"Never mind, Barbara," said the bishop, looking up from his newspaper. +"You can learn it if you insist on it. Haru would be a capital +teacher--bless my soul, I believe I forgot to tell you about her!" + +"Who is Haru?" asked Barbara. + +"She's a young Japanese girl, the daughter of the old _samurai_ who sold +us the land for the Chapel. The family is a fine old one, but of frayed +fortune. I was greatly interested in her, chiefly, perhaps, because she +is a Christian. She became so with her father's consent, though he is a +Buddhist. She isn't of the servant class, of course, but I thought--if +you liked--she would make an ideal companion for you while you are +learning Tokyo." + +"I know Haru," said Patricia. "She's a dear! She's as pretty as a +picture, and her English is too quaint!" + +"It would be lovely to have her," Barbara answered. "You're a very +thoughtful man, Uncle Arthur. Are you sure she'll want to?" + +"I'll send her a note and ask her to come to you at the Embassy this +evening. Then--all aboard for the Japanese lessons!" + +"No such wisdom for me, thank you," said Patricia. "I prefer to take +mine in through the pores. All the Japanese officials speak English +anyway, just as much as the diplomatic corps. By the way, there's Count +Voynich, the Servian _Chargé_." She nodded toward the farther end of the +carriage where a bored-looking European plaintively regarded the +landscape through a monocle. "He's nice," she added reflectively, "but +he's a dyspeptic. I caught him one night at a dinner dropping a capsule +into his soup. He has a cabinet with three hundred Japanese +_nets'kés_--they're the little ivory carvings on the strings of +tobacco-pouches. He didn't speak to me for a month once because I said +it looked like a dental exhibition. Almost every secretary has a fad, +and that's his. Ours has an aëroplane. He practises on it nearly every +day on the parade-ground. The pudgy woman in the other corner with a +cockatoo in her hat is Mrs. Sturgis, the wife of the big exporter. She +wears red French heels and calls her husband 'papa'." + +Barbara's laughter was infectious. It caught the bishop. It reflected +itself even on the demure face of the Japanese girl, and the serious +youths opposite giggled openly in sympathy. + +"I do envy you your first impressions!" exclaimed Patricia. "I've been +here so long that I've forgotten mine. It seems perfectly natural now +for people to live in houses made of bird-cages and paper napkins, and +travel about in grown-up baby-buggies, and to see men walking around +with bare legs and oil-skin umbrellas. It's like the sea-shore at home, +I suppose--you get used to it." + +The train had stopped at a suburb and guards went by proclaiming its +name in a musical guttural, their voices dwelling insistently on the +long-drawn, last syllable. The next carriage was a third-class one with +bare floors and wooden benches, set crosswise. Through the opened door +Barbara could see its crowd of brown faces, keen and saturnine. On its +front seat a heavy-featured, lumpish coolie woman was nursing a +three-year-old baby, holding it to her bared breast with red and +roughened hands. Just outside the station's white-washed fence, a clump +of factory chimneys spouted pitchy smoke into the dimming sky, and the +descending sun glistened from a monster gas-tank. Farther away, beyond +clipped hedges, lay thatched roofs, looking as soft as mole-skin, with +wild flowers growing on the ridges, and bamboo clumps soaring above +them, like pale green ostrich-feathers yellow at the tips. Through the +open window came the treble note of a girl singing. + +A man passed hastily through the carriage leaving a trail of small +pamphlets bound in green paper with gold lettering--an advertisement of +a health resort, printed in English for the tourist. Barbara opened one +curiously. She looked up with a merry eye. + +"Here's a paragraph for you, Uncle Arthur," she said. "Listen: + + "'This place has other modern monuments, first and second-class + hotels and many sea-scapes. In one quarter are a number of + missionaries, but they can easily be avoided.'" + +"Do let us credit that to difficulties of the language," he protested. +"I'm sure that must have been meant complimentarily." + +"But what a contradiction!" put in Patricia wickedly. + +"Well," he retorted. "My baker has a sign on his wagon, 'The biggest +loafer in Tokyo.' He means that well, too." + +A shrill whistle, a slamming of doors, and now the gray roofs fell away. +On one side the steel road all but dipped in the bay. Wild ducks drew +startled wakes across the rippleless lagoon. On a sand-bar a flock of +gray and white gulls disported, looking at a distance like pied bathers; +and about an anchored fishing boat, a dozen naked urchins were splashing +with shrill cries. Far across the inlet, hazy, vapory, visionary, +Barbara could make out a farther shore, an outline in violets and +opalines, coifed with lilac cloud, and in the mid-azure a high-pooped +_junk_ swam by, a shape of misty gold, palely drawn in wan, blue light. + +On the other side the train was rounding grassy hills, terraced to the +very tops. Laid against their steep sides, or standing upright on wooden +framework, were occasional huge advertisements in red or white--Chinese +characters or pictures--while flowering camelia trees and small +green-yellow shrubs drew lengthening blue shadows. A high tressle +spanned acres of orchard where continuous trellis made a carpet of +growing fruit, across which Barbara saw far away the bold outline of +bluish hills. + +They were crossing flooded rice-fields now, like gigantic crazy +checker-boards, and the air was musical with the low, chirring chorus of +frogs. Shades of orange light played over the marshes, bars of rape +braided them with vivid yellow, and on the narrow, curving partitions +between the burnished squares, round stacks of garnered straw stood like +crawfish chimneys. Amid them peasants worked with broad-bladed mattocks, +knee-deep in mud. They were blue clad, with white cloths bound about +their heads, and some had sashes of crimson. Here and there, naked to +the thighs, a boy trod a water-wheel between the terraced levels. At +intervals a refractory rock-hillock served as excuse for a single +twisted pine-tree shading a carved tablet to some _Shinto_ divinity, or +a steep bluff sheltered a tiny shrine of unpainted wood; and all along +the way, shining canals drew silver ribbons through the paddy-fields, +and little arrowy flights of birds darted hither and thither. + +Occasionally they passed small, neat stations, each with its white +sign-boards bearing long liquid names in English, and queer Japanese +characters. Opposite one, on a sloping hill that was a mass of deep +glowing green, Patricia pointed out the peaked roofs of a cluster of +temples, the shrine of some century-dead Buddhist saint. Barbara began +to realize that these fields through which this modern train was gliding +were old Japan, that in those blue hills had been nurtured the ancient +legends she had read, of famous two-sworded _samurai_, of swaggering +bandits and pleasure-loving _shogun_, and of tea-house _geisha_ who +danced their way into _daimyo's_ palaces. The spell of the land, whose +sheer beauty had thrilled her on the ship, drew her closer with the +threads of memories almost forgotten. + +Its contrasts were wonderful. They spoke of primary and unmixed +emotions, that lisped themselves through the fading golden sunlight, the +moist, dreamy air, the graceful outlines of roof and tree. In the west +the sun was declining toward a range of hills jagged as the teeth of a +bear. Their tops were pale as cloud and their bases melted into an ebony +line of forest. The plain below was a winey purple, with slashes of red +earth gorges like fresh wounds, and one side had the cloudy color of +raspberries crushed in curdled milk. The farther range seemed a part of +a far-off painted curtain, tinted in pastels, and high above a milky +cloud floated, curling like a lace scarf about the opal crest of Fuji, +mysteriously blue and dim as an Arctic summer sea. + +Barbara glimpsed it, the very spirit of beauty, between the whirling +shadows of pine and camphor trees, between tiled walls guarding thatched +temples, flights of gray pigeons and spurts of pink cherry-blossom. As +she leaned out, and the pines bowed rhythmically, and the water-wheels +turned in the furrows, and the yellow-green of the bamboo, the +purple-indigo of the hills and the golden-pink of the cherries lifting, +above the hedges, went by like raveling skeins of a tapestry--that +majestic Presence, ghostly and splendid above the wild contour of hill +and mountain, seemed to call to her. + +And across the gorgeous landscape, rejoicing from every rift and crevice +of its moist soil, in its colors of rich red earth and green foliage, in +the grace and vigor of its springing, resilient bamboo groves and the +cardinal pride of its flowering camelias, Barbara's heart answered the +call. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + UNDER THE RED SUNSET + + +The slowing of the train awoke Barbara from her reverie. The three boy +students got out, casting sidelong glances at her. More Japanese +entered, and two foreigners--a bright-faced girl on the arm of a +keen-eyed, soldierly man with bristling white hair, a mustache like a +walrus, and a military button. The girl's hands were full of +cherry-branches, whose bunches of double blossoms, incredibly thick and +heavy, filled the car with a delicate fragrance. The bishop folded his +newspaper and put it into his pocket. + +As he did so the owner of the expansive waistcoat leaned across the +aisle and addressed him. + +"Say, my friend," he said, "you've lived out here some time, I +understand." + +"Yes," the bishop replied. "Twenty-five years." + +"Well, I take it, then, you ought to know this country right down to the +ground; and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask a question or two." + +"Do," said the bishop. "I'll be glad to answer if I can." + +The other got up and took a seat opposite. "You see," he pursued +confidentially, "I came on this trip just for a rest and to settle the +bills for the curios my wife"--he indicated the lady, who had now moved +up beside him--"thinks she'd like to look at back home. But I've been +getting interested by the minute. It's quite some time since I went to +school, and I guess there hadn't so much happened then to Japan. I wish +you'd run down the scale for me--just to hit the high places. Now there +was a big rumpus here, I remember, at the time of our Civil War. They +chose a new Emperor, didn't they?" + +"No. The dynasty has been unbroken for two thousand years." + +"Two thousand years!" cried the lady. "Why, that's before Christ!" + +"When our ancestors, Martha, were painting themselves up in yellow ochre +and carrying clubs--what was the row about, then?" + +"It was something like this. To go back a little, the Emperor was always +the nominal ruler and spiritual head, but the temporal power was +administered by a self-decreed Viceroy called the _shogun_. Japan was a +closed country and only a little trading was allowed in certain ports." + +His questioner nodded. The girl beside the white-haired old soldier had +touched the latter's sleeve, and both were listening attentively. "Then +Perry came along and kicked open the gate. Bombarded 'em, didn't he?" + +The bishop's eyes twinkled. "Only with gifts. He brought a small +printing-press, a toy telegraph line and a miniature locomotive and +railroad track. He set up these on the beach and showed the officials +whom the _shogun's_ government sent to treat with him, how they worked. +In the end he made them understand the immense value of the scientific +advancement of the western world. The visit was an eye-opener, and the +wiser Japanese realized that the nation couldn't exist under the old +_régime_ any longer. It must make general treaties and adopt new ideas. +Some, on the other hand, wanted things to stay as they were." + +"Pulling both ways, eh?" + +"Yes. At length the progressists decided on a sweeping measure. Under +the _shogunate_, the _daimyos_ (they were the great landed nobles) had +been in a continual state of suppressed insurrection." + +"Some wouldn't knuckle down to the _shogun_, I suppose." + +"Exactly. There was no national rallying-point. But they all alike +revered their Emperor. In all the bloody civil wars of a thousand +years--and the Japanese were always fighting, like Europe in the Middle +Ages--no _shogun_ ever laid violent hands on the Emperor. He was half +divine, you see, descended from the ancient gods, a living link between +them and modern men. So now they proposed to give him complete temporal +power, make him ruler in fact, and abolish the _shogunate_ entirely." + +"Phew! And the big _daimyos_ came into line on the proposition?" + +"They poured out their blood and their money like water for the new +cause. The _shogun_ himself voluntarily relinquished his power and +retired to private life." + +"Splendid!" said the stranger, and the girl clapped her gloved hands. +"So that was the 'Restoration,' the beginning of _Meiji_, whatever that +may mean?" + +"The 'Era of Enlightenment.' The present Emperor, Mutsuhito, was a boy +of sixteen then. They brought him here to Yedo, and renamed it +Tokyo----" + +"And proceeded to get reeling drunk on western notions," said the man +with the military button, smiling grimly. "I was out here in the +Seventies." + +"True, sir," assented the bishop. "It was so, for a time. And the +opposition took refuge in riot, assassination, and suicide. But +gradually Japan worked the modernization scheme out. She sent her young +statesmen to Europe and America to study western systems of education, +jurisprudence and art. She hired an army of experts from all over the +world. She sent her cleverest lads to foreign universities. In the end +she chose what seemed to her the best from all. Her military ideas come +from Germany and her railroad cars from the town of Pullman, Illinois. +When the best didn't suit her, she invented a system of her own, as she +has done with wireless telegraphy." + +"So!" said the other. "I'm greatly obliged to you, sir. I've read plenty +in the newspapers, but I never had it put so plain. It strikes me," he +added to the old soldier, "that a nation plucky enough to do this in +fifty years, in fifty more will make some other nations get a move on." +He brought a big fist smashing down in an open palm. "And, by gad! the +Japanese deserve all they get! When we go back I guess me and Martha +won't march in any anti-Jap torch-light processions, anyway!" + +The fields were gone now. The train was rumbling along a canal teeming +with laden _sampan_, level with the paper _shoji_ of frail-looking +houses on its opposite bank. Beyond lay a sea of roofs, swelling gray +billows of tiling spotted with green foam, from which steel factory +chimneys lifted like the black masts of sunken ships. A leafy hill of +cryptomeria rose near-by, and an octagonal stone tower peeped above its +foliage. Crows were circling about it, black dots against the bronze. +The train was entering Tokyo. + +A door slammed sharply. From the forward smoking carriage a man had +entered. He was an European and Barbara was struck at once by his great +size and the absence of color in his leaden face. The bored-looking +diplomatist in the corner gathered himself hastily into a bow, which the +other acknowledged abstractedly. Seemingly he had been occupied in some +intent speculation which spread a kind of glaze over his sharp features. +A book drooped carelessly from his heavy fingers. + +"That is Doctor Bersonin," said the bishop, as the girls collected their +wraps. "He came just before I left, last fall. He is the government +expert, and is supposed to be one of the greatest living authorities on +explosives." + +"Oh, yes," said Patricia, "I know. He invented a dynamo or a torpedo, or +something. I saw him once at a reception; he had a foreign decoration as +big as a dinner-plate." + +The big man made his way slowly along the aisle and, still absorbed, +took a dust-coat from a rack. As he ponderously drew it on, the daylight +was suddenly eclipsed, and the rumbling reëchoed from metal roofing. +They were in Shimbashi Station. + +"Isn't he simply odious!" whispered Patricia, as the expert stepped +before them on to the long, dusky, asphalt platform. "His eyes are like +a cat's and his hands look as if they wanted to crawl, like big white +spiders! There is the Embassy _betto_," she said suddenly, pointing over +the turnstile, where stood a Japanese boy in a wide-winged _kimono_ of +tea-colored pongee with crimson facings and a crimson mushroom hat. "The +carriage is just outside. You'll come, too, of course, Bishop," she +added. "Father will expect you." + +He shook his head and motioned toward a dense assemblage comprising a +half dozen of his own race in clerical black, and a half hundred +_kimono'd_ Japanese, whose faces seemed one composite smile of welcome. +"There is a part of my flock," he said. "There will be a jubilation at +my bachelor palace to-night. I shall see you to-morrow, I hope." + +They watched him for a moment, the center of a ceremonious ring of +bowing figures, then passed through the station to the steps where the +carriage waited. + +The station debouched on to a broad open square bordered with canals and +lined with ranks of _rick'sha_, some of which had small red flags with +the name of a hotel in white letters, in English. The space was gray and +dusty; pedestrians dotted it and across it a bent and sweating +street-sprinkler hauled his ugly trickling cart, chanting in a half-tone +as he went. A little distance away Barbara caught a glimpse of a busy +paved street, lined with ambitious glass shop-fronts and with a double +line of clanging trolley-cars passing to and fro beneath a maze of +telegraph wires seemingly as fine as pack-thread. Her nostrils twitched +with strange odors--from stagnant moats of sticky, black mud, from +panniers of dressed fish, from the rice-powder and pomade of women's +toilets--all the scents bred in swarming streets by a glowing tropic +sun. + +At one side waited a handful of foreign carriages. All the drivers of +these wore the loose, flapping liveries and the round hats of green or +crimson or blue. "They are Embassy turn-outs," explained Patricia. "Each +one has its color, you see. Ours is red and you can see it farthest." As +they took their seats an open victoria rolled up, with cobalt-blue +wheels, and a _betto_ with a _kimono_ of dark cloth trimmed with wide +strips of the same hue ran ahead, clearing the way with raucous cries. +"There goes the Bulgarian Minister's wife," said Patricia. "She's got +the finest pearls in Tokyo." + +A hundred yards from the entrance the Embassy carriage halted abruptly +and Barbara caught her companion's arm with a low exclamation. At the +side of the square, seated or reclining on the ground was a body of +perhaps eighty men dressed in a deadly brownish-yellow, the hue of +iron-rust, with coarse hats and rough straw sandals. They were disposed +in lines, a handcuff was on each left wrist, and a thin, rattling iron +chain linked all together. + +"They are convicts," said Patricia; "on their way to the copper mines, I +imagine. They will move presently and we can pass." + +At the head of the melancholy platoon stood an officer in dark blue +cloth uniform and clumsy shoes, a sword by his side. He stood motionless +as an idol, his sparse mustaches waxed, his visored cap set square on +his crisp, black hair, his bronze face impassive. The prisoners looked +on stolidly at the stir of the station, the flying _rick'sha_, the +crowded _sampan_ in the canal, and the noisy trolley-cars passing +near-by. Some talked in low tones and pointed here and there, with +furtive glances at the officer. Barbara noted their different +expressions, some stolid, low-browed and featureless, some with +side-looks of sharper cunning, all touched with oriental apathy. + +A bell now began to clamor in the train-shed and there came the rasping +hoot of an engine. The officer turned, gave a sharp order, and the +prisoners rose, with light clanking of their chains. Another order, and +they moved, in double lines of single file, into the station. + +Patricia heaved a sigh of relief as the halted traffic started. +"_Hyaku_, Tucker," she called to the driver. "_Hyaku_ means quickly," +she explained aside. "His name is Taka, but I call him Tucker because +it's easier to remember." + +As they rolled swiftly on, through the wondrous panorama of teeming +Tokyo streets, the sun hung, an elongated globe of deep orange-crimson, +streaked with little whips of rosy cloud. Beneath it the mountains lay +like coiled, purple dragons, indolent and surfeited. One star twinkled +palely in the lemon-colored sky. Yet now to Barbara the splendor of +color seemed tragic, the poured-out beauty but a veil, behind which +moved, old and apish and gray, the familiar passions of the world. +Before her eyes were flowing and mingling a thousand strands of orient +life, yet she saw only the red light glowing on the stone entrance of +Shimbashi, with those hideous saffron jackets filing perpetually into +its yawning mouth, like unholy spectres in a dream. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + THE MAKER OF BUDDHAS + + +The setting sun poured a flood of wine-colored light over +Reinanzaka--the "Hill-of-the-Spirit"--whose long slope rose behind the +American Embassy, whither the Dandridge victoria was rolling. It was a +long leafy ridge stippled with drab walls of noble Japanese houses, and +striped with narrow streets of the humble; one of the many green knolls +that, rising above the gray roofs, make the Japanese capital seem an +endless succession of teeming village and restful grove. + +Along its crest ran a lane bordered with thorn hedges. A little way +inside this stood a huge stone _torii_, facing a square, ornamented +gateway, shaded by cryptomerias. The latter was heavily but chastely +carved, and on its ceiling was a painting, in green and white on a +gold-leaf ground, of Kwan-on, the All-Pitying. From the gate one looked +down across the declivity, where in a walled compound, the rambling +buildings of the Embassy showed pallidly amid green foliage. Beyond this +were sections of trafficking streets, and still farther a narrow, white +road climbed a hill toward a military barracks--a blur of dull, +terra-cotta red. In the dying afternoon the lane had an air of placid +aloofness. Somewhere in a thoroughfare below a trolley bell sounded, an +impudent note of haste and change in a symphony of the intransmutable. +Over all was the scent of cherry-blossoms and a faint musk-like odor of +incense. + +From the gate a mossy pavement, shaded by sacred _mochi_ trees, led to a +Buddhist temple-front of the _Mon-to_ sect, before which a flock of +fluttering gray-and-white pigeons were pecking grains of rice scattered +by a priest, who stood on its upper step, watching them through placid, +gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore a long green robe, a stole of gold +brocade was around his neck, and his face was seamed with the lines of +life's receding tides. At one side of the pavement, worn and grooved by +centuries of worshiping feet, was a square stone font and on the other +side a graceful bell-tower of red lacquer. Back of this stood a forest +of tall bronze lanterns, and beyond them a graveyard, an acre thick with +standing stone tablets of quaint, squarish shape, chiseled with deep-cut +idiographs. Nearer the graveyard, overshadowed by the greater bulk of +the temple, was a long, low nunnery, with clumps of flowers about it. +Through its bamboo lattices one caught glimpses of women's figures, clad +in slate-color, of placid faces and boyishly shaven heads. About the +yard a few little children were playing and a mother, with a baby on her +back, looked smilingly on. + +The space where the priest stood was connected by a small, curved, +elevated bridge with another temple structure standing on the right of +the yard, evidently used as a private residence. This was more ornate, +far older and touched with decay. Its porch was arcaded, set with oval +windows and hung with bronze lanterns green from age. Its entrance doors +were beautifully carved, paneled with endless designs in dull colors, +and bordered with great gold-lacquer peonies laid on a background of +green and vermilion. From their corners jutted snarling heads of +grotesque lions and on either side stood gigantic _Ni-O_--glowering +demon-guardians of sacred thresholds. Through the straight-boled trees +that grew close about it, came transient gleams of a hedged garden, of +burnished green and maroon foliage, where cherry-blooms hung like fluffy +balls of pink smoke. The garden had a private entrance--a gate in the +outer lane--and over this was a small tablet of unpainted wood: + + [Illustration] + + Which, translated, read: + + ALOYSIUS THORN + Maker of Buddhas + +Directly opposite stood a small Christian Chapel. It was newly built and +still lacked its final decoration--a rose-window, whose empty sashes +were stopped now with black cloth. High above the flowering green its +slanting roof lifted a cross. + +It rose, white and pure, emblem of the Western faith that yet had been +born in the East. Over against the ornate pageantry of Buddhist +architecture, in a land of another creed, of variant ideals and a +passionate devotion to them, it stood, simple, silent, and watchful. The +priest on the temple steps was looking at the white cross, regarding it +meditatively, as one to whom concrete symbols are badges of spiritual +things. + +Footsteps grated on the gravel and the occupant of the older temple came +slowly through its garden. He was a foreigner, though dressed in +Japanese costume. His shoulders were broad and powerful and he moved +with a quickness and grace in step and action that had something feline +in it. His hair, worn long, was black, touched with gray, and a curved +mustache hid his lips. His expression was sensitively delicate and +alertly odd--an impression added to by deeply-set eyes, one of which was +visibly larger than the other, of the variety known as "pearl," slightly +bulbous, though liquid-brown and heavily lashed. + +The new-comer ascended the steps and stood a moment silently beside the +priest, watching the gluttonous pigeons. As he looked up, he saw the +other's gaze fixed on the Chapel cross. A quick shiver ran across his +mobile face, and passing, left it hard with a kind of grim defiance. + +Presently the priest said in Japanese: + +"The Christian temple across the way honorably approaches completion. +Assuredly, however, moths have eaten my intelligence. Why does the +gloomy hole illustriously elect to remain in its wall?" + +"It is for a thing they call a 'window'," said Thorn. "After a time they +will put therein an august abomination, representing sublimely hideous +cloud-born beings and idiotic-looking saints in colored glass." + +The priest nodded his shaven head sagely. + +"It will, perhaps, deign to be a _gaku_ of the Christian God. I shall, +with deference, study it. I have watered my worthless mind with much +arrogant reading of Him. Doubtless He was also Buddha and taught The +Way." + +An acolyte had come from the temple and approached the red bell-tower. +Midway of the huge bronze bell a heavy cedar beam, like a catapult, was +suspended from two chains. He swung this till its muffled end struck the +metal rim, and the air swelled with a dreamy sob of sound. He swung it +again, and the sob became a palpitant moan, like breakers on a far-away +beach. Again, and a deep velvety boom throbbed through the stillness +like the heart of eternity. + +"It is time for the service," said the priest, and turning, went into +the temple, from whose interior soon came the woodeny tapping of a +_mok'gyo_--the hollow wooden fish, which is the emblem of the _Mon-to_ +sect--and the sound of chanting voices. + + * * * * * + +Thorn, the man with whom the priest had spoken, crossed the bridge to +the other temple with a slow step. He passed between the scowling +guardian figures, slid back a paper _shoji_ and entered. The room in +which he stood had been the _haiden_, or room of worship. Around its +walls were oblong carvings, marvelously lacquered, of the nine flowers +and nine birds of old Japanese art. In one were set six large painted +panels; the red seal they bore was that of the great Cho Densu, the Fra +Angelico of Japan. In its center, under a brocade canopy, was a raised +platform once the seat of the High Priest. It faced a long transept, +like a chancel; this ended in a short flight of steps leading, through +doors of soft, fretted gold-lacquer, to a huge altar set with carved +tables, great tarnished brasses and garish furniture. The walls of the +transept were done in red with green ornamentations. From the overhead +gloom grotesque phoenix and dragon peered down and in the gathering +dimness, shot through with the wan yellow gleam of brass, the place +seemed uncanny. + +Thorn drew back a heavy drapery which covered a doorway, and entered a +room that was windowless and very dark. He lit a candle. + +The dim light it furnished disclosed a weird and silent assembly. The +space was crowded with strange glimmering deities--of bronze, of silver, +of priceless gold-lacquer--the dust thick on their faces, their aureoles +misty with cobwebs. Some gazed with passionless serenity, or blessed +with outstretched hand; some threatened with scowling faces and clenched +thunderbolts: Jizo of the tender smile, in whose sleeves nestle the +souls of dead children; Kwan-on, of divine compassion, with her many +hands; Emma-dai-O, Judge of the Dead, menacing and terrible; strange +sardonic _tengu_, half-bird, half-human. The floor was thick with them. +From shelves on the walls leered swollen, frog-like horrors such as +often appear on Alaskan totem-poles, triple-headed divinities of India +and China, coiled cobras, idols from Ceylon, and curious Thibetan +praying-wheels. A sloping stairway slanted through the gloom; beside it +was an image of the red god, Aizen Bosatsu, his appalling countenance +framed in lurid flames, seated on a fiery lotos. + +The master of this celestial and infernal pantheon closed and locked the +door, and mounted the stairway to the loft--a low, rambling room of +eccentric shape, under the curving gables. + +Here, through a long window beneath the very eaves, the light still came +brightly. In the center was a board table, littered with delicate +carving-tools. He kindled the charcoal in a bronze _hibachi_, and set +over it a copper pot which began to emit a thick, weedy odor. From a +cabinet he took phials containing various powders, and measured into the +pot a portion from each. Lastly he added a quantity of gold-leaf, +slowly, flake by flake. At one side a white silk cloth was draped over a +pedestal; he drew this away and looked at the unfinished figure it had +concealed. It was an image of Kwan-on, the All-Merciful. + +Through the open window the chant of the priests came clearly: + + "_Waku hyoryu kokai_ + _Ry[=u]gyo Shokinan_ + _Nembi Kwan-on riki_ + _Har[=o] fun[=o]motsu._" + + (He who is beset with perils of dragon and great fish--who + drifts on an endless sea--if he offer petition to Kwan-on, waves + will not destroy him.) + +Thorn crossed the room and leaning his elbows on the window-ledge, +looked out. Through the odor of incense the monotonous intonation of the +liturgy rose with the grandeur of a Gregorian chant: + + "_Sh[=u]j[=o] kikon-yaku + Mury[=o]ku hisshin + Kwan-on myochiriki + N[=o]ku sekenku._" + + (He who is in distress--when immeasurable suffering presses on + him--Kwan-on, all-wise and all-powerful, can save him from the + world's calamity.) + +Once, while the quiet yard echoed back the slow cadences of the antique +tongue, the watcher's eyes turned to the image on the pedestal, then +came back to an object that drew them--had drawn them for many days +against his will!--the white cross of the Chapel. A last glow of +refracted light touched it now, as red as blood, a symbol of the +infinite passion and pain. A long time he stood there. The twilight +deepened, the chant ceased, lights sprang up along the lane, night fell +with its sickle moon and crowding stars, but still he stood, his face +between his hands. + +At length he turned, and groping for the cloth, threw it over the +Kwan-on and lit a lamp swinging from a huge brass censer. Unlocking an +alcove, he took out a fleece-wrapped bundle and sweeping the tools to +one side, set it on the table. He carefully closed the window and thrust +a bar through the staple of the door before he unwrapped it. + +When the fleece was removed, he propped the image it had contained +upright on the table. He poured into a shallow plate a few drops of the +liquid heating over the fire-bowl--under the lamplight it gleamed and +sparkled like molten gold--and with a small brush, using infinite care, +began to lay the lacquer on its carven surface. + +Once, at a sound in some room below--perhaps the movement of a +servant--he stopped and listened intently. It was as if he worked by +stealth, at some labor self-forbidden, to which an impulse, +overmastering though half-denied, drove him in secret. + +It was a crucifix with a dead Christ upon it. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + THE BAYING OF THE WOLF-HOUND + + +Barbara stood in her room at the Embassy. It was spacious and airy, the +high walls paneled in ivory-white, with draperies of Delft blue. The bed +and dressing-table were early Adams. A generous bay-window set with +flower-boxes filled a large part of one side, and its deep seat was +upholstered in blue crepe, the tint of the draperies, printed with large +white chrysanthemums. The floor was laid with thin matting of rice-straw +in which was braided at intervals a conventional pattern in old-rose. +Opposite the bay-window stood a Sendai chest on which was a small +Japanese Buddha of gold-lacquer, Amida, the Dweller-in-Light, seated in +holy meditation on his lotos-blossom. At first sight this had recalled +to Barbara a counterpart image which she had unearthed in a dark corner +of the garret in her pinafore days, and which for a week had been her +dearest possession. + +To this room Mrs. Dandridge herself had taken her, presenting to her +Haru, whom the bishop's note had brought--a vivid, eager figure from a +Japanese fan, who had sunk suddenly prone, every line of her slender +form bowed, hands palm-down on the floor and forehead on them, in a +ceremonious welcome to the foreign _Ojo-San_. Her mauve _kimono_ was +woven with camelias in silver, set off by an _obi_, showing a flight of +storks on a blue background and clasped in front with a silver firefly. +The heavy jet hair was rolled into wings on either side, and a high puff +surmounted her forehead. Thin twin spirals, stiff with pomade, joined at +the back like the pinions of a butterfly, and against the blue-black +loops lay a bright knot of ribbon. She was now moving about the room +with silent padding of light feet in snowy, digitated _tabi_, admiring +the gowns which the maid had taken from Barbara's trunks. Occasionally +she passed a slim hand up and down a soft wrap with a graceful, purring +regard, or held a fleecy boa under her small oval chin and stole a +glance in the cheval glass with a little ecstatic quiver of shoulder. +Once she paused to look at the lacquer image on the Sendai chest. +"Buddha," she said. "Japan man think very good for die-time." + +"Haru," said Barbara as the maid's busy Japanese fingers went searching +for elusive hooks and eyes, "is it true that every Japanese name has a +meaning?" + +"So, _Ojo-San_! That mos' indeed true. All Japan name mean something. +'Haru' mean spring, for because my born that time. Very funny--_né?_" + +"It is very pretty," said Barbara. + +"How tha's nize!" was the delighted exclamation. "_Mama-San_ give name. +My like name yella-ways for because _mama-San_ no more in this world. My +house little lonesome now." + +"Where is your house, Haru? Near by?" + +The slender hand, pointed to the wooded height behind the garden. "Jus' +there on the street call Prayer-to-the-gods. My house so-o-o small, an' +garden 'bout such big." She indicated a space of perhaps six feet +square. "Funny!--_né_?" + +"And who lives there with you?" + +Haru smiled brilliantly. "Oh, so-o-o many peoples! _Papa-San_, an'--jus' +me." + +"No brother?" + +She shook her head. "My don' got," she said. "_Papa-San_ very angry for +because my jus' girl an' no could be kill in Port Arthur!" + +She spoke with a smile, but the matter-of-fact words brought suddenly +home to Barbara something of the flavor of that passionate loyalty, that +hot heroism and debonair contempt of death which has been the theme of a +hundred stories. "Do all Japanese feel so, Haru?" she asked. "Would +every father be glad to give his son's life for Japan?" + +The girl looked at her as if she jested. "Of _course_! All Japan man +mos' happy if to be kill for our Emperor! Tha's for why better to be +man. Girl jus' can stay home an' _wish_!" As the gown's last fastening +was slipped into its place, she turned up her lovely oval face with a +smiling, sidelong look. + + [Illustration] + +"_Ma-a-a!_" she exclaimed. "How it is _beau_-tee-ful! _né_? only--" + +"Only what?" + +"My thinks the _Ojo-San_ must suffer through the center!" + +Laughingly Barbara caught the other's slim wrist and drew her before the +mirror. By oriental standards the Japanese girl was as finely bred as +herself. In the two faces, both keenly delicate and sensitive, yet so +sharply contrasted--one palely olive under its jetty pillow of straight +black hair, the other fair and brown-eyed, crowned with curling +gold--the extremes of East and West looked out at each other. + +"See, Haru," said Barbara. "How different we are!" + +"You so more good-look!" sighed the Japanese girl. "My jus' like the +night." + +"Ah, but a moonlighted night," cried Barbara, "soft and warm and full of +secrets. When you have a sweetheart you will be far more lovely to him +than any foreign girl could be!" + +Haru blushed rosily. "Sweetheart p'r'aps now," she said, "--all same +kind America story say 'bout." + +"Have you really, Haru?" cried Barbara. "I love to hear about +sweethearts. Maybe--some day--I may have one, too. Some time you'll tell +me about him. Won't you?" + +Suddenly, far below the window, there came a snarling scramble and a +savage, menacing bay. Barbara leaned out. A tawny, long-muzzled +wolf-hound, fastened to a stake, glared up at her out of red-dimmed +eyes. + +"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed. "He looks sick. Does he have to be tied +up?" + +The Japanese girl shivered. "Very bad dog," she said. "My think very +danger to not kill." + +The deep tone of the dinner gong shuddered through the house and Barbara +hastened out. Patricia met her in the hall and the two girls, with arms +about each other's waists, descended the broad angled stair to the +dining-room, where the Ambassador stood, tall and spare and iron-gray, +with a contagious twinkle in his kindly eye. + +"Well," he asked, "did you feel the earthquake?" + +Barbara gave an exclamation of dismay. "Has there been one already?" + +"Pshaw!" he said contritely. "Perhaps there hasn't. You see, in Japan, +we get so used to asking that question--" + +"Now, Ned!" warned Mrs. Dandridge. "You'll have Barbara frightened to +death. We really don't have them so very often, my dear--and only gentle +shakes. You mustn't be dreaming of Messina." + +The Ambassador pointed to the ceiling, where a wide crack zigzagged +across. "There's a recent autograph to bear me out. It happened on the +eleventh of last month." + +"Father remembers the date because of the horrible accident it caused," +said Patricia. "A piece of the kitchen plaster came down in his favorite +dessert and we had to fall back on pickled plums. + +"I'm simply wild to see your gowns, Barbara," she continued, as they +took their places. "Is that the latest sleeve, and is everything going +to be slinky? We're always about six months behind. I know a girl in +Yokohama who goes to every steamer and kodaks the smartest tourists. +I've almost been driven to do it myself." + +"You should adopt the Japanese dress, Patsy," said Mrs. Dandridge. "How +does it seem, Barbara, to see _kimono_ all around you?" + +"I can't get it out of my mind," she answered, "that they are all +wearing them for some sort of masquerade." + +"It takes a few days to get used to it," said the Ambassador. "And what +a beautiful and practical costume it is!" + +"And comfortable!" sighed Patricia. "No 'bones' or tight places, and +only four or five things to put on. I don't wonder European women look +queer to the Japanese. The cook's wife told me the other day that the +first foreign lady she ever saw looked to her like a wasp with a wig on +like a _Shinto_ devil." + +There rose again on the still night air the savage bay Barbara had heard +in her room. "I'm afraid I must make up my mind to lose Shiro," the +Ambassador said regretfully. "He's a Siberian wolf-hound that a friend +sent me from Moscow. But the climate doesn't agree with him, apparently. +For the last two days he's seemed really unsafe. There's a famous +Japanese dog-doctor in this section, but he's been sick himself and I +haven't liked to go to an ordinary native 'vet.' But I shall have him +looked at to-morrow." + +"I do hope you will," said Mrs. Dandridge nervously. "He almost killed +Patsy's Pomeranian the first day he came. Watanabé says he hasn't +touched his food to-day, and we can't take any risks with so many +children in the compound. We have forty-seven, Barbara," she continued, +"counting the stablemen's families, and some of them are the dearest +mites! Every Christmas we give them a tree. It makes one feel +tremendously patriarchal!" + +It was a home-like meal, albeit thin slices of lotos-stem floated in +Barbara's soup, the lobster had no claws, and the _entrée_ was baked +bamboo. Save for a high, four-paneled screen of gold-leaf with delicate +etchings of snow-clad pines, the white room was without ornament, but +the table gleamed with old silver, and in its center was a great bowl of +pink azaleas. Smooth-faced Japanese men-servants came and went +noiselessly in snowy footwear and dark silk _houri_ whose sleeves bore +the Embassy eagle in silver thread. + +The Ambassador was a man of keen observation, and a cheerful philosophy. +His theory of life was expressed in a saying of his: "Human-kind is +about the same as it has always been, except a good deal kinder." He had +learned the country at first hand. He had a profound appreciation of its +whole historical background, one gained not merely from libraries, but +from deeper study of the essential qualities of Japanese character and +feeling. He had the perfect gift, moreover, of the _raconteur_, and he +held Barbara passionately attentive as he sketched, in bold outlines, +the huge picture of Japanese modernization. Yet light as was his touch, +he nevertheless made her see beneath the veneer of the foreign, the +unaltering ego of a civilization old and austere, of unfamiliar, +strenuous ideals, with cast steel conventions, eternal mysteries of +character and of racial destiny. + +Coffee was served in the small drawing-room--a home-like, soft-toned +room of crystal-paned bookcases, and furniture that had been handed down +in the Dandridge family from candle-lighted colony days. + +"It seems a shame," said Mrs. Dandridge, "that this evening has to be +broken, but Patsy and I must look in at the Charity Bazaar. I'm sure you +won't mind, Barbara, if we leave you alone now for an hour or so. It's a +new idea: every lady is to bring something she has no further use for, +but which is too good to throw away." + +"I presume," observed the Ambassador innocently, "that some of them will +bring their husbands." + +"Ned," said Mrs. Dandridge, as she drew on her wrap, "people will soon +think you haven't a serious side. It would serve you right if I took you +along as my contribution." + +"Ah," returned he, "I was thoughtful enough to make a previous +engagement. Doctor Bersonin is coming to see me." + +Patsy's nose took a decided elevation. + +"The Government expert," she said. "He was on the train. It's the first +time I ever saw him without that smart-looking Japanese head-boy of his +who goes with him everywhere as interpreter." + +"I've noticed that," Mrs. Dandridge said. "He's always with him in his +automobile. By the way, Patsy, who _does_ that boy remind me of? It has +always puzzled me." + +"Why," Patricia answered, "he looks something like that Japanese student +we saw so often the winter Barbara and we were in Monterey. You +remember, Barbara--the one who spoke such perfect English. We thought he +was loony, because he used to sit on the beach all day and sail little +wooden boats." + +"So he does," said her mother. "There's a decided resemblance. But +Doctor Bersonin's boy is anything but loony. He has a most intelligent +face." + +"Besides," said Patricia, "the other was nearsighted and wore +spectacles. Good-by, Barbara. I hope the doctor will be gone when we get +back." + +Her voice came muffled from the hall "--Oh, I can't help it, mother! I'm +only a diplomat-once-removed! He _is_ horrid!" + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + DOCTOR BERSONIN + + +The Ambassador received his caller in his study. From across the hall, +Barbara, through the half-open door, could see the expert's huge form +filling an arm-chair, where the limpid light of the desk-lamp fell on +his heavy, colorless face. The walls were lined with bookshelves and +curtains of low tone, and against this formless background his big +profile stood out pallid and hawk-like. She could hear his voice +distinctly. Its even, dead flatness affected her curiously; it was not +harsh, but absolutely without tone-quality or sympathy. + +For some time the talk was on casual topics and she occupied herself +listlessly with a tray of photographs on the table. She read their +titles, smiling at the extraordinary intricacies of "English as she is +Japped" by the complaisant oriental photographer: _The Picking Sea-Ear +at Enoshima_; _East-looking Panorama of Fuji Mount_; _Geisha in the +Famous Dance of Maple-Leaf_. + +The smile left her face. Something had been said in the farther room +which caught her attention and in a moment she found herself listening +intently. + +"I understand the trials of the new powder have been very successful," +the Ambassador was saying. "Is it destined to revolutionize warfare, do +you think?" + +"It is too soon to tell yet," was the reply, "just what the result will +be. It will enormously increase the range of projectiles, as Your +Excellency may guess, and its area of destruction will nearly double +that of lyddite." + +Barbara felt, rather than saw, that the Ambassador gave a little +shudder. "I can imagine what that means," he said. "I saw Port Arthur +after the siege. So war is to grow more dreadful still! When will it +cease, I wonder." + +"Never," Bersonin answered, with a cold smile. "It is the love of power +that makes war, and that, in man, is inherent and ineradicable. A nation +is only the individual in the aggregate, and selfishness is the guiding +gospel of both." + +To Barbara the words seemed coldly, cruelly repellant. She felt a sudden +quiver of dislike run over her. + +"You paint a sorry picture," said the Ambassador. "Can human ingenuity +go much further, then? What, in your opinion, will be the fighting +engine of the future?" + +"The engine of the future"--Bersonin spoke deliberately--"will be along +other lines. It will be an atomic one. It will employ no projectile and +no armor plate will resist it. The discoverer will have harnessed the +law of molecular vibration. As there is a positive force that binds +atoms together, so there must be a negative force that, under certain +conditions, can drive them apart!" + +He spoke with what seemed an extraordinary conviction. His manner had +subtly changed. For the first time his tone had gathered something like +feeling, and the dry, metallic voice seemed to Barbara to vibrate with a +curious, gloating triumph. + +"Granted such a force," he went on, "and a machine to generate and +direct it, and of what value is the most powerful battle-ship, the most +stupendous fort? Mere silly shreds of steel and stone! Why, such an +engine might be carried in a single hand, and yet the nation that +possessed it could be master of the world!" + +A dark flush had risen to his pallid cheek, and on the arm of his chair +Barbara saw the massive fingers of one huge hand clench and unclench +with a furtive, nervous gesture. The sight gave her a sharp sense of +recoil as if from the touch of something sinister and evilly suggestive. + +"No!" said the Ambassador vehemently. "Humanity would revolt. Such a +discovery would be worth less than nothing! Its use by any warring +nation would call down the execration of civilization, and the man who +knew the secret would be too dangerous to be at large!" + +There was dead silence for a moment. Bersonin sat motionless, staring +straight before him. Very slowly the color seemed to fade from his +cheek. When he spoke again his voice had regained its dead level of +tonelessness. + +"That has occurred to me," he said. "I think Your Excellency is right. +Invention may do its work too well. However--no doubt we speak of +scientific impossibilities; let us hope so, at any rate." + +Barbara pushed the photographs aside and slipped into the next room, +closing the door and drawing the heavy portières that hung over it. She +had had for a moment a vague, almost childish, sense of shrinking as if +from something monstrous and uncanny--such a sensation as the naked +diver may have, when, peering through his water-glass, he sees a dim +grisly shape glide, stealthy and cold, through the opaque depths. She +was growing absurdly fanciful, she thought. She did not turn on the +electric light, but threw open one of the long, French windows. There +was a new moon and a pale radiance flooded the room, with a sudden odor +of wistaria and plum-blossoms. The window gave on to a porch running the +length of the house, and this made her think suddenly of home. Yet the +air was too humid for California, too moist and rich even for Florida. +And suddenly she found herself pitying the people there to whom the East +would always be a closed book. Yet how dim and vague Japan had been to +her a month before! + +A grand piano stood open by the window and in the dim light she sat down +and let her fingers wander idly in long arpeggios. She could see one +side of the Japanese garden, with a glimpse of a tiny dry lake and a +pebbled rivulet spanned by an arching bridge of red lacquer. It ended in +a sharp, sloping hill covered with shrubbery. On the ridge far above she +distinguished the outlines of native houses and flanking them the +curved, Tartar-like gables of a gray old temple. Somewhere, beyond that +little hill, perhaps, stood the Chapel erected to her father's memory, +which she had yet to see. As her fingers strayed over the ivory keys, +she thought of him, of his vivid, aberrant career and untimely end. + +There are nights in the Japanese spring when the landscape, in its +wondrous delicacy of tones, seems only an envelope of something subtler +and unseen, the filmy covering of a beauty that is wholly spiritual. +To-night it seemed so to Barbara. The close was very still, wrapped in a +dreamy haze as soft as sleep, the mountains on the horizon wan shapes of +silver mist, semi-diaphanous. It seemed to her that in this living, +sentient breath of Japan, her father was nearer to her than he had ever +been before. + +The thought brought to her vague memories of her mother and of her +childhood. Old airs began to mingle with the chords, and on the shrill +fairy sound-carpet woven by the myriad insect-looms of the garden, the +bits of melody went treading softly out across the perfume of the +wistaria. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + "SALLY IN OUR ALLEY" + +She thought no one heard, but out by the azalea hedge, a man was +standing, listening to the hushed chords floating through the open +window. + +From the bungalow on the Yokohama Bluff, Daunt had come back to Tokyo +with a sense of dissatisfaction deeper than should have been caused by +his jarring talk with Phil. Perhaps, though he did not guess it, his +mood had to do with a bulky letter in his pocket, received that day. It +was from "Big" Murray, his chum at college, whom he had commonly +addressed by opprobrious epithets that covered an affection time had not +diminished. Of all the men in his class Daunt would have picked him as +the one least likely to marry. Yet the letter had contained a +wedding-invitation and a ream of the usual hyperbole. "Going to name me +godfather, is he!" Daunt had muttered as he read. "The driveling old +horse-thief!" For in some elusive way the intended distinction suggested +that he himself was a hoary back-number, not to be reckoned among the +forces of youth. Strolling from Shimbashi Station, under the clustered, +gaily-colored paper-lanterns, swaying above the rustle and stir of the +exotic street, this thought rankled. A vague discontent stirred in him. + +Tokyo had been the objective point of Daunt's six years of diplomatic +career, and he had found the Kingdom of the Slender Swords a fascinating +and absorbing study. He loved its contrasts and its contradictions, its +marvelous artistry, the reserve and nobility of its people, and its +savage, unshamed, sincerity of purpose. In the absorbing routine of the +Chancery and the bright gaieties of the capital's diplomatic circle, the +first year had gone swiftly enough. Since then the Glider experiments +had lent an added zest. + +Even at college, Langley's first aëroplane had interested him and out of +that interest had grown a course of reading which had given him a broad +technical knowledge of applied mechanics. In Japan he had conceived the +idea of the new fan-propeller, worked out in many an hour of study in +the little Japanese house in Aoyama, which he had taken because it +adjoined the parade-ground where his earliest experiments were made. At +first the _Corps Diplomatique_ had smiled at this as a harmless _pour +passer le temps_, to be classified with the Roumanian Minister's kennel +of Pomeranians or the Chilian Secretary's collection of _daimyo_ dolls. +But week by week the little crowd of Japanese spectators had grown +larger; often Daunt had recognized among the attentive brown faces this +or that superior military officer whom he knew, albeit in civilian +dress. One day his friend, Viscount Sakai, a dapper young officer on the +General Staff, had surprised him with the offer from the Japanese War +Department of the use of an empty garage on the edge of the great +esplanade. Only a month ago, he had awaked to the knowledge that his +name was known to the aëro enthusiasts of Paris, New York and Vienna, +and that his propeller was an assured success. + +Yet to-night he felt that he had somehow failed. The splendid vitality +of the moving scene, the thud and click of wooden _géta_ and the whirr +of _rick'sha_--all the many-keyed diapason of the rustling, lanterned +vistas stretching under the pale moon-lighted sky--lacked the sense of +intimate companionship. The warm still air, freighted with aromatic +scents of cedar from some new-built shop, the pungent smell of incense +burning before some shadowed shrine, the odors of drenched shrubbery +behind the massive retaining wall of some rich noble's compound, came to +him with a new sense of estrangement. The murmured sound of voices +behind the glimmering paper _shoji_ told him, suddenly, that he was +lonely. For the first time in six years, he was feeling keenly his long +isolation from the things of home, the pleasant fellowship and the +firesides of old friends. In this foreign service which he so loved, he +had been growing out of touch, he told himself, out of thought, of the +things "Big" Murray had sought and found. + +Unconsciously, the "drivel," as he had denominated it, of the letter in +his pocket, had infected him with sweet and foolish imaginings, and +slowly these took the nebulous shape of a woman. He had often dreamed of +her, though he had never seen her face. It was half-veiled now in the +bluish haze of his pipe, while she talked to him before a fire of +driftwood (that burned with red and blue lights because of sea-ghosts in +it) and her voice was low and clear like a flute. + +The wavering outline was still before his mind's eye as he trod the +quiet road that led to the Embassy, entered its wide gate and slowly +crossed the silent garden toward his bachelor cottage on the lawn. And +there, suddenly, the vision had seized a vagrant melody and had spoken +to him in song. Daunt thrust his cold pipe into his pocket and listened +with head thrown back. + +It was no brilliant display of technique that held him, for the player +was touching simple chords, but these were singing old melodies that +took him far to other scenes and other times. He smiled to himself. How +long it had been since he had sung them--not since the old college days! +That happy, irresponsible era of senior dignities came back vividly to +him, the campus and the singing. For years he had not recollected it all +so keenly! He had been glee-club soloist, pushed forward on all +occasions and applauded to the echo. Praise of his singing he had +accepted somewhat humorously--never but once had it touched him deeply, +and that had been on commencement afternoon. + +He had slipped away from the wavering cheers at the station, because he +could not bear the farewells, and, far down one of the campus lanes, had +come on pretty Mrs. Claybourne sitting on a rustic bench. Again he heard +her speak, as plainly as if it were yesterday: "Why, if it isn't Mr. +Daunt! I wonder how the university can open in the fall without you!" He +had sat down beside her as she said: "This very insistent young person +with me has been heartbroken because we could not get tickets for the +Glee-Club Concert last night. She wanted to hear you sing." + +He had looked up then to see a young girl, seated on the leaning trunk +of a tulip-tree. Her neutral-tinted skirt lay against the dark bark; her +face was almost hidden by a spray of the great, creamy-pink blossoms. +Some quality in its delicate loveliness had made him wish to please her, +and sitting there he had sung the song that was his favorite. Mrs. +Claybourne had pulled a big branch of the tulip-tree to hand him like a +bouquet over the footlights, but the girl's parted lips, her wide deep +brown eyes, had thanked him in a better way! + +The music, now floating over the garden, by such subconscious +association, recalled this scene, overlaid, but never forgotten. Hark! A +cascade of silver notes, and then an old air that had been revived in +his time to become the madness of the music-halls and the pet of the +pianolas--the one the crowded campus had been wont to demand with +loudest voice when his tenor led the "Senior Singing." It brought back +with a rush the familiar faces, the gray ivied dormitories with their +slim iron balconies, the throbbing plaint of mandolins, and his own +voice-- + + "Of all the girls that are so smart, + There's none like pretty Sally! + She is the darling of my heart, + And she lives----" + +He scarcely knew he sang, but the vibrant tenor, lifting across the +scent of the wistaria, came clearly to the girl at the piano. For a +moment Barbara's fingers played on, as she listened with a strained +wonder. Then the music ceased with a discord and she came quickly +through the opened window. + +The song was smitten from Daunt's lips. In the instant that she stood +outlined on the broad piazza, a fierce snarling yelp and a clatter came +from within the house and there rang out a screamed Japanese warning. An +outer door flew open and the huge figure of Doctor Bersonin ran out, +pursued by a leaping white shadow, while the air thrilled to the savage +cry of a hound, shaken with rage. + +"_Run, Barbara!_" The Ambassador's voice came from the doorway. But the +white, moonlit figure, in its gauzy evening gown, turned too late. +Empty-handed, Daunt dashed for the piazza, as, with a crash, a heavy +porch chair, hurled by a Japanese house-boy, penned the animal for an +instant in a corner. He caught the white figure up in his arms, sprang +into the shade of the wistaria arbor, and set her feet on its high +railing. The voice from the doorway called again, sharply. + +"This way, Doctor! _Quick!_" + +The wolf-hound, trailing its broken chain, had leaped the barrier and +was launched straight at the crouching expert. The latter had dragged +something small and square from his pocket and he seemed now to hold +this out before him. Daunt, wrenching a cleat from the arbor railing, +felt a puff of cold wind strike his face, and something like an elfin +note of music, high and thin as an insect's, drifted across the +confusion. He rushed forward with his improvised weapon--then stopped +short. The dog was no longer there. + +The Ambassador made an exclamation. He stepped down and peered under the +piazza; even in the dim light the long space was palpably empty. The +head-boy spoke rapidly in Japanese and pointed toward the gate. + +"He says he must have jumped down this side," explained Daunt, "and run +out to the street. He's nowhere in the garden, at any rate. We can see +every inch. How surprising!" He spoke to the boy in the vernacular. "He +will have the gates closed at once and telephone a warning to the police +station." + +Bersonin had sat down on the edge of the piazza. He was crouched far +over; his big frame was shaken with violent shudderings. Suddenly his +head went back and he began to laugh--a jarring, grating, weird +man-hysteria that seemed to burst suddenly beyond his control. + +The Ambassador went to him hurriedly, but Bersonin shook off the hand on +his shoulder and rising, still emitting his dreadful laughter, staggered +across the lawn and out of the gate. + +The appalling mirth reëchoed from far down the quiet road. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + THE WEB OF THE SPIDER + + +Bersonin walked on, fighting desperately with his ghastly spasm of +merriment. + +It was a nervous affection which had haunted him for years. It dated +from a time when, in South America, in an acute crisis of desperate +personal hazard, he had laughed the first peal of that strange laughter +of which he was to be ever after afraid. Since then it had seized him +many times, unexpectedly and in moments of strong excitement, to shake +him like a lath. It had given him a morbid hatred of laughter in others. +Recently he had thought that he was overcoming the weakness--for in two +years past he had had no such seizure--and the recurrence to-night +shocked and disconcerted him. He, the man of brain and attainment, to be +held captive by a ridiculous hysteria, like a nerve-racked anæmic girl! +The cold sweat stood on his forehead. + +Before long the paroxysms ceased and he grew calmer. The quiet road had +merged into a busier thoroughfare. He walked on slowly till his command +was regained. West of the outer moat of the Imperial Grounds, he turned +up a pleasant lane-like street and presently entered his own gate. The +house, into which he let himself with a latch-key, was a rambling, +modern, two-story structure of yellow stucco. The lower floor was +practically unused, since its tenant lived alone and did not entertain. +The upper floor, besides the hall, contained a small bedroom, a bath and +dressing-room and a large, barely-furnished laboratory. The latter was +lined on two sides with glass-covered shelves which gave glimpses of +rows of books, of steel shells, metal and crystal retorts and crucibles, +the delicate paraphernalia of organic chemistry and complicated +instruments whose use no one knew save himself--a fit setting for the +great student, the peer of Offenbach in Munich and of Bayer in Vienna. +Against the wall leaned a drafting-board, on which, pinned down by +thumb-tacks, was a sketch-plan of a revolving turret. From a bracket in +a corner--the single airy touch of delicacy in a chamber almost sordid +in its appointments--swung a bamboo cage with a brown _hiwa_, or +Japanese finch, a downy puff of feathers with its head under its wing. + +In the upper hall Bersonin's Japanese head-boy had been sitting at a +small desk writing. Bersonin entered the laboratory, opened a safe let +into a wall, and put into it something which he took from his pocket. +Then he donned a dressing-gown the boy brought, and threw himself into a +huge leather chair. + +"Make me some coffee, Ishida," he said. + +The servant did so silently and deftly, using a small brass _samovar_ +which occupied a table of its own. With the coffee he brought his master +a box of brown Havana cigars. + +For an hour Bersonin sat smoking in the silent room--one cigar after +another, deep in thought, his yellow eyes staring at nothing. Into his +countenance deep lines had etched themselves, giving to his coldly +repellant look an expression of malignant force and intention. With his +pallid face, his stirless attitude, his great white fingers clutching +the arms of the chair, he suggested some enormous, sprawling batrachian +awaiting its more active prey. + +All at once there came a chirp from the cage in the corner and its tiny +occupant, waked by the electric-light, burst into song as clear and +joyous as though before its free wing lay all the meads of Eden. A look +more human, soft and almost companionable, came into its master's +massive face. Bersonin rose and, whistling, opened the cage door and +held out an enormous forefinger. The little creature stepped on it, and, +held to his cheek, it rubbed its feathered head against it. For a moment +he crooned and whistled to it, then held his finger to the cage and it +obediently resumed its perch and its melody. The expert took a dark +cloth from a hook and threw it over the cage and the song ceased. + +Bersonin went to the door of the room and fastened it, then unlocked a +desk and spread some papers on the table. One was a chart, drawn to the +minutest scale, of the harbor of Yokohama. On it had been marked a group +of projectile-shaped spots suggesting a flotilla of vessels at anchor. +For a long time he worked absorbedly, setting down figures, measuring +with infinite pains, computing angles--always with reference to a small +square in the map's inner margin, marked in red. He covered many sheets +of paper with his calculations. Finally he took another paper from the +safe and compared the two. He lifted his head with a look of +satisfaction. + +Just then he thought he heard a slight noise from the hall. Swiftly and +noiselessly as a great cat he crossed to the door and opened it. + +Ishida sat in his place scratching laboriously with a foreign pen. + +Bersonin's glance of suspicion altered. "What are you working at so +industriously, Ishida?" he asked. + +The Japanese boy displayed the sheet with pride. + +It was an ode to the coming Squadron. Bersonin read it: + + "Welcome, foreign men-of-war! + Young and age, + Man and woman, + None but you welcome! + And how our reaches know you but to satisfy, + Nor the Babylon nor the Parisian you to treat, + Be it ever so humble, + Yet a tidbit with our heart! + What may not be accomplishment Rising-Sun? + + "_By H. Ishida, with best compliment._" + +Bersonin laid it down with a word of approbation. "Well done," he said. +"You will be a famous English scholar before long." He went into the +dressing-room, but an instant later recollected the papers on the table. +The servant was in the laboratory when his master hastily reentered; he +was methodically removing the coffee tray. + +Alone once more, Ishida reseated himself at his small desk. He tore the +poem carefully to small bits and put them into the waste-paper basket. +Then, rubbing the cake of India-ink on its stone tablet, he drew a mass +of Japanese writing toward him and, with brush held vertically between +thumb and forefinger, began to trace long, delicate characters at the +top of the first sheet, thus: + + [Japanese: Ouryuu no fusetsusuirai ni oyobosu eikyou + hidarino toori kinji] + +In the Japanese phrase this might literally be translated as follows: + + cross-current of, laying water thunder on, + work-effect + left hand respectively + +Which in conventional English is to say: + + A STUDY OF CROSS-CURRENTS IN THEIR EFFECT ON + SUBMARINE MINES + SUBMITTED WITH DEFERENCE + +This finished, he sealed it in an envelope, took a book from the breast +of his _kimono_ and began to read. Its cover bore the words: "Second +English Primer, in words of Two Syllables." Its inner pages, however, +belied the legend. It was Mahan's _Influence of Sea-Power on History_. + +Yet Lieutenant Ishida of the Japanese Imperial Navy, one time student in +Monterey, California, now in Special Secret-Service, read abstractedly. +He was wondering why Doctor Bersonin should have in his possession a +technical naval chart and what was the meaning of certain curious +markings he had made on it. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + IN A GARDEN OF DREAMS + + +In the garden the moon's faint light glimmered on the broad, satiny +leaves of the camelias and the delicate traceries of red maple foliage. +At its farther side, amid flowering bushes which cast long indigo +shadows, stood a small pagoda, brought many years before from Korea, and +toward this Daunt and the girl whom he had held for a breathless moment +in his arms, strolled slowly along a winding, pebbled path tremulant +with the flickering shadows of little leaves. The structure had a small +platform, and here on a bench they sat down, the fragrant garden spread +out before them. + +He had remembered that a guest had been expected to arrive that day from +America, and knew that this must be she. But, strangely enough, it did +not seem as if they had never before met. Nor had he the least idea +that, since that short sharp scene, they had exchanged scarcely a dozen +words. In its curious sequel, as he stood listening to the echo of +Bersonin's strange laughter, he had momentarily forgotten all about her. +Then he had remembered with a shock that he had left her perched, in +evening dress, on the high railing of the arbor. + +"I wonder if you are in the habit," she had said with a little laugh, +"of putting unchaperoned girls on the tops of fences, and going away and +forgetting all about them." + +Her laugh was deliciously uneven, but it did not seem so from fright. He +had answered something inordinately foolish, and had lifted her down +again--not holding her so closely this time. He remembered that on the +first occasion he had held her very tightly indeed. He could still feel +the touch of a wisp of her hair which, in his flying leap, had fallen +against his cheek. It was red-bronze and it shone now in the moonlight +like molten metal. Her eyes were deep blue, and when she smiled-- + +He wrenched his gaze away with a start. But it did not stray +far--merely to the point of a white-beaded slipper peeping from the +edge of a ruffle of gauze that had mysteriously imprisoned filmy +sprays of lily-of-the-valley. + +He looked up suddenly, conscious that she was laughing silently. "What +is it?" he asked. + +"We seem so tremendously acquainted," she said, "for people who--" She +stopped an instant. "You don't even know who I am." + +In the references to her coming he had heard her name spoken and now, by +a sheer mental effort, he managed to recall it. + +"You are Miss Fairfax," he said. "And my name, perhaps I ought to add, +is Daunt. I am the Secretary of Embassy. I hope, after our little effort +of to-night, you will not consider diplomacy only high-class vaudeville. +Such comedy scarcely represents our daily bill." + +"It came near enough to being tragedy," she answered. + +"It was so uncommonly life-like, I was torn with a fear that you might +not guess it was gotten up for your especial benefit." + +"How well you treat your visitors!" she said with gentle irony. "Had you +many rehearsals?" + +"Very few," he said. "I was afraid the boy might misread the stage +direction and slip the dog-chain too soon. But I am greatly pleased. I +have always had an insatiable longing to be a hero--if only on the +stage. I aspire to Grand Opera, also, as you have noticed." He laughed, +a trifle shamefacedly, then added quickly: "I hope you liked the final +disappearance act. It was rather effective, don't you think?" + +She smiled unwillingly. "Ah, you make light of it! But don't think I +didn't know how quickly you acted--what you risked in that one minute! +And then to run back a second time!" She shuddered a little. "You could +have done nothing with that piece of wood!" + +"I assure you," he said, "you underrate my prowess! But it wasn't to be +used--it was only the dog's cue." + +"Poor brute!" she said. "I hope he will injure nobody." + +"Luckily, the children are off the streets at this hour," he answered. +"He'll not go far; the police are too numerous. I am afraid our very +efficient performer is permanently retired from the company. But I +haven't yet congratulated you. You didn't seem one bit afraid." + +"I hadn't time to be frightened. I--was thinking of something else! The +fright came afterward, when I saw you--when you left me on the railing." +She spoke a little constrainedly, and went on quickly: "I really am a +desperate coward about some things. I should never dare to go up on an +aëroplane, for instance, as Patsy tells me you do almost every day. She +says the Japanese call you the 'Honorable Fly-Man'." + +"There's no foreign theater in Tokyo, and no winter Opera," he said +lightly. "We have to amuse one another, and the Glider is by way of +contributing my share of the entertainment. It is certainly an uplifting +performance." He smiled, but she shook her head. + +"Ah," she said, "I know! I was at Fort Logan last summer the day +Lieutenant Whitney was killed. I saw it." + +The smile had faded and her eyes had just the look he had so often +fancied lay in those eyes he had been used to gaze at across the burning +driftwood--his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires." He caught himself +longing to know that they would mist and soften if he too should some +day come to grief in such sudden fashion. They were wholly wonderful +eyes! He had noted them even in the instant when he had snatched her +from the piazza--from the danger into which his cavalier singing had +called her. + +"How brazen you must have thought it!" he exclaimed. "My impromptu solo, +I mean. I hardly know how I came to do it. I suppose it was the +moonlight (it does make people idiotic sometimes, you know, in the +tropics!) and then what you played--that dear old song! I used to sing +it years ago. It reminded me--" + +"Yes--?" + +"Of the last evening at college. It was a night like this, though not so +lovely. I sang it then--my last college solo." + +"Your _last_?" She was leaning toward him, her lips parted, her eyes +bright on his face. + +"Yes," he said. "I left town the next day." + +Her eyes fell. She turned half away, and put a hand to her cheek. "Oh," +she said vaguely. "Of course." + +"But it _was_ brazen," he finished lamely. "I promise never to do it +again." + +The breath of the night was coolly sweet. It hovered about them, mingled +of all the musky winds and flower-months of Eden. A dulled, weird sound +from the street reached their ears--the monotonous hand-tapping of a +small, shallow drum. + +"Some Buddhist _devotée_," he said, "making a pious round of holy +places. He is stalking along in a dingy, white cotton robe with red +characters stamped all over it--one from each shrine he has visited--and +here and there in a doorway he will stop to chant a prayer in return for +a handful of rice." + +"How strange! It doesn't seem to belong, somehow, with the telegraph +wires and the trolley cars. Japan is full of such contrasts, isn't it? +It seems to be packed with mystery and secrets. Listen!" The deep, +resonant boom of a great bell at a distance had throbbed across the +nearer strumming. "That must be in some old temple. Perhaps the man with +the drum is going there to worship. Does any one live in the temples? +The priests do, I suppose." + +"Yes," he answered. "Sometimes other people do, too. I know of a +foreigner who lives in one." + +"What is he? European?" + +"No one knows. He has lived there fifteen years. He calls himself +Aloysius Thorn. I used to think he must be an American, for in the +Chancery safe there is an envelope bearing his name and the direction +that it be opened after his death. It has been there a long time, for +the paper is yellow with age. No doubt it was put there by some former +Chief-of-Mission at his request. He has nothing to do with other +foreigners; as a rule he won't even speak to them. He is something of a +curiosity. He knows some lost secret about gold-lacquer, they say." + +"Is he young?" + +"No." + +"Married?" + +"Oh, no! He lives quite alone. He has one of the loveliest private +gardens in the city. Sometimes one doesn't see him for months, but he is +here now." + +She was silent, while he looked again at the white toe of the slipper +peeping from a gauzy hem. The silence seemed to him an added bond +between them. The moon, tilting its slim sickle along the solemn range +of western hills, touched their jagged contour with a shimmering +radiance and edged with silver the vast white apparition towering, +filmily exquisite, above them, a solitary snowy cone, hovering +wraith-like between earth and sky. The horizon opposite was deep violet, +crowded with tiny stars, like green-gilt coals. In the quiet a drowsy +crow croaked huskily from the hillside. Barbara looked through dreamy +eyes. + +"It can't always be so beautiful!" she said at length. "Nothing could, I +am sure." + +"No, indeed," he agreed cheerfully. "There are times when, as my +number-one boy says, 'honorable weather are disgust.' In June the +_nubai_, the rainy season, is due. It will pour buckets for three weeks +without a stop and frogs will sing dulcet songs in the streets. In July +your head feels as if a red-hot feather pillow had been stuffed into +your skull and everybody moves to Chuzenji or Kamakura. If it weren't +for that, and an occasional dust-storm in the winter, and the +centillions of mosquitoes, and a weekly earthquake or two, we wouldn't +half appreciate this!" He made a wide gesture. + +"Yet now," she said softly, "it seems too lovely to be real! I shall +wake presently to find myself in my berth on the _Tenyo Maru_ with Japan +two or three days off." + +He fell into her mood. "We are both asleep. That was why the dog +vanished so queerly. Dream-dogs always do. And I don't wonder at my +singing, either. People do exactly what they shouldn't when they are +asleep. But no! I really don't like the dream version at all. I want +this to be true." + +"Why?" + +Her tone was low, but it made him tingle. A sudden _mêlée_ of daring, +delicious impulses swept over him. "Because I have dreamed too much," he +said, in as low a voice. "Here in the East the habit grows on one; we +dream of what all the beauty somehow misses--for us. But to-night, at +least, is real. I shall have it to remember when you have gone, as I--I +suppose you will be soon." + +She leaned out and picked a slender maple-leaf from a branch that came +in through the open side of the pagoda, and, holding it in her fingers, +turned toward him. Her lips were parted, as if to speak. But suddenly +she tossed it from her, rose and shook out her skirts with a laugh. +Carriage-wheels were rolling up the drive from the lower gate. + +"Thank you!" she cried gaily. "But no hint shall move me. I warn you +that I intend to stay a long time!" + +In the lighted doorway, as Patricia and her mother stepped from the +carriage, she swept him a curtsey. + +"Honorably deign to accept my thanks," she said, "for augustly saving my +insignificant life! And now, perhaps, we can be properly introduced!" + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + ISHIKICHI + + +Under the frail moon that touched the Embassy garden to such beauty, +Haru walked home to the house "so-o-o small, an' garden 'bout such big" +in the Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods. + +On Reinanzaka Hill the shadows were iris-hearted. From its high-walled +gardens of the great came no glimpses of phantom-lighted _shoji_, no +sound of vibrant strings from tea-houses nor gleams of painted lips and +fingers of _geisha_. + +Haru carried a paper-lantern tied to the end of a short wand, but it was +not dark enough to need its light, and as she walked, she swung it in +graceful circles. She heard a dove sobbing its low _owas! owas!_ and +once a crow flapped its sleepy way above her, uttering its harsh note, +which, from some subtlety of suggestion hidden from the western mind, +the Japanese liken to the accents of love. It startled her for a second; +then she began to sing, under her breath, to the tune of her clacking +_géta_, a ditty of her childhood: + + "_Karasu, Karasu!_ "Crow, crow, + _Kanzaburo!_ Kanzaburo! + _Oya no on wo--_ Forget not the virtue + _Wasurena yo!_" Of your honorable parents." + +On the crest of the hill, by the Street-of-Hollyhocks, a wall opened in +a huge gate of heavy burnished beams studded with great iron +rivet-heads. Here resided no less a personage than an Imperial Princess. +Beside the gate stood a conical sentry-box, in which all day, while the +gate was open, stood a soldier of the Household Guards. The box was +empty now. + +Opposite the gate, a hedged lane opened, into which she turned, and +presently the song ceased. She had come to the newly built Chapel. Her +father's name was on the household list of the temple across the way, +but she herself walked each Sunday to Ts'kiji, to attend the bishop's +Japanese service in the Cathedral. When, influenced by a school-mate, +she had wished to become a Christian, the old _samurai_ had interposed +no objection. With the broad tolerance of the esoteric Buddhist, to whom +all pure faiths are good, he had allowed her to choose for herself. She +had grown to love the strangely new and beautiful worship with its +singing, its service in a tongue that she could understand, its Bible +filled with marvelous stories of old heroes, and with vivid imagery like +that of the _Kojiki_, the "Record of Ancient Matters" or the +_Man-yoshu_, the "Collection of a Myriad Leaves," over whose archaic +characters her father was always poring. She had ceased to visit the +temple, but otherwise the change had made little difference in her +placid life. With the simplicity with which the Japanese of to-day +kneels with equal faith before a plain _Shinto_ shrine and a golden +altar of Buddha, she had continued the daily home observances. Each +morning she cleaned the _butsu-dan_--refilled its tiny lamp with +vegetable oil, freshened its incense-cup and water bowl, and dusted its +golden shrine of Kwan-on which held the scroll inscribed with the spirit +names of a hundred ancestors, and the _ihai_, or mortuary tablet, of her +dead mother. Though she no longer prayed before it, it still signified +to her the invisible haunting of the dead--the continuing loving +presence of that mother who waited for her in the _Meidoland_. + +For many days Haru had watched the progress of the Chapel building. The +Cathedral was a good two miles distant, but this was near her home; here +she would be able to attend more than the weekly Sunday service. +To-night, as she looked at the cross shining in the moonlight, she +thought it very beautiful. A tiny symbol like it, made of white enamel, +was hung on a little chain about her neck. It had been given her by the +bishop the day of her confirmation. She drew this out and swung it about +her finger as she walked on. + +In the Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods were no huge and gloomy compounds. +It was a roadway of humbler shops and homes, bordered with mazes of +lantern fire, and lively with pedestrians. At a meager shop, pitifully +small, whose _shoji_ were wide open, Haru paused. A smoky oil lamp swung +from the ceiling, and under its glow, a woman knelt on the worn +_tatamé_. Beside her, on a pillow, lay a newborn baby, and she was +soothing its slumber by softly beating a tiny drum close to its ear. She +nodded and smiled to Haru's salutation. + +"_Hai! Ojo-San_," she said. "_Go kigen yo!_ Deign augustly to enter." + +"Honorable thanks," responded Haru, "but my father awaits my unworthy +return. _Domo! Aka-San des'ka?_ So this is Miss Baby! Ishikichi will +have a new comrade in this little sister." + +"Poison not your serene mind with contemplation of my uncomely last-sent +one!" said the woman, pridefully tilting the pillow so as to show the +tiny, vacuous face. "Are not its hands degradedly well-formed?" + +"Wonderfully beyond saying! The father is still exaltedly ill?" + +"It is indeed so! I have not failed to sprinkle the holy water over +Jizo, nor to present the straw sandals to the Guardians-of-the-Gate. +Also I have rubbed each day the breast of the health-god; yet O-Binzuru +does not harken. Doubtless it is because of some sin committed by my +husband in a previous existence! I have not knowledge of your Christian +God, or I would make my worthless sacrifices also to Him." + +"He heals the sick," said Haru, "but He augustly loves not sacrifice--as +He exaltedly did in olden time," she hastily supplemented, recalling +certain readings from the Old Testament. + +"The gods of Nippon divinely change not their habit," returned the +woman. "Also my vile intellect can not comprehend why the foreigners' +God should illustriously concern Himself with the things of another +land." + +"The Christian Divinity," said Haru, "is a God of all lands and all +peoples." + +The other mused. "It passes in my degraded mind that He, then, would +lack a sublime all-sympathy for our Kingdom-of-Slender-Swords. You are +transcendently young, _Ojo-San_, but I am thirty-two, and I hold by the +gods of my ancestors." + +"Honorably present my greetings to your husband," Haru said, as she +bowed her adieu. "May his exalted person soon attain divine health! +To-morrow I will send another book for him to read." + +The woman watched her go, with a smile on her tired face--the Japanese +smile that covers so many things. She looked at the baby's face on the +pillow. "Praise _Shaka_," she said aloud, "there is millet yet for +another week. Then we must give up the shop. Well--I can play the +_samisen_, and the gods are not dead!" + +Behind her a diminutive figure had lifted himself upright from a +_f'ton_. He came forward from the gloom, his single sleeping-robe +trailing comically and his great black eyes round and serious. "Why must +we give up the shop, honorable mother?" + +"Go to sleep, Ishikichi," said his mother. "Trouble me not so late with +your rude prattle." + +"But why, _Okka-San_?" + +"Because rent-money exists not, small pigeon," she answered gently. "So +long as we have ignobly lived here, we have paid the _banto_ who brings +his joy-giving presence on the first of each month. Now we have no more +money and can not pay." + +"Why have we no more money?" + +"Because the honorable father is sick and you are too small to earn. But +let it not trouble your heart, for the gods are good. See--we have +almost waked the _Aka-San_!" + +She bent over the pillow and began again the elfin drumming at the +infant's ear. But Ishikichi lay open-eyed on his _f'ton_, his baby mind +grappling with a new and painful wonder. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + IN THE STREET-OF-PRAYER-TO-THE-GODS + + +Haru unlatched a gate across which twisted a plum-branch with tarnished, +silver bark. It hid a garden so tiny that it was scarcely more than a +rounded boulder set in moss, with a clump of golden _icho_ shrubs. +Across the path, high in air, were stretched giant webs in whose centers +hung black spiders as big as Japanese sparrows. Beyond was a low +doorway, shaded by a gnarled _kiri_ tree. The thin, white rice-paper +pasted behind the bars of its sliding grill shone goldenly with the +candle-light within. She rang a bell which hung from a cord. + +"_Hai-ai-ai-ai-ee!_" sounded a long-drawn voice from within, and in a +moment a little maid slid back the _shoji_ and bobbed over to the +threshold. + +Her mistress stepped from her _géta_ into the small anteroom. Here the +floor was covered with soft _tatamé_,--the thick, springy rice-straw +mats which, in Japan, play the part of carpets--and a bronze vase on a +low lacquer stool held a branch of dark ground-pine and a single white +lily. A voice was audible, reciting in a droning monotone. It stopped +suddenly and called Haru's name. + +She answered instantly, and parting the panels, passed into the next +room, where her father sat on his mat reading in the faint soft light of +an _andon_. He was an old man, with white head strongly poised on gaunt +shoulders. Broken in fortune and in health, the spirit of the _samurai_ +burned inextinguishably in the fire of his sunken eyes. He took her hand +and drew her down beside him. She knew what was in his mind. + +"Be no longer troubled," she said. "The American _Ojo-San_ is as lovely +as Ama-terasu, the Sun Goddess, and as kind as she is beautiful. I shall +be happy to be each day with her." + +"That is good," he said. "Yet I take no joy from it. You are the last of +a family that for a thousand seasons has served none save its Emperor +and its _daimyo_." + +"I am no servant," she answered quickly. "Rather am I, in sort, a +companion to the _Ojo-San_, to offer her my tasteless conversation and +somewhat to go about with her in this unfamiliar city. It is an +honorable way of acquiring gain, and thus I may unworthily pay my +support, for which now from time to time you are brought to sell the +priceless classics in which your soul exaltedly delights." + +His face softened. "I have lived too long," he said. "My hand is +palsied--I, a two-sword man of the old clan! I should have died in the +war, fighting for Nippon and my Emperor. But even then was I too +dishonorably old! Why did not the gods grant me a son?--me, who wearied +them with my sacrifices?" + +She did not answer for a moment. Nothing in her cried out at this +reiterated complaint, for she was of the same blood. If she had been a +son, that wound in her father's heart had been healed. Through her arm +the family would have fought. Her glorious death-name might even now be +written on an _ihai_ on the Buddha-shelf, her glad soul swelling the +numbers of that ghostly legion whose spiritual force was the true +vitality of her nation. + +"Perhaps that, too, might be," she said presently in a low voice. +"Should I augustly marry one not of too exalted a station, he could +receive adoption into our family." + +He looked into her deeply flushing face. "You think of the Lieutenant +Ishida Hétaro," he said. "It is true that the go-between has already +deigned to sit on my hard mats. He is, I think, in every way worthy of +our house. I would rather he were in the field, with a sword in his +hand--I know not much of this 'Secret Service.' What are his present +duties? Doubtless"--with a spark of mischief in his hollow, old +eyes--"you are better informed than I." + +"He is in the household of one named Bersonin, a man-mountain like our +wrestlers, whose service Japan pays with a wage." + +His seamed face clouded. "To cunningly watch the foreigner's incomings +and his outgoings, and make august report to the Board of Extraordinary +Information," he said, with a trace of bitterness. "To play the clod +when one is all eyes and ears. Honorable it is, no doubt, yet to my old +palate it savors too much of the actor strutting on the circular stage. +But times change, and if, to live, we must ape the foreigners, why, we +must borrow their ways till such time--the gods grant it be soon!--when +we can throw them on the dust heap. And what am I to set my debased +ignorance against my Princes and my Emperor!" He paused a moment and +sighed. "Ishida is well esteemed," he continued presently. "He has dwelt +in America and learned its tongue--a necessity, it seems, in these +topsy-turvy times. Yet, as for marriage, waiting still must be. These +are evil days for us, my child. From whence would come the gifts which +must be sent before the bride, to the husband's house? Your mother"--he +paused and bowed deeply toward the golden _butsu-dan_ in its +alcove--"may she rest on the lotos-terrace of _Amida_!--came to my poor +house with a train of coolies bearing lacquer chests: silken _f'ton_, +_kimono_ as soft and filmy as mist, gowns of cloth and of cotton, +cushions of gold and silver patternings, jeweled girdles, velvet sandals +and all lovely garniture. Shall her daughter be sent to a husband with a +chest of rags? No, no!" + +She leaned her dark head against his blue-clad shoulder and drew the +scroll from his trembling fingers. + +"I wind your words about my heart," she said. "Waiting is best. Perhaps +the evil times will withdraw. I have prayed to the Christian God +concerning it. But your eyes are augustly wearied. Let me read to you a +while." + +He settled himself back on the mat, his gaunt hands buried in his +sleeves, and, snuffing the wick in the _andon_, she began to read the +archaic "grass-writing." It was the _Shundai Zatsuwa_ of Kyuso Moro. + + "Be not _samurai_ through the wearing of two swords, but day and + night have a care to bring no reproach on the name. When you + cross your threshold and pass out through the gate, go as one + who shall never return again. Thus shall you be ready for every + adventure. The Buddhist is for ever to remember the five + commandments and the _samurai_ the laws of chivalry. + + "All born as _samurai_, men and women, are taught from childhood + that fidelity must never be forgotten. And woman is ever taught + that this, with submission, is her chief duty. If in unexpected + strait her weak heart forsakes fidelity, all her other virtues + will not atone. + + "_Samurai_, men and women, the young and the old, regulate their + conduct according to the precepts of Bushido, and a _samurai_, + without hesitation, sacrifices life and family for lord and + country." + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + THE WHORLS OF YELLOW DUST + + +For a long time in her blue and white room Barbara lay awake, +listening to the incessant chorus that came on the deepening mystery +of the dark: the rustle of the pine-needles outside her window, the +_kiri-kiri-kiri-kiri_ of a night-cricket on the sill, and the wavering +chant of a toiling coolie keeping time to the thrust of his body as he +hauled his heavy cart. The shadow of a twisted pine-branch crossed one +of the windows, and in the infiltering moonlight she could see the +yellow gleam of the gold-lacquer Buddha on the Sendai chest. + +She could imagine it the same image she had found as a little girl in +the garret, and had made her pet delight. For an instant she seemed to +be once more a child seated on her low stool before it, her hands +tight-clasped, looking up into its immobile countenance, half-hoping, +half-fearing those carven lips would speak. On the wings of this +sensation came a childish memory of a day when her aunt had found her +thus and had thought her praying to it. She remembered the look of +frozen horror on her aunt's face and her own helpless mortification. For +she did not know how to explain. She had had to write a verse from the +Bible fifty times in her copybook: + + _Thou shalt have no other gods before Me._ + +And she had had to do half of them over because she had forgotten the +capital M. That day her treasure had disappeared, and she had never seen +it again. + +The glimmering figure in the dark made her think, too, of the man of +whom Daunt had told her, who shunned his own race, hiding himself for +years and years in a Japanese temple, with its painted dragon carvings, +glowing candles and smoking censers. The incense from them seemed now to +be filling all the night with odors rich and alluring, whispering of +things mysterious and confined. Striking across the lesser sounds she +could hear at intervals the flute of a blind _masseur_, and nearer, in +the Embassy grounds, the recurrent signal of a patroling night watchman: +three strokes of one hard, wooden stick upon another, like a high, +mellow note of a xylophone. + +This sounded a little like a ship's bell--striking on a white yacht, +whose owner was visiting the ancient capital, Nara. He would appear +before long, and she knew what he would say, and what he would want her +to say to him. She felt somehow guilty, with a sorry though painless +compunction. The man on the steamer that morning had spoken of a younger +brother who was in Japan, "going the pace." Phil--she had often heard +Austen Ware speak of him. Perhaps he had only come over to keep the +other out of mischief. She told herself this a second time, because it +gave her a drowsy satisfaction, though she knew it was not so. She had +always pictured Phil as "fast," and she wondered sleepily what the word +meant here in the orient, where there were no theater suppers, and where +men probably played _fan-tan_--no, that was Chinese--or some other queer +game instead of poker--unless they ... had aëroplanes. + +The bell of the distant temple, which she had heard in the garden, +boomed softly, and the _amma's_ flute sounded again its piercing, +plaintive double-note. The two sounds began to weave together with a +sense of unreality, dreamy, occult, incommunicable. So at length Barbara +slept, fitfully, the fragments of that lavish day falling into a bizarre +mosaic, in which strange figures mingled uncannily. + +She knew them for visions, and to avoid them climbed a grassy hill to a +gray old temple in which she saw her father seated cross-legged on a +huge lotos-flower. She knew him because his face was just like the face +in the locket she wore. She called out and ran toward him, but it was +only a great gold-lacquered Buddha with candles burning around it. She +ran out of the temple, where a dog pursued her and a monstrous man with +a pallid face, who sat in a tree full of cherry-blossoms, threw +something at her which suddenly went off with a terrific explosion and +blew both him and the dog into bits. It seemed terrible, but she could +only laugh and laugh, because somebody held her tight in his arms and +she knew that nothing could frighten her ever any more. + +And on the tide of this shy comfort she drifted away at last upon a deep +and dreamless sea. + + * * * * * + +Later, when the moon had set and only the faint starlight lay over the +garden, the Ambassador still sat in his study, thoughtfully smoking a +cigar. On the mantel, under a glass case, was a model of a battle-ship. +Over it hung a traverse drawing of the Panama Canal cuttings, and maps +and framed photographs looked from the walls between the dark-toned +book-shelves. The floor was covered with a deep crimson rug of +camel's-hair. The shaded reading-lamp on the desk threw a bright circle +of light on an open volume of Treaties at his elbow. + +At length he rose, took up the lamp, and approached the mantel. He stood +a moment looking thoughtfully at the model under its rounded glass. It +was built to scale, and complete in every exterior detail, from the +pennant at its head to the tiny black muzzles that peeped from its open +casemates. Two years ago America had sent a fleet of such vessels to +circumnavigate the globe. An European Squadron of even deadlier type +would cast anchor the next morning in those waters. Yet now Bersonin's +phrase rang insistently through his mind: "Mere silly shreds of steel!" +It recurred like a refrain, mixing itself with the expert's curious +words in the study, with that extraordinary incident of the +piazza--which had bred a stealthy mistrust that would not down. + +With the lamp in his hand he opened the door into the hall and stood +listening a moment. Save for the creaks and snappings that haunt frame +structures in a land of rapid decay, the house was still. He entered the +drawing-room, noiselessly undid the fastenings of a French window and +stepped out on to the piazza. + +There he threw the lamplight about him, mentally reconstructing the +scene of two hours before. Here he himself had stood, yonder Bersonin, +and in the corner the dog--ten feet from the edge of the porch. It had +vanished in the same instant that he had seen it leaping straight at the +expert. What was it Bersonin had taken from his pocket? A weapon? And +_where had the hound gone_? + +He stepped forward suddenly; the chair which had been thrown by the +Japanese boy had been set upright, but beneath it, and on the piazza +beyond, disposed in curious wreaths and whorls, like those made by steel +filings above an electro-magnet, lay a thick sifting of what looked like +reddish-yellow dust. He stooped and took up some in his fingers; it was +dry and impalpable, of an extraordinary fineness. + +He stood looking at it a full minute, intent with some absorbed and +disquieting communing. Then he shook his broad shoulders, as though +dismissing an incredible idea, returned the lamp to the study and went +slowly up the stair to his room. + +But he was not sleeping when dawn came, gray in the sky. It stole +pink-fingered through the window and drew rosy lights on the blank wall +across which strange fancies of his had linked themselves in a weird +processional. It crept between the heavy curtains of the study below, +and gilded the fittings of the little battle-ship on the mantel--as +though to deck it in crimson bunting like its mammoth prototypes in the +lower bay. + +For at that moment the Yokohama Bund was throbbing with the _salvos_ of +great guns pealing a salute. The water's edge was lined with a watching +crowd. Files of marines were drawn up beneath the green-trimmed arches +and cutters flying the sun-flag lay at the wharf, where groups of +officers stood in dress-uniform. + +Over the ledge of the morning was spread a filmy curtain of damask rose, +and beneath it, into the harbor, like a broad dotted arrow-head, was +steaming a flock of black battle-ships, with inky smoke pouring from +their stacks. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + WHEN BARBARA AWOKE + + +When Barbara awoke next morning she lay for a moment staring open-eyed +from her big pillow at the white wall above, where a hanging-shelf +projected to guard the sleeper from falling plaster in earthquake. The +room was filled with a soft light that filtered in through the +split-bamboo blinds. Then she remembered: it was her first whole day in +Japan. + +She felt full of a gay _insouciance_, a glad lightness of joy that she +had never felt before. Slipping a thin rose-colored robe over her +nightgown, she threw open the window and leaned out. The air was as pure +and clean as if it had been sieved through silk, and she breathed it +with long inspirations. It made her think of the unredeemed dirt of +other countries, the sooty air of crowded factories, hardly growing +foliage and unlovely walls. + +The Embassy was a pretentious frame structure in which frequent +alterations had masked an original plan. With its tall porte-cochère, +its long narrow L which served as Chancery, the smaller white cottage +across the lawn occupied by the Secretary of Embassy, the rambling +servants' quarters and stables, it suggested some fine old Virginia +homestead, transported by Aladdin's genii to the heart of an oriental +garden. For the tiny rock-knoll, with its single twisted pine-tree in +front of the main door, the wistaria arbor and red dwarf maples, the +great stone lanterns, the miniature lake and pebbled rivulet spanned by +its arching bridge--all these were Japanese. In the early morning the +eerie witchery of the night was gone, but the sky was as deep as space +and the air languid with the perfume and warmth of a St. Martin's +summer. A green-golden glow tinged the camelia hedges and above them the +long cool expanse of weather-boarding and olive blinds--like a carving +in jade and old ivory. + +As she stood there bathed in the sunlight, her hands dividing the +curtains, Barbara made a gracious part of the glimmering setting. Her +thick, ruddy hair sprang curling from her strongly modeled forehead, and +fell about her white shoulders, a warm reddish mass against the +delicately tinted curtain. There was a thoroughbred straightness in the +lines of the tall figure, in the curve of the cheek and the round +directness of the chin; and her eyes, bent on the lucent green, were the +color of brown sea-water under sapphire cloud-shadows. + +From a circle of evergreens near the porte-cochère a white flag-pole +rose high above the treetops. The stars-and-stripes floated from its +halyards, for the day was the national holiday of an European power. In +the hedges sparrows were twittering, and in a plum-tree a _uguisu_--the +little Buddhist bird that calls the sacred name of the Sutras--was +warbling his sweet, slow, solemn syllables: "_Ho-kek-yo! Ho-kek-yo!_" A +gardener was sweeping the pink rain of cherry-petals from the paths with +a twig broom, the long sleeves of his blue _kimono_ fluttering in the +yellow sunshine, and in front of the servants' quarters a little girl in +flapping sandals was skipping rope with a chenille fascinator. Beyond +the wall of the compound Barbara could see the street, a low row of open +shops. In one, a number of men and girls, sitting on flat mats, were +making bamboo fans. At the corner stood a round well, from which a group +of women, barefooted and with tucked-up clothing, were drawing water in +unpainted wooden buckets with polished brass hoops, and beside it, under +a dark blue awning, a man and woman were grinding rice in a hand-mill +made of two heavy stone disks. A blue-and-white figured towel was bound +about the woman's head against the fine white rice-dust. Above them, on +a tiny portico, an old man, with the calm, benevolent face of a +porcelain mandarin, was watering an unbelievably-twisted dwarf plum on +which was a single bunch of blossoming. At the side of the street grew a +gnarled _kiri_ tree, its shambling roots encroaching on the roadway. In +their cleft was set a wooden _Shinto_ shrine with small piles of pebbles +before it. From a distance, high and clear, she heard a strain of bugles +from some squad of soldiers going to barracks, or perhaps to the +parade-ground, where, she remembered, an Imperial Review of Troops was +to be held that morning. + +Barbara started suddenly, to see on the lawn just below her window, a +figure three feet high, with a round, cropped head, gazing at her from a +solemn, inquiring countenance. He wore a much-worn but clean _kimono_, +and his infantile toes clutched the thongs of clogs so large that his +feet seemed to be set on spacious wooden platforms. The youngster bent +double and staggeringly righted himself with a staccato "_O-hayo!_" + +Barbara gave an inarticulate gasp; in face of his somber dignity she did +not dare to laugh. "How do you do?" she said. "Do you live here?" + +"No," he replied. "I lives in a other houses." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, aghast at his command of English. "What is your +name?" + +"Ishikichi," he said succinctly. + +"And will you tell me what you are doing, Ishikichi?" + +A small hand from behind his back produced a tiny bamboo cage in which +was a bell-cricket. As he held it out, the insect chirped like an elfin +cymbal. "Find more one," he said laconically. + +"And what shall you do with them, I wonder." + +He took one foot from its clog and wriggled bare toes in the grass. +"Give him to new little sister," he said. + +"So you have a new little sister!" exclaimed Barbara. "How fine that +must be!" + +A glaze of something like disappointment spread over the diminutive +face. "Small like," he said. "More better want a brother to play with +me." + +"Maybe you might exchange her for a brother," she hazarded, but the +cropped head shook despondently: + +"I think no can now," he said. "We have use her four days." + +Barbara laughed outright, a peal of silvery sound that echoed across the +garden--then suddenly drew back. A man on horseback was passing across +the drive toward the main gate of the compound. It was Daunt, +bareheaded, his handsome tanned face flushed with exercise, the breeze +ruffling his moist, curling hair. She flashed him a smile as his +riding-crop flew to his brow in salute. The sun glinted from its +Damascene handle, wrought into the long, grotesque muzzle of a fox. +Between the edsges of the blue silk curtains she saw him turn in the +saddle to look back before he disappeared. + +She stood peering out a long time toward the low white cottage across +the clipped lawn. The laughter had left her eyes, and gradually over her +face grew a wave of rich color. She dropped the curtain and caught her +hands to her cheeks. For an instant she had seemed to feel the pressure +of strong arms, the touch of coarse tweed vividly reminiscent of a pipe. + +What had come over her? The one day that had dawned at sea in golden +fire and died in crimson and purple over a file of convicts--the +dreaming night with its temple bell striking through silver mist and +violet shadows--these had left her the same Barbara that she had always +been. But somewhere, somehow, in the closed gulf between the then and +now, something new and strange and sweet had waked in her--something +that the sound of a voice in the garish sunlight had started into +clamorous reverberations. + +She sat down suddenly and hid her face. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + A FACE IN THE CROWD + + +They rode to the parade-ground--Barbara and Patricia with the +Ambassador, behind his pair of Kentucky grays--along wide streets grown +festive overnight and buzzing with _rick'sha_ and pedestrians. Every +gateway held crossed flags bearing the blood-red rising-sun, and colored +paper lanterns were swung in festoons along the gaudy blocks of shops, +as wide open as tiers of cut honeycomb. + +In their swift flight the city appeared a living sea of undulations, of +immense green wastes alternating with humming sections of trade, of +abrupt, cliff-like hills, of small parks that were masses of +cherry-bloom and landscapes of weird Japanese beauty. Patricia quoted +one of Haru's quaint sayings: "So-o-o many small village got such a +lonesomeness an' come more closer together. Tha's the way Tokyo born." +Occasionally the Ambassador pointed out the stately palace of some +influential noble, or the amorphous, depressing front of the +foreign-style stucco residence of some statesman, built in that +different period when the empire took first steps in the path of +world-powers, with its low, graceful Japanese portion beside it. + +Everywhere Barbara was conscious of the flutter of children--of little +girls whose dress and hair showed a pervasive sense of care and +adornment; of faces neither gay nor sad looking from latticed windows +that hung above open gutters of sluggish ooze; of frail balconies +adorned with growing flowers or miniature gardens set in earthen trays; +of doorways hung with soft-fringed, rice-straw ropes and dotted with +paper charms--the talismanic _o-fuda_ seen on every hand in Japan. In +Yokohama what had struck her most had been the curious composite, the +jumbled dissonance of East and West. Here was a new impression; this was +real Japan, but a Japan that, if it had taken on western hues, had +everywhere qualified them by subtle variations, themselves oriental. +Past the carriage whirled landaus bearing Japanese _grandes dames_ in +native dress, with pomade-stiff coiffures against which their +rice-powdered faces made a ghastly contrast; between the rear springs of +each vehicle was fixed a round flat pommel on which a runner stood, +balancing himself to the swift movement. A Japanese military officer in +khaki, with a row of decorations on his breast, rode by on a horse too +big for him, at a jingling trot. Two soldiers passing afoot, faced +sidewise and their heavy cowhide heels came together with a thud, as +they saluted. Their arms had the jerky precision of a mechanical toy. + +Through all there seemed to Barbara to strike a sense of the tenacity of +the old, of the stubborn persistence of type, as though eyes behind a +mask looked grimly at the mirror's reflection of some outlandish and but +half-accustomed masquerade. It was the shadow of the old Japan of castes +and spies and censors, of homage and _hara-kiri_, of punctilio and +porcelain. Trolley cars rumbled past; skeins of telegraph wire spun +across the vision. Yet when stone wall gaped or green hedge opened, it +was to reveal the curving tops of Buddhist _torii_ in quaint vistas of +straight-boled trees, gliding Tartar contours of roof between clumps of +palm, or bamboo thickets with shadows as black as ink; while from the +lazy scum of the wide, moat-like, stone gutters, open to the +all-putrefying sun, rose thick, marshy odors suggesting the vast languor +of a land more ancient than Egypt and Nineveh. + +The carriage stopped abruptly at a cross street. A _Shinto_ funeral +_cortège_ was passing. Twelve bearers, six on each side, clad in +mourning _houri_ of pure white, bore on their shoulders the hearse, like +a shrine, built of clean unpainted wood, beautifully grained, and with +carven roof and curtains of green and gold brocade. Priests in yellow +robes, with curved gauze caps and stoles of scarlet and black, walked at +the head, fanning themselves now and then with little fans drawn from +their girdles. Coolies, dressed in white like the hearse bearers, +carried stiff, conical bouquets, six feet long, made of flowers of +staring colors, and clumps of lotos made of _papier maché_ covered with +gold and silver leaf. The chief mourner, a woman, rode smiling in a +_rick'sha_. She wore a silver-gray _kimono_ and a tall canopied cap of +white brocade with wide floating strings like an old-fashioned bonnet. + +"Well, of all things!" said Patricia, in an awe-struck whisper. "What do +you think of that?" For the file of _rick'sha_ following her carried a +curious assemblage of mourners. In each sat a dog, some large, some +small, with great bows of black or white crepe tied to their collars. +Taka, the driver, turned his head and spoke: + +"Dog-doctor die," he said. "All dog very sorry." + +"It's the 'vet.,' father," Patricia cried. "He is dead, then--and all +his old patients are attending the funeral! See, Barbara! They are lined +up according to diplomatic precedence. That French poodle in front +belongs to the Japanese senior prince. The Aberdeen is the British +Ambassador's. And there's the Italian Embassy bull-terrier and the +Spanish _Chargé's_ 'chin.' The foreigners' dogs have black bows and the +others white. Why is that, I wonder?" + +"I presume," said the Ambassador, "because white is the Japanese +mourning color." + +"Of course. How stupid of me!" She sat suddenly upright. "Of all +_things_! There's our 'Dandy'!" She pointed to a tiny Pomeranian on the +seat of the last _rick'sha_. "I wondered why number-three boy was +washing him so hard this morning! It's a mercy he didn't see us, or he'd +have broken up the procession. Please take note that he's the +tail-end--which shows my own unofficial insignificance." + +"There's a tourist at the hotel," said the Ambassador, "who should have +seen this. I was there the other day and I overheard her speaking to one +of the Japanese clerks. She said she had seen everything but a funeral, +and she wanted him to instruct her guide to take her to one. The clerk +said: 'I am too sorry, Madam, but this is not the season for funerals.'" + +The horses trotted on, to drop to a walk, presently, on a brisk incline. +High, slanting retaining walls were on either side, and double rows of +cherry-trees, whose interlacing branches wove a roof of soft pink bloom. +Along the road were many people; _inkyo_--old men who no longer labored, +and _ba-San_--old women whom age had relieved from household cares--bent +and withered and walking with staves or leaning on the arms of their +daughters, who bore babies of their own strapped to their backs; +children clattering on loose wooden clogs; youths sauntering with +_kimono'd_ arms thrown, college-boy fashion, about each other's +shoulders; a troop of young girls in student _hakama_--skirts of deep +purple or garnet--laughing and chatting in low voices or airily swinging +bundles tied in colored _furoshiki_. Midway the wall opened into a +miniature park filled with trees, with a small lake and a _Shinto_ +monument. + +"Why, there's little Ishikichi," said Patricia. "I never saw him so far +from home before. Isn't that a queer-looking man with him!" + +The solemn six-year-old, Barbara's window acquaintance of the morning, +was trotting from the inclosure, his small fingers clutching the hand of +a foreigner. The latter was of middle age. His coat was a heavy, +double-breasted "reefer." His battered hat, wide-brimmed and +soft-crowned, was a joke. But his linen was fresh and good and his +clumsy shoes did not conceal the smallness and shapeliness of his feet. +He was lithe and well built, and moved with an easy swing of shoulder +and a step at once quick and graceful. His back was toward them, but +Barbara could see his long, gray-black hair, a square brow above an +aquiline profile at once bold and delicate, and a drooping mustache shot +with gray. Many people seemed to regard him, but he spoke to no one save +his small companion. His manner, as he bent down, had something +caressing and confiding. + +At the sound of wheels the man turned all at once toward them. As his +gaze met Barbara's, she thought a startled look shot across it. At side +view his face had seemed a dark olive, but now in the vivid sunlight it +showed blanched. His eyes were deep in arched orbits. One, she noted, +was curiously prominent and dilated. From a certain bird-like turn of +the head, she had an impression that this one eye was nearly if not +wholly sightless. All this passed through her mind in a flash, even +while she wondered at his apparent agitation. + +For as he gazed, he had dropped the child's hand. She saw his lips +compress in an expression grim and forbidding. He made an involuntary +movement, as though mastered by a quick impulse. Then, in a breath, his +face changed. He shrank back, turned sharply into the park and was lost +among the trees. + +"What an odd man!" exclaimed Patricia. "I suppose he resented our +staring at him. He's left the little chap all alone, too. Stop the +horses a moment, Tucker," she directed, and as they pulled up she called +to the child. + +But there was no reply. Ishikichi looked at her a moment frowningly, +then, without a word, turned and stalked somberly after his companion. + +"What an infant thunder-cloud!" said Patricia as the carriage proceeded. +"That must be where our precious prodigy gets his English. Poor mite!" +she added. "He was the inseparable of the son of Toru, the flower-dealer +opposite the Embassy, Barbara, and the dear little fellow was run over +and killed last week by a foreign carriage. No doubt he's grieving over +it, but in Japan even the babies are trained not to show what they feel. +I wonder who this new friend is?" + +"I've seen the man once before," said the Ambassador. "He was pointed +out to me. His name is Thorn. His first name is Greek--Aloysius, isn't +it?--yes, Aloysius. He is a kind of recluse: one of those bits of human +flotsam, probably, that western civilization discards, and that drift +eventually to the East. It would be interesting to know his history." + +So this, thought Barbara, was the exile of whom Daunt had told her, who +had chosen to bury himself--from what unguessed motive!--in an oriental +land, sunk out of sight like a stone in a pool. When he looked at her +she had felt almost an impulse to speak, so powerfully had the shadow in +his eyes suggested the canker of solitariness, the dreary ache of +bitterness prolonged. She felt a wave of pity surging over her. + +But the carriage leaped forward, new sights sprang on them and the +fleeting thought dropped away at length behind her, with the overhanging +cherry-blooms, the little green park, and the strange face at its +gateway. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + "BANZAI NIPPON!" + + +Gradually, as they proceeded, the throng became denser. Policemen in +neat suits of white-duck and wearing long cavalry swords lined the road. +They had smart military-looking caps and white cotton gloves, and stood, +as had the officer before the file of convicts in Shimbashi Station, +moveless and imperturbable. The crowds were massed now in close, locked +lines on either side. In one place a school-master stood guard over a +file of small boys in holiday _kimono_: a little paper Japanese flag was +clutched in each chubby hand. + +In all the ranks there was no jostling, or fighting for position, no +loud-voiced jest or expostulation; a spell was in the air; the Imperial +Presence who was to pass that way had cast His beneficent Shadow before. + +Through a double row of saluting police they whirled into an immense +brown field, as level as a floor, stretching before them seemingly +empty, a dull, yellow-brown waste horizoned by feathery tree-tops. The +carriage turned to the right, skirting a surging sea of brown faces held +in check by a stretched rope; these gave place to a mass of officers +standing in dress-uniform, with plumed caps and breasts ablaze with +decorations; in another moment they descended before a canvas _marquée_ +where brilliant regimental uniforms from a dozen countries shifted and +mingled with diplomatic costumes heavy with gold-braid, and with women's +gay frocks and picture-hats. + +The air was full of exhilaration; people were laughing and chatting. The +British Ambassador displayed the plaid of a Colonel of Highlanders; he +had fought in the Soudan. The Chinese Minister was in his own mandarin +costume; from his round, jade-buttoned hat swept the much coveted +peacock feathers and on his breast were the stars of the "Rising-Sun" +and the "Double-Dragon." The American Ambassador alone, of all the +foreign representatives, wore the plain frock-coat and silk hat of the +civilian. From group to group strolled officials of the Japanese Foreign +Office and Cabinet Ministers, their ceremonial coats crossed by white or +crimson cordons. And through it all Barbara moved, responsive to all +this lightness and color, bowing here and there to introductions that +left her only the more conscious of the one tall figure that had met +them and now walked at her side. + +Daunt could not have told that the flowers in her hat were brown +orchids: he only knew that they matched the color of her eyes. Last +night the moonlight had lent her something of the fragile and ethereal, +like itself. Now the sunlight painted in clear warm colors of cream and +cardinal. It glinted from the perfect curve of her forehead, and tangled +in the wide wave of her bronze hair, making it gleam like hot copper +spun into silk-fine strands. His finger-tips tingled to touch it. + +He started, as--"A penny for your thoughts," she said, with sudden +mischief. + +"Have you so much about you?" he countered. + +"That's a subterfuge." + +"You wouldn't be flattered to hear them, I'm afraid." + +"The reflection is certainly a sad blow to my self-esteem!" + +"Well," he said daringly, "I was thinking how I would like to pick you +up in my arms before all these people and run right out in the center of +that field--" + +She flushed to the tips of her ears. "And then--" + +"Just run, and run, and run away." + +"What a heroic exploit!" she said with subtle mockery, but the flush +deepened. + +"You know to what lengths I can go in my longing to be a hero!" he +muttered. + +"Running off with girls under your arm seems to have become a mania. But +isn't your idea rather prosaic in this age of flying-machines? To swoop +down on one in an aëroplane would be so much more thrilling! This is the +field where you practise, too, isn't it? Is that building away over +there where you keep your Glider?"' + +"Yes. At first I made the models in a Japanese house of mine near here. +I keep it still, from sentiment." + +"How fine to meet a man who admits to having sentiment! I'm tremendously +interested in Japanese houses. You must show it to me." + +"I will. And when will you let me take you for a 'fly?'" + +"I'm relieved," she said, "to find you willing to ask permission." + +Her eyes sparkled into his, and both laughed. Patricia was chatting +animatedly with Count Voynich, the young diplomatist whom she had +pointed out in the train, and whose monocle now looked absurdly +contemplative and serene under a menacing helmet. The confusion of many +colors, the pomp and panoply under the day's golden azure, was singing +in Barbara's veins. She moved suddenly toward the front. "Come," she +said, "I want you to tell me things!" + +"I'm going to," he answered grimly. "I've known I should, ever since--" + +"Look!" she cried. Several coaches had bowled up; behind each stood +footmen in gold-lace and cocked hats, knee breeches and white silk +stockings. Daunt named the occupants as they descended: the Premier, one +of the "Elder Statesmen," the Minister of the Household. + +"Who are the people there at the side, under the awning?" + +"Tourists. Each Embassy and Legation is allowed a certain number of +invitations." + +"Why, yes," said Barbara. "I see some of my ship-mates." She smiled and +nodded across as faces turned toward her. There was the gaunt, sallow +woman who had distributed Christian Science tracts (till sea-sickness +claimed her for its own) and little Miss Tippetts (the printed +steamer-list, with unconscious wit, had made it "Tidbits"), who had +flitted about the companion-ways like a shawled wraith, radiant now in a +white _lingerie_ gown and a hat covered with red hollyhocks. And there, +too, was the familiar painted-muslin and the expansive white waistcoat +of the train. + +A hundred yards to the right was spread a wide silk canopy of royal +purple, caught back with crimson tassels. "What is that?" Barbara asked, +pointing. + +"That is for the Emperor and his suite. The big sixteen-petaled +chrysanthemum on its front is the Imperial Crest; no one else is allowed +to use or carry it. The men on horseback are Princes of the Blood. +Almost all the great generals of the late war are in that group behind +them. The man smoking a cigarette is the Japanese Minister of War." + +"But when do the troops come?" Barbara inquired. "I see only one little +company out there in the center." + +"That is a band," he said. "Look farther. Can you make out something +like a wide, brown ribbon stretched all around the field?" + +She looked. The far-away, moveless, dun-colored strip merged with the +sere plain, but now, here and there, she saw minute needle points of +sunlight twinkle across it. She made an exclamation. For the tiny +flashes were sun-gleams from the bayonets of massed men, clad in +neutral-tinted khaki, silent, motionless as a brown wall, a living river +frozen to utter immobility by a word of command that had been spoken two +long hours before. + +A mounted _aide_ galloped wildly past toward the purple canopy. As he +flashed by, a thin bugle-note rang out and a band far back by the gate +at which they had entered began playing a minor melody. Strange, slow, +infinitely solemn and sad, the strain rolled around the hushed +field--the _Kimi-ga-yo_, the "Hymn of the Sovereign," adapted by a +German melodist a score of years ago, which in Japan is played only in +the Imperial Presence or that of its outward and visible tokens. The +counterpoint, with its muttering roll of snare-drums on the long chords, +and sudden, sharp clashes of cymbals, gave the majestic air an effect +weird and unforgetable. The strain sank to silence, but with the last +note a second nearer band caught it up and repeated it; then, nearer +still, another and another. + +Barbara, leaning, saw a great state-coach of green and gold coming down +the field. It was drawn by four of the most beautiful bay horses she had +ever seen. Coachman, postilions and footmen wore red coats heavily +frogged with gold, white cloth breeches and block enamel top-boots. As +it came briskly along that animate wall of spectators, the vast +concourse, save for the welling or ebbing minor of the bands, was +silent, hushed as in a cathedral. But as it passed, the packed sea of +brown faces--the mass of _kimono_ next the gate and the ranks of +splendid uniforms--bent forward as one man, in a great sighing rustle, +like a field of tall grass when a sudden wind passes over it. + +The plumed hats of the diplomatists came off; they bowed low. The ladies +courtesied, and Barbara, as her gaze lifted, caught an instant's +glimpse, through the coach's glass sides, of that kingly figure, +heaven-descended and sacred, mysterious alike to his own subjects as to +the outside world, through whom flows to the soul of modern Japan the +manifest divinity and living guidance of cohorts of dead Emperors +stretching backward into the night of Time! + + * * * * * + +The band stationed in the center of the immense field had begun to +play--something with a martial swing; and now the far brown strip that +had blent with brown earth began to shift and tremble like the quiver of +air above heated metal. Its motes detached themselves, clustered anew; +and the long, wide ribbon, like a huge serpent waked from rigid sleep in +the sunshine, swept into view: regiments of men, armed and blanketed, by +file and platoon. They moved with high, jerky "goose-step" and loosely +swinging arm, line upon line, till the ground shook with the tread. + +Before each regiment were borne strange flags, blackened and tattered by +blood and shell. Some were mere flapping fringes. But they were more +precious than human lives. One had been found on a Manchurian +battlefield, wrapped about the body of a dead Japanese, beneath his +clothing. Wounded, he had so concealed it, then killed himself, lest, +captured alive, the standard he bore might fall into the hands of the +enemy. As each new rank came opposite the coach before the purple +canopy, an officer's sword flashed out in salute, and a "_banzai!_" tore +across the martial music like the ragged yell of a fanatical Dervish. + +Daunt, watching Barbara, saw the light leaping in her brown eyes, the +excitement coming and going in her face. Again and again he fixed his +gaze before him, as infantry, cavalry and artillery marched and pounded +and rumbled past. In vain. Like a wilful drunkard it returned to +intoxicate itself with the sight of her eager beauty, that made the +scene for him only a splendid blur, an extraneous impression of masses +of swaying bodies moving like marionettes, of glistening bayonets, +horses, clattering ammunition wagons, and fluttering pennants. + +In Barbara, however, every nerve was thrilling to the sight. For the +moment she had forgotten even the man beside her. As she watched the +audacious outpouring of drilled power, tempered and restrained, yet so +terribly alive in its coiled virility, she was feeling a keen pang of +sympathy that was almost pain. In this burning panorama she divined no +shrinking, devious thing sinking with the fatigue of ages, aping the +superficialities of a remote race: not merely a tidal wave of intense +vitality, mobile and mercurial, hastening onward toward an inaudible +unknown, but a splendid rebirth, a dazzling reincarnation of old spirit +in new form, a symbol concrete and vital, like the blaze of a beacon +flaming a racial _réveille_. + +She turned toward Daunt, her hand outstretched, her fingers on his arm, +her lips opened. + +But she did not speak. Afterward she did not know what she had intended +to say. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + A SILENT UNDERSTANDING + + +Phil descended from his _rick'sha_ at the Tokyo Club and paid the +coolie. + +The building faced an open square between the Imperial Hotel and the +Parliament Buildings, along one of the smaller picturesque moats, which +the fever for modernization was now filling in to make a conventional +boulevard. A motor shed stood at the side of the plaza and an automobile +or two was generally in evidence. The structure was small but +comfortable enough, with reading- and card-rooms and a billiard-room of +many tables. It was the clearing-house for the capital's news, the +general exchange for Diet, Peers' Club and the Embassies. It was a place +of tacit free-masonry and conversational dissections. From five to seven +in the afternoon it was a polyglot babble of Japanese, English, French, +German and Italian, punctuated with the tinkle of glasses and the +cheerful click of billiard balls. Over its tables secretaries met to +gossip of the newest _entente_ or the latest social "affair," and +_protocols_ had been drafted on the big, deep, leather sofas adjoining +the bar. + +The door was opened by a servile bell-boy in buttons. Phil tossed his +hat on to the hall-rack and entered. It was cool and pleasant inside, +and a great bowl of China asters sat on the table beside the membership +book. On the wall was a wire frame full of visitors' cards. He strode +through the office and entered a large, glass-inclosed piazza where a +number of Japanese, some in foreign, some in native costume, were +watching a game of _Go_. Two younger Legation _attachés_ were shaking +dice at another table. It was but a little past noon and the place had +an air of sober quiet, very different, Phil reflected, from the club on +the Yokohama Bund, which was always buzzing, and where he was +hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. Frowning, he passed into the next +room. + +Here his eye lightened. Sitting in a corner of one of the huge sofas +which sank under his enormous weight, was Doctor Bersonin. A little +round table was before him on which sat a tall glass frosted with +cracked ice. + +"Sit down," said the expert. "How do you come to be in Tokyo? The +Review, I presume." He struck a call-bell on the table and gave an order +to the waiter. + +Phil lighted a cigarette. "No," he said, "I've come to stay for a +while." + +"You haven't given up your bungalow on the Bluff?" asked Bersonin +quickly. There was an odd eagerness in his colorless face--a look of +almost dread, which Phil, lighting his cigarette, did not see. It +changed to relief as the other answered: + +"No. Probably I shan't be here more than a few days." + +The expert settled back in his seat. "You'll not find the hotel +everything it should be, I'm afraid," he observed more casually. + +"I'm not there," Phil answered. "I--I've got a little Japanese house." + +"So! A _ménage de garçon_, eh?" The big man held up his clinking glass +to the light, and under cover of it, his deep-set yellowish eyes darted +a keen, detective look at Phil's averted face. "Well," he went on, "how +are your affairs? Has the stern brother appeared yet?" + +Phil shifted uneasily. "No," he replied. "I expect him pretty soon, +though." He drained the glass the boy had filled. "You've been +tremendously kind, Doctor," he went on hurriedly, "to lend me so much, +without the least bit of security--" + +"Pshaw!" said Bersonin. "Why shouldn't I?" He put his hand on the +other's shoulder with a friendly gesture. "I only wish money could give +me as much pleasure as it does you, my boy." + +Two men had seated themselves in the next room. Through the open door +came fragments of conversation, the gurgle of poured liquid and the +bubbling hiss of Hirano mineral water. Bersonin lowered his voice: +"Youth! What a great thing it is! Red-blood and imagination and zest to +enjoy. All it needs is the wherewithal to gild its pleasures. After a +time age catches us, and what are luxuries then? Only things to make +tiresomeness a little less irksome!" + +Phil moved his glass on the table top in sullen circles. "But suppose +one hasn't the 'wherewithal' you talk of? What's the fun without money, +even when you're young? I've never been able to discover it!" + +"Find the money," said Bersonin. + +"I wish some one would tell me how!" + +Bersonin's head turned toward the door. He sat suddenly rigid. It came +to Phil that he was listening intently to the talk between the two men +in the next room. + +"I needn't point out"--it was a measured voice, cold and incisive and +deliberate--"that when the American fleet came, two years ago, +conditions were quite different. The cruise was a national _tour de +force_; the visit to Japan was incidental. Besides, there was really no +feeling then between the two nations--that was all a creation of the +yellow press. But the coming of this European Squadron to-day is a +different thing. It is a season of general sensitiveness and distrust, +and when the ships belong to a nation between which and Japan there is +real and serious diplomatic tension--well, in my opinion the time is, at +best, inopportune." + +"Perhaps"--a younger voice was speaking now, less certain, less poised +and a little hesitant--"perhaps the very danger makes for caution. +People are particularly careful with matches when there's a lot of +powder about." + +"True, so far as intention goes. But there is the possibility of some +_contre-temps_. You remember the case of the _Ajax_ in the Eighties. It +was blown up in a friendly harbor--clearly enough by accident, at least +so far as the other nation was concerned. But it was during a time of +strain and hot blood, and you know how narrowly a great clash was +averted. If war had followed, regiments would have marched across the +frontier, shouting: 'Remember the _Ajax_!' As it was, there was a panic +in three bourses. Solid securities fell to the lowest point in their +history. The yellow press pounded down the market, and a few speculators +on the short side made gigantic fortunes." + +A moment's pause ensued. Bersonin's fingers were rigid. There seemed +suddenly to Phil to be some significance between his silence and the +conversation--as if he wished it to sink into his, Phil's, mind. The +voice continued: + +"What has happened once may happen again. What if one of those +Dreadnaughts by whatever accident should go down in this friendly +harbor? It doesn't take a vivid imagination to picture the headlines +next morning in the newspapers at home!" + +The ice in the tumblers clinked; there was a sound of pushed-back +chairs. + +As their departing footsteps died in the hall, Bersonin's gaze lifted +slowly to Phil's face. It had in it now the look it had held when he +gazed from the roof of the bungalow on the Bluff across the anchorage +beneath. Phil did not start or shrink. Instead, the slinking evil that +ruled him met half-way the bolder evil in that glance, from whose +sinister suggestion the veil was for a moment lifted, recognizing a +tacit kinship. Neither spoke, but as the hard young eyes looked into the +cavernous, topaz eyes of Doctor Bersonin, Phil _knew_ that the thought +that lay coiled there was a thing unholy and unafraid. His heart beat +faster, but it warmed. He felt no longer awed by the other's greater +age, standing and accomplishments. He was conscious of a new, +half-insolent sense of easy comradeship. + +"Suppose," said Bersonin slowly, "I should show you how to find the +money." + +A sharp eagerness darted across Phil's face. Money! How much he needed +it, longed for it! It could put him on his feet, clear off his debts, +square his bridge-balance, and--his brother notwithstanding!--enable him +to begin another chapter of the careless life he loved! He looked +steadily into the expert's face. + +"Tell me!" he almost whispered. + +Bersonin rose and held out his hand. He did not smile. + +"Come with me to-night," he said. "I dine late, but we'll take a spin in +my car and have some tea somewhere beforehand. Tell me where your house +is and I'll send Ishida with the motor-car for you." + +Phil gave him the address and he went out with no further word. A great, +brass-fitted automobile, with a young, keen-eyed Japanese sitting beside +the chauffeur, throbbed up from the shed. Bersonin climbed ponderously +in. A gray-haired diplomatist, entering the Club with a stranger, +pointed the big man out to the other as he was whirled away. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + IN THE BAMBOO LANE + + +_What did Bersonin mean?_ Phil replenished his glass, feeling a tense, +nervous excitement. + +Why had he listened so intently--made _him_ listen--to what the men in +the next room were saying? He could recall it all--for some reason every +word was engraven on his mind. The visit of the foreign Squadron. +Speculators who had once made quick fortunes through an accident to a +battle-ship. He thought of the look he had seen on Bersonin's face. + +"What do you want me to do?" He muttered the words to himself. As he +rose to go he glanced half-fearfully over his shoulder. + +He walked along the street, his brain afire. He was passing a moat in +whose muck bottom piling was being driven; the heavy plunger was lifted +by a dozen ropes pulled by a ring of coolie women, dressed like men, +with blue-cotton leggins and red cloths about their heads. As they +dragged at the straw ropes, and the great weight rose and fell, they +chanted a wailing refrain, with something minor and plaintive in its +burden-- + + "_Yó--eeya--kó--ra! + Yó-eeya--kó--ra!_" + +_What do you want me to do?..._ The words wove oddly with the refrain. +Why should he say them over and over? Again and again it came--an echo +of an echo--and again and again he seemed to see the look in the +expert's hollow, cat-like eyes! It haunted him as he walked on toward +Aoyama parade-ground, to the little house in _Kasumigatani Cho_, the +"Street-of-the-Misty-Valley." + +Then, as he walked, he saw some one that for the moment drove it from +his mind. He had turned for a short-cut through a temple inclosure, and +there he met her face to face--the girl of the _matsuri_, whom he had +seen wading in the foam at Kamakura. Her slim neck, pale with +rice-powder, rose from a soft white neckerchief flowered with gold, and +a scarlet poppy was dreaming in her black hair. Phil's face sprang red, +and a wave of warm color overran her own. + +"_O-Haru-San!_" he cried. + +"_Konichi-wa_," she answered with grave courtesy and made to pass him, +but he turned and walked by her side. "Please, please!" he entreated. +"If you only knew how often I have looked for you! Don't be unkind!" + +"Why you talk with me?" said Haru, turning. "My Japanese girl--no all +same your country." + +"You wild, pretty thing!" he said. "Why are you so afraid of me? +Foreigners don't eat butterflies." + +"No," she answered, without hesitation, "they jus' break wings." + +He laughed unevenly. Her quickness of retort delighted him, and her +beauty was stinging his blood. He put out his hand and touched her +sleeve, but she drew away hurriedly: + +"See!" she said. "My know those people to come in gate. Talk--'bout my +_papa-San_--please, so they will to think he have know you, _né_?" + +Phil obeyed the hint, but Haru's cheeks, as she saluted her friends, +were flushing painfully. It was her first subterfuge employed in a +moment of embarrassment with the realization that her home was near and +that she was violating the code of deportment that from babyhood hedges +about the young Japanese girl with a complicated etiquette. + +The women they had passed looked back curiously at the foreigner walking +with her. One, a girl of Haru's own age, called smilingly after her: + +"_Komban Mukojima de sho?_" Phil understood the query. Was she going to +Mukojima--to the cherry festival--to-night! His eyes sparkled at the +tossed-back, "_Hai!_" Well, he would be there, too! He had appreciated +the quick wit of her subterfuge. The clever little baggage! She was not +such a small, brown saint, after all! + +"I think I did that rather well," he said, when they had passed out of +earshot. "They'll think your honorable parent and I exchange New Year +gifts at the very least." + +A little smile of irrepressible fun was lurking under Haru's flush. "You +have ask how is _papa-San_ rhu-ma-tis-um," she said. "In our street he +have some large fame, for because he so old and no have got." + +Phil laughed aloud. "Look here, little Haru," he said, "you and I are +going to be great friends, aren't we?" He looked down at the slim, +nervous arm, so soft and firm of flesh, so deliciously turned and +modeled. He knew a jade bracelet in Yokohama that would mightily become +it--he would write to-night and have it sent up! "When can I see you +again, eh?" + +They had turned into a narrow deserted lane, bordered with +bamboo fences, and opening, a little way beyond, into the wider +Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods. She stopped as he spoke and shook her +head. "My no can tell," she answered. "No come more far. My house very +near now." + +He caught her hand--it was almost as small as a child's, with its +delicate wrist and slender fingers. "Give me a kiss and I will let you +go," he said. + +As she shrank back indignantly against the palings, her free hand flung +up across her face, he threw his arms about her and strained her to him. +She wrestled against him with little inarticulate sobs, but he lifted +her face and kissed her again and again. + +He released her, breathing hard, the veins in his temples throbbing, his +lips burning hot. He stood a moment looking after her, as white-faced +and breathless, she fled down the bamboo lane. + +"There!" he muttered. "That's for you to remember me by--till next +time!" + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + THE BISHOP ASKS A QUESTION + + +Bishop Randolph lived in the quarter of Tokyo called Ts'kiji--a section +of "made-ground" in the bay, composed, as the ancient vestry jest had +it, of the proverbial tomato-cans. It was flat and low, and its inner +canal in the old days had formed the boundary of the extraterritorial +district given over by a reluctant government to the residence of +foreigners. + +It was a mile from the great, double-moated park of the Imperial Palace, +from the Diet and the Foreign Office, whither, scarcely a generation +ago, representatives of European powers had galloped on horse-back, with +a mounted guard against swashbuckling "two-sword men." The streets, +however, on which once an American Secretary of Legation, so spurring, +had been cut in two by a single stroke of a thirsting _samurai_ sword, +were peaceful enough in this era of _Meiji_. The cathedral, the college, +the low brown hospital and the lines of red-brick mission houses stood +on grassy lawns behind green hedges which gave a suggestion of a quiet +English village. A couple of the smaller Legations still clung to their +ancient sites and the quarter boasted, besides, a score of ambitious +European residences and a modern hotel. + +In the rectory the bishop sat at tiffin with the archbishop of the +Russian Cathedral, a man of seventy-eight, gray-bearded and +patriarchal--another St. Francis Xavier. In this foreign field the pair +had been friends during more than a score of years. Both were equally +broad-minded, had long ago thrown down the sectarian barriers too apt to +prevail in less restricted communities. To a large extent they were +confidants. The archbishop spoke little English, and the bishop no +Russian and but "inebriate" French (as he termed it), so that their talk +was habitually in Japanese. When they had finished eating both men bowed +their heads in a silent grace. The Russian, as he rose, made the sign of +the cross. + +As they entered the library a wrinkled house-servant sucked in his +breath behind them. + +"Will the thrice-eminent guest deign to partake of a little worthless +tobacco?" he inquired, in the ceremonious honorifics of the vernacular. + +The thrice-eminent shook his head, and the bishop answered: "Honorable +thanks, Honda-_San_, our guest augustly does not smoke." + +At the table they had been talking of the great dream of both--the +Christianization of modern Japan. The archbishop continued the +conversation now: + +"As I was saying, the great stumbling-block is the language. It is all +right for you and me, who have had twenty years at it, but our helpers +haven't. His code of courtesy forbids a Japanese to seem to correct +even when we are absurdly wrong. One of my boys"--so the bishop +affectionately referred to his younger coadjutors--"was preaching the +other day on 'The Spiritual Attributes of Mankind.' He meant to use +the word _ningen_, man in the wide sense. He preached, he thought, +with a good deal of success--the people seemed particularly grave and +attentive. Afterward he asked an old Japanese what he thought of the +subject. The man replied that he had felt much instructed to find +there were so many things to be said about it. He added that he +himself generally ate them boiled. My young man had used the word +_ninjin_--carrots. 'The Spiritual Attributes of Carrots!' And a whole +sermon on it. Imagine it!" + +The archbishop threw back his head and laughed. Then the conversation +drifted again into the serious. "Of course," said the bishop, "there is +at bottom the oriental inability to separate racial traits, to realize +that Christianity has made Christendom's glories, not her shames. The +Japanese are essentially a spiritually-minded people. Some of the West's +most common vices they are strangely without. And their code of +every-day morals--well, we can throw very few stones at them there!" + +The archbishop nodded. + +"Few, indeed," he said. "No Japanese Don Juan ever could exist. A +Japanese woman would be scandalized by a Greek statue. She would recoil +at a French nude. She would fly with astonishment and shame from the +sight of a western ballet. Our whole system strikes the Oriental as not +only monstrous but disgustingly immoral. It seems to him, for instance, +sheer barbarity for a man to love his wife even half as well as he does +his own mother and father. A curious case in point happened not so long +ago. A peasant had a mother who became blind. He consulted the village +necromancer, who told him if his mother could eat a piece of human heart +she would get her sight back. The peasant went home in tears and told +his wife. She said, 'We have only one boy. You can very easily get +another wife as good or better than me, but you might never have another +son. Therefore, you must kill me and take my heart for your mother.' +They embraced, and he killed her with his sword. The child awoke and +screamed. Neighbors and the police came. In the police court the +peasant's tale moved the judges to tears. They quite understood. They +didn't condemn the man to death. Really the one who ought to have been +killed was the necromancer." + +"And this," said the bishop musingly, "only a few miles from where they +were teaching integral calculus and Herbert Spencer!" + +His visitor sat a while in thought. "By the way," he said presently, +changing the subject, "I passed your new Chapel the other day. It is +very handsome. Your niece, I think you told me, built it. May I ask--" + +"Yes," said the host, "it is my dead sister's child, Barbara--John +Fairfax's daughter." + +A look passed between them, and the bishop rose and paced up and down, a +habit when he was deeply moved. "She came back to Japan with me," he +continued. "I am to take her to see the Chapel this afternoon. Yesterday +she told me that she intends it to be dedicated to her father's memory." + +For a moment there was no reply. Then the other said: "You have heard +nothing of Fairfax all these years?" + +"Not a word." + +"She has never known?" + +The bishop shook his head. "She believes he died before her mother left +Japan." He paused before the window, his back to the other. "He was my +friend!" he said; "and I loved him. I gave my sister to him, and she +loved him, too!" + +"I remember," said the archbishop slowly. "She went back to America from +Nagasaki. How strange it was! She never told any one why she left him?" + +"Never a word. She died before I went to America again. She left me a +letter which hinted at something wholly unforgivable--almost Satanic, it +must have seemed to her." + +"And he?" + +"Disappeared. He was thought to have gone to China. Perhaps he is alive +there yet. I have always wondered. If so, how is he living--in what +way?" The bishop turned abruptly. "In view of what we know, can I lend +myself to the dedication of this house of our Lord to a memory that may +be infamous? I ask you as a friend." + +The older man was a long time silent. + +"'His ways are past finding out,'" he said at length. "I am conscious, +sometimes, of a hidden purpose in things. The daughter's memory of her +father is a beautiful thing. Let us not destroy it!" + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + THE TRESPASSER + + +The bishop, and the Ambassador, when the former's call was ended that +afternoon, found Barbara with Haru in the garden pagoda. She sat on its +wide ledge, Haru at her feet, in a dainty _kimono_ of pale gray +cotton-crepe with a woven pattern of plum-blossoms. The oval Japanese +face showed no trace now of the passionate anger with which she had fled +from Phil's kisses. If it had left a trace the trace was hidden under +the racial mask that habitually glosses the surface of oriental feeling. + +Barbara had fallen in love with Haru's piquant personality--with her +fragile loveliness, her quaint phrasing, her utter desire to please. +While Patricia deepened her engaging freckles on the tennis court, she +had made the Japanese girl bring her _samisen_ and play. At first the +music had seemed uncouth and elfish--a queer, barbaric twanging, like an +intoxicated banjo with no bass string, tricked with unmelodious +chirpings, and woven with extraordinary runs and unfamiliar intervals. +But slowly, after the first few moments, there had crept to her inner +ear a strange, errant rhythm. She had felt her feet stealthily gliding, +her arms bending, with those of the score of listening children who at +the first twittering of the strings, had crept from stables and +servants' quarters like infant toads in a shower. Afterward Haru, in her +pretty broken English, had told her stories--old legends that are +embalmed in the _geisha_ dances, of the forty-seven _Ronin_, and of the +great _Shogun_ who slept by the huge stone lanterns in Uyeno Park. + + * * * * * + +When Barbara and her uncle started on their walk--he was to show her the +Chapel--the Ambassador strolled with them as far as the main gate of the +compound. A string of carriages from the Imperial stables--each with the +golden chrysanthemum on its lacquered panel--was just passing. Their +occupants, some of whom were Japanese and some foreign, were in naval +uniform, their breasts covered with orders. + +"The officers of the foreign Squadron, no doubt," said the Ambassador, +"being shown the sights of the capital. Day after to-morrow the Minister +of Marine begins the official entertainment with a ball in their honor. +You will enjoy that, Barbara." + +"I wish," said the bishop, "that the pessimists who are so fond of +talking of diplomatic 'strain' could see a Japanese welcome. The stay of +these officers will be one long festivity. Yet to read a Continental +journal you would think every other Japanese was carrying a club for use +if they ventured ashore." + +The Ambassador watched the cavalcade thoughtfully. For weeks, the +newspapers of European capitals had talked of conflicting interests and +unreconciled differences between the two countries. He knew that there +was little in this, in fact, save the journalistic necessity for "news" +and a nervousness that seems periodically to oppress highly strung +Chanceries as it does individuals. Beneath this surface current, +diplomacy had gone its even, temperate way, undisturbed. But as a +trained diplomatist he knew that the most baseless rumor, if too long +persisted in, had grave danger, and he had welcomed the coming of the +Squadron, for the sake of the effect on foreign public opinion, of the +lavish and open-hearted hospitality which Japan would offer it. When the +carriages had whirled past he bade the others good-by and went back to +his books. + + * * * * * + +Walking up the sloping "Hill-of-the-Spirit" to the templed knoll behind +it, Barbara felt in tune with the afternoon. All along flaunting +camphor-trees and cryptomeria peered above the skirting walls and the +scent of wistaria was as heavy as that of new-mown hay. The ground was +white and dusty and here and there briskly moving handcarts were +sprinkling water. Little girls, with their hair in pigtails tied with +bright-colored yarn and ribbon, and in brilliant figured _kimono_ of red +and purple, ran hither and thither in some game, and on the gutter-edge +a naked baby stared up at them with grave, mistrustful eyes, his shaven +head bobbing in the sunshine. Half-way up the hill a group of coolies +were resting beside their carts. Their faces had the look of +lotos-eaters, languid and serene. As they walked Barbara told of the +adventure of the evening before with the wolf-hound, and of the Review +of the morning, and the bishop, shrewdly regarding her, thought he had +never seen her so beautiful. + +"What has happened--_who_ has happened, Barbara?" he asked, for he +suddenly guessed he knew what that look meant. + +Her eyes dropped and her rising color confirmed his idea. "I don't +know--do you?" + +He took out his pocketbook and handed her a clipping from a morning +newspaper. It chronicled the arrival of the yacht _Barbara_. + +She looked at him out of eyes brimming with laughter: + + "'The time has come,' the Walrus said, + 'To talk of many things: + Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- + Of cabbages----'" + +"But not Ware?" he finished. "All right. He'll speak for himself, no +doubt. The paper says he's at Nara; but then, he doesn't know you are +here yet. We pushed our sailing date forward, you remember." + +"I'm trying to curb my impatience," she said blithely. "Meanwhile, I +can't tell you what a good time I'm having. I shall stay in Japan for +ever: I can feel it in my bones! I shall have a Japanese house with a +chaperon, two tailless cats and an _amah_, and study the three systems +of flower-arrangement and the Tea-Ceremony." + +They had reached the huge gate, with its little booth in which a sentry +now stood. "He wears the uniform of the Imperial Guard," the bishop +said. "That is the residence of one of the daughters of the Emperor." + +He turned into the lane that opened opposite. It was hedged with some +unfamiliar thorny shrub with woolly yellow blossoms, and a little way +inside stood an old temple gate with a stone _torii_. She stopped with +an exclamation. + +"Yes," he said, "there is the Chapel." + +Barbara was looking opposite the _torii_, where, amid the flowering +green, a slanting roof lifted, holding a cross. It stood out, whitely +cut against the blue, a silent witness. Facing the dragon-swarming gate, +it made her think of pale martyrs in gorgeous pagan countries, of Paul +standing before the Temple of Diana in Ephesus, and lonely Christian +anchorites in profane lands of green and gold. + +"What Christians some of these Japanese make!" the bishop said, as they +finished their tour of the building. "I know of a carpenter in Sendai +who became a convert. He used to visit the prison and one day he took a +woman there to see her husband, a hardened and obdurate criminal. In the +interview the man stabbed his wife. The chief-of-police, on account of +the carpenter's reputation for justice and pure-living, left the +punishment of the man to him. What do you think he did?" + +She could not guess. + +"He refused to punish him at all, on the simple ground that Christ would +not. As a result the convict is now one of the best Christian teachers +we have in Sendai. The month before this happened," he continued, +smiling reflectively, "a thief broke into the rectory and stole my +watch. I notified the police, and they brought it back to me in a few +days. But where is my thief? You remember Jean Valjean and the silver +candle-sticks? Maybe the Sendai carpenter was nearer right than I." + +Barbara had paused in front of the black space for the stained-glass +window. + +"It will be here," the bishop said, answering her thought. "It is to +be put in place in time for the dedication service to-morrow +morning." He stepped to the door and peered into the interior. "You +will want to look about a bit, no doubt. I have a call to make in the +neighborhood--suppose I stop on my way back for you." + + * * * * * + +For a few moments after his departure Barbara stood listening to the +dulled sound of the workmen's tools. The roof of the temple opposite had +a curving, Tartar-like ridge, at either end of which was a huge fish, +its head pointed inward, its wide forked tail twisted high in air. Under +its scalloped eaves she saw the flash of a swallow, and far above a +gaudy paper kite careened in the blue. + +She crossed the lane and looked into the shady inclosure, where the +bronze lanterns and the tombstones stood, as gray and lichened as the +stone beneath her feet. Before many of the graves stood green bamboo +vases holding bunches of fresh leaves. An old woman was moving +noiselessly about, watering these with a long bamboo dipper and lighting +incense-sticks as she went. In one place a young man knelt before an +ancestral monument, softly clapping his hands in prayer. The whole place +was drenched in a tone limpid and serene, the very infusion of peace. +Only in the black temple interior she caught the dim glow of candles and +somewhere a muffled baton was tapping on hollow wood. + +"Min ... Min ... Min .. Min .. Min . Min . +Min-Min-Min-Minminminminmin...." At first slowly, then faster and +faster, till the notes merged and died away in a muttering roll, to +begin once more with the slowness of a leisurely metronome. + +The ornate front of the building on the right of the yard attracted her +and she went nearer. Beyond the hedge she could see a portion of its +garden. Reflecting that this was a temple property and hence, no doubt, +open to the public, she unlatched its bamboo gate and entered. + +Before her curved a line of flat stepping-stones set in clean, gray +gravel. On one side was a low camelia hedge spotted with blossoms of +deep crimson and on the other a miniature thicket of fern and striped +ground-bamboo. Beyond this rose a mossy hillock up whose green sides +clambered an irregular pathway, set with tall _shinto_ lanterns and +large stones, like gigantic, many-colored quartz pebbles. Here and there +the flushed pink of cherry-trees made the sky a tapestry of blue-rose, +and in the hollows grew a burnished, purple shrub that seemed to be +powdering the ground with the velvet petals of pansies. + +Barbara had seen many photographs of Japanese gardens, but they had +either lacked color or been over-tinted. This lay chromatic, visualized, +braided with precious hues and steeped in the tender, unshamed glories +of a tropic spring. For a moment she shut her eyes to fix the picture +for ever on her brain. + +She opened them again to a flood of sunlight on the gilded carvings of +the ancient structure. Its _shoji_ had been noiselessly drawn open, and +a man stood there looking fixedly at her. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD + + +It was the man she had seen that morning at the entrance to the little +park. + +Barbara realized instantly and uneasily that she was an intruder. Yet +she felt an intense interest, mixed of what she had heard and of what +she had imagined. His _outré_ street-costume had now been laid aside; he +wore Japanese dress, with dark gray _houri_ and white cleft sock. His +iron-gray head was bare. The expression of his face was conscious and +alert, with a sort of savage shyness. + +"I am afraid I am intruding," she said. "I ought to have known the +garden was private." + +"Private gardens may sometimes be seen, I suppose." + +The words were ungracious, though the _timbre_ of the voice was musical +and soft. "I beg your pardon," she said, and moved away. + +He made a gesture, a quick timid movement of one hand, and stepped down +toward her. "No," he said almost violently. "I don't want you to go. +Can't you see I mean you to stay?" + +Barbara saw clearly now the variation in his eyes; the larger one was +clouded, as though a film covered the iris. It gave her a slight feeling +of repugnance, which she instantly regretted, for, as though rendered +conscious of it through a sensitiveness almost telepathic, he turned +slightly, and put a hand to his brow to cover it. + +"Oh," she said hastily, "I am glad. This is the most beautiful garden I +have ever seen." + +He looked at her quickly and keenly with his one bright eye. It held +none of the swart, in-turned reflectiveness of the Japanese; it was +sharp and restless. Its brilliance, under eyebrows that seemed on the +verge of a frown, was almost fierce. The curved, gray mustache did not +hide the strong, irregular, white teeth. + +"You know Japanese gardens?" + +"Not yet," she answered. "Japan is new to me. I needn't say how lovely I +think this is--you must grow tired hearing strangers rhapsodize over +it!" + +"Strangers!" he laughed; the sound was not musical like his spoken +voice, but harsh and grating. "I have one joy--no stranger ever dreams +of coming to see me!" + +"I should have said 'your friends,'" said Barbara. + +"Friends would be more troublesome than my enemies," he said grimly, +"who, at least, never ask me where I don't want to go." + +She looked at him wonderingly. She had never met any one in the least +like him. His features were refined and unquestionably aristocratic but +his whole expression was quiveringly sensitive, resentfully shy. It was +the expression, she thought, of one whom a look might cut like a +whiplash, a word sting like a searing acid. + +"The only foreigners I know are those who write me letters: malicious +busybodies, people who want subscriptions to all sorts of shams, or +invite me to join respectable, humbug societies, or write merely to +gratify a low curiosity. As for friends, I have none." + +"Surely, I saw you with one this morning," she said, with a smile. + +"Ah," he said, his look changing swiftly; "I don't count Ishikichi. +Children understand me." + +"And me," she said. "I made friends with Ishikichi this morning. He was +catching crickets in the garden. I am visiting the American Embassy," +she added. + +"The garden there has been a famous playground for the child, no doubt," +he returned. "His boon companion lived just opposite the compound." + +"The little Toru, who was run over?" + +"Yes. Ishikichi has been inconsolable. To-day, however, he has ceased to +sorrow. The owner of the carriage has sent six hundred _yen_ to the +father, who is now able to pay his debts and enlarge his business. The +tablet on the Buddha-shelf that bears the little boy's death-name will +be henceforth the dearest possession of the family. To Ishikichi he is a +glorious hero whose passing it would be a crime to grieve." He broke +off, with the odd, timid gesture she had seen before. "But you came to +see the garden," he said. "If you like, I will show it to you." + +Without waiting for her answer, he led the way, moving quickly and +agilely. The softness of his tread in the cloth _tabi_ seemed almost +feminine. A little farther on he turned abruptly: + +"When you passed me in the carriage this morning you must have thought +me unmannerly," he said. "I was, no doubt. My manners are only +villainous notions of my own." + +"Not at all," she answered. "I only thought--" + +"Well?" + +"That perhaps I reminded you of some one you had known." + +He turned and walked on without reply. As they proceeded, from behind +the flowering bush came the tintinnabulent tinkle and drip of running +water. The stepping-stones meandered on in graceful curves and presently +arrived at a little lake at whose edge grew pale water-hyacinths and +whose surface was mottled with light green lotos-leaves, dotted here and +there with pink half-opened buds. Now and then these stirred languidly +at the flirt of a golden fin, while over them, in flashes of +flame-yellow, darted hawking dragon-flies. Thickets of maroon-tinted +maple glowed in the sunlight and clusters of yellow oranges hung on +dwarf trees. On the lake's margin bright-hued pebbles were strewn +between rounded stones whose edges were soft and green with moss. +Barbara longed to feel those mossy boulders with her bare feet--to +splash in that limpid water like a happy child. + +"This is the best view," he said simply. + +Looking on the endless symphonies of green, it came to her for the first +time what fascination could be wrought of mere brown stone and foliage. +The effect had a curious sense to her of the unsexual and unhuman. +Again, with the odd impression of telepathy with which he had covered +his myopic eye, he seemed to answer her thought: + +"The Japanese," he said, "sees Nature as neuter. His very language +possesses no gender. He does not subconsciously think of a young girl +when he looks at a swaying palm, nor of the lines of a beautiful body +when he sees the undulations of the hills. He notes much in nature, +therefore, that western art--which is passional--doesn't observe at +all." + +"I see," she said. "We insist on looking through a tinted film that +makes everything iridescent?" + +"And deflects the lines of forms. The Japanese art is less artificial. +Now--turn to the left." + +In one spot the trees and shrubbery had been cut clean away, and through +the vista she saw the distant mountains, clear and pure as though carved +of tinted jade set in a plate of lapus lazuli. A faint curdle of cloud +frayed from their jagged tops, and above it hung the dreamy snow-clad +cone of Fuji, palely emerald as the tint of glaciers under an Alaskan +sky. A single crow, a jet-black moving spot, flapped its way across the +azure expanse. + +"The one touch of blue," he said. "The color ethical, the color +pantheistic, the color of the idea of the divine!" + +His personality, so touched with mystery, interested Barbara intensely. +The sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity had quite vanished. She sat +down on one of the warm boulders. Thorn rested one foot on the bent +trunk of a dwarf tree and leaned his elbow on his knee, his hand, in the +gesture that seemed habitual, covering his eye. In the wide _kimono_ +sleeve the forearm was bare and suggested a peculiar physical +cleanliness like that of a wild animal. + +"How strange it is," she said, "that for centuries, the western world +believed this wonderful land inhabited by a barbarous people--because it +didn't possess western civilization!" + +He made an exclamation. "Civilization! It is a hateful word! It stands +in the West for all that is sordid and ugly. It has bred monstrous, +thundering piles built up to heaven, eternally smoking the sky--places +of architecture and mechanics gone mad, where one lives by machinery and +moves by steam, and is perpetually tormented by absurd conventions. I +have lived in its cities. I have walked their selfish streets, shy and +shabby and hungry!" + +"Hungry!" + +"Yes--and worse. I've not spoken of those experiences for years. I don't +know why I speak of them now to you. Does it surprise you to hear that I +have known poverty?" For the first time he turned fully facing her. His +supple hand had left his brow and moved in gestures at one time fierce +and graceful. "When I was sixteen I learned what penury meant in London. +Once I was driven to take refuge in a workhouse in some evil quarter of +the Thames. My memory of it is a mixture of dreadful sights and +sounds--of windows thrown violently open or shattered to pieces--of +shrieks of murder--of heavy plunges in the river." + +Barbara shuddered in the warm sunlight. Over the edge of the garden was +a misty space where foliage and roofs sank out of sight, to rise again +in long undulations of green trees and gray tiling, like a painted +ocean. Far away lifted the leafy plateau of Aoyama, with its blur of +terra-cotta barracks. At an immense distance a great temple roof jutted, +and still farther away the spread-out, populous city curved up, like the +rim of a basin, to a hazy horizon. Yet on this background of +pleasantness and peace those other scenes of horror--such was the +vehemence of his tone, the savage directness in his phrases--seemed to +start up, blank and wretched apparitions, before her. + +"At nineteen," he went on. "I found myself in New York, delicate, +diffident, satanically proud, and without a friend--one of the billion +ants crawling in the skeleton of the mastodon. I was threadbare and +meals were scant and uncertain--a little, penniless, half-blind, +eccentric wanderer! I lived in a carpenter-shop and slept on the +shavings. One week I sold coral for a Neapolitan peddler. Oh, I learned +my civilization well! The very memory now of walking down those roaring +cañons of streets--all cut granite and iron fury, and hideous houses two +hundred feet high--moos at me in the night! It is frightful, +nightmarish, devilish! And when one can be here under a violet sky, in +sight of blue peaks and an eternally lilac, luke-warm sea!" + +His hand swept across the hewn vista--to the wild, bold background of +indigo hills, with its slender phantom above them, swimming in the +half-tropical blue. "It is better," he said, "to live in Japan in +sack-cloth and ashes, than to own the half of any other country. I am as +old as the three-legged crow that inhabits the sun. I can't read the +comic papers or a French novel. I shouldn't go to the Paris opera if it +were next door. I shouldn't like to visit the most beautiful lady and be +received in evening dress. I shall pass my life in sandals and a +_kimono_, and when it's over I shall be under the big trees in the old +Buddhist cemetery there, beside the nunnery, among the fireflies and +grasshoppers, with six laths above me, inscribed with prayers in an +unknown tongue and a queerly carved monument typifying the five elements +into which we melt away." + +He shook his broad shoulders. Again his hand went to his brow and he +half turned away. + +"But now even Japan must adopt western civilization," he said bitterly. +It is 'putting a lily in the mouth of hell!' Carpets, pianos, windows, +brass-bands--to make Goths out of Greeks! Who would want them changed? +Who would not love them as they are, better than the children of boasted +western civilizations--industrious, pleasing, facing death with a smile, +not because they are such fatalists as the Arabs, for instance, but +because they have no fear of the hereafter. The old courtesy, the old +faith, the old kindliness--will they weather it? Or vanish like snow in +sun? The poetry, the legend, the lovely and touching observances are +going fast. Modernism gives them foreign fireworks now, and forbids the +ghost-boats of the Bon! I wish I could fly out of _Meiji_ for ever, back +against the stream of time, into _tempo_ fourteen hundred years ago!" + +"The Bon?" she said. "What is that?" + +"I forgot," he said, "that Japan is all new to you," and told her of the +Japanese All-Souls Day--the Feast of Lanterns, when the spirits of the +dead return, to be fed with tea in tiny cups and with the odor of +incense; how, when the dusk falls, on canal and river the little straw +boats are launched with written messages and lighted paper lanterns, to +bear back the blessed ghosts. + +Returning, Barbara led the way. Once she stooped over a single, strange +blossom on a long stalk, whose golden center shone cloudily through +silky filaments like the leaves of immortelles. "What is that?" she +asked. + +"It is a wild flower I found on one of my inland rambles," he +said. "Perhaps it has no name. I call it _Yumé-no-hana_--the +'Flower-of-Dream.' It will open almost any day now." + +"Have you quite forgiven me for breaking in?" she asked, as they walked +along the stepping-stones. + +For the first time she surprised him in a smile. It lit his face with a +sudden irradiation. "Will you do it again?" + +"May I--some time?" + +"Then you are not afraid? Remember I am a renegade, a follower of +Buddha, and a most atrocious and damnable _taboo_!" + +"Afraid!" For a moment they looked at each other, and she saw a little +quiver touch his lips. "I shall come again to-morrow--to see the +flower." + +"Just one thing," he said. "I am a solitary. If you would not +mention--to any one--" + +"I understand," she answered. + +He walked by her side to the bamboo gate. "I am glad," she said, "that I +remind you of some one you liked." + +"Perhaps it was some one I knew in a dream," he answered. + +"Yes," she said. "Perhaps it was." + +As she spoke she saw him start. She looked up. Across the temple yard, +through the entrance _torii_, she saw the bishop coming up the lane. He +was walking absorbed in thought, his eyes on the ground, his hands +clasped behind him. + +"Good-by," she said, and stepped through the gate. + +But Thorn did not answer. At sight of the approaching figure he had +drawn back abruptly. Now he turned sharply away into a path which led +toward the temple. She saw him once glance swiftly back over his +shoulder before he disappeared behind the hedges. + + * * * * * + +The man with whom Barbara had been talking went slowly up the temple +steps. His face was haggard and drawn. There he paused and looked back +across the yard. + +"_Credo in resurrectionem mortuorum_," he muttered--"Yes, I believe in +the resurrection of the dead!" + +As he stood there the head priest pushed open the _shoji_. He bowed to +the other on the threshold and came out. + +"To-day my abashed thought has dwelt on your exalted work," he said. "Is +our new image of Kwan-on peerlessly all but done, perhaps?" + +Thorn shook his head. "It moves with exalted slowness. To-day I +contemptibly have not worked." + +The priest looked at him curiously, through his gold-rimmed spectacles. + +"You are honorably unwell," he said. "It is better to lie down in the +heat of the day. Presently I will say an insignificant prayer to the +_Hotoké-Sama_--the Shining Ones--for your illustrious recovery." + +"I am not ill," was the answer. "Be not augustly concerned." + +He turned away slowly and crossed the little bridge to his own abode. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + THE DANCE OF THE CAPITAL + + +The Ginza--the "Street-of-the-Silversmiths"--is the Broadway, the +Piccadilly, the _Boulevard des Italiens_ of modern Tokyo. Here old and +new war daily in a combat in which the new is daily victor. Modern +shop-fronts of stone and brick stand cheek by jowl with graceful, flimsy +frame structures that are pure Japanese. Trolley-cars, built in the +United States, fill the street with clangor and its pavements (for it +has them) roar with trade. + +In its flowing current one may see many types: Americans from the +near-by Imperial Hotel, bristling with enthusiasm; earnest tourists +with Murrays tucked in their armpits, doggedly "doing" the country; +members of foreign Legations whirling in victorias; Chinamen, queued +and decorously clad in flowered silk brocade; an occasional Korean +with queerly shaped hat of woven horse-hair; over-dandified +_O-sharé-Sama_--"high-collar" men, as the Tokyo phrase goes--in +tweeds and yellow puttees; comfortable merchants and men of affairs in +dull-colored _kimono_ and clogs; blue-clad workmen with the marks of +their trades stamped in great red or white characters on their backs; +sallow, bare-footed students with caps of _Waseda_ or the Imperial +University; stolid and placid-faced Buddhist priests in _rick'sha_, en +route to some temple funeral; soldiers in khaki with red- and +yellow-striped trousers; coolies dragging carts; country people on +excursions from thatched inland villages, clothed in common cloth and +viewing the capital for the first time with indrawn breath and +chattering exclamations; rich noblemen, beggars, idlers, guides--all are +tributary to this river. + +When evening falls women and children predominate: bent old women with +brightly blackened teeth; patient-faced mothers with babies on their +backs toddling on clacking wooden _géta_; white-faced vermilion-lipped +_geisha_ glimpsing by in _rick'sha_ to some tea-house entertainment; +coolie women dressed like men, trudging in the roadway; girl-students +peering into jewelers' windows; children clad like gaudy moths and +butterflies, clattering hand in hand, or pursuing one another with +shrill cries. + +Before the sun has well set lanterns begin to twinkle and glow above +doorways--yellow electric bulbs in clusters, white acetylene globes, +smoky oil lamps, and great red and white paper-lanterns lit by candles. +As the violet of the dusk deepens to purple, these multiply till the +vista is ablaze. Lines of colored lights in pink and lemon break out +like air-flowers along upper stories of tea-houses, from whose interiors +come the strumming of _biwa_ and the twang of _samisen_. On frail +balconies, pricked out with yellow lanterns, dwarf pines or jars of +growing azalea hang their masses of soft green or pink down over the +passers-by. From open _shoji_ women lean, their _kimono_ parted, their +rounded breasts bared to the cool night. + +On the curb peripatetic dealers squat in little stalls formed of movable +screens with their wares spread before them; curio-merchants with a +_mélange_ of brass, crystal and bronze; dealers in _suzumushi_--musical +insects in the tiniest cages of plaited straw; sellers of Buddhist texts +and worm-eaten, painted scrolls; of ink-horns, shoe-sticks, eye-glasses +and children's toys. At intervals grills of savory _waka-fuji_ (salted +fry-cakes) sizzle over charcoal braziers which throw a red glow on an +intent row of children's faces. Here and there a shop-front emits the +blatant bark of a foreign phonograph. On the corners men with arms full +of vernacular evening newspapers call the names of the sheets in musical +cadences, with a quaint, upward inflection. The air is filled with a +heavy, rich odor, suggesting the pomade of women's head-dresses, _saké_, +and sandalwood. In the roadway every vehicle contributes its bobbing +lantern, till the traffic seems a celestial Saturnalia, staggering with +drunken stars. + +So it looked to Barbara as her two _goriki_--"strong-pull men"--whirled +her rubber-tired _rick'sha_ across the interminable city in her first +bewildering view of Tokyo by night. Daunt, for her benefit, had arranged +a trip to the Cherry-Viewing-Festival on the Sumida River, and a +Japanese dinner at the Ogets'--the Cherry-Moon Tea-House--in the famous +district of Asak'sa, where the great temple of Kwan-on the Merciful +shines with its ever-burning candles. They had started from the Embassy: +Baroness Stroloff, the wife of the Bulgarian Minister and Patricia's +especial favorite, the twin sisters of the Danish Secretary, the Swiss +Minister's daughter and two young army officers studying the +language--all of whom Barbara had met at the Review--and the long +procession (since police regulations in Tokyo forbid _rick'sha_ to +travel abreast) trailed "goose-fashion," threading in and out, a +writhing, yellow-linked chain. + +Daunt had traced their route with Barbara on a map of the city, +and had translated for her the names of the streets through +which they were now passing. By the Street-of-Big-Horses they +skirted the District-of-Honorable-Tea-Water, threaded the +Lane-where-Good-Luck-Dwells, and so, by Middle-Monkey-Music-Street, they +came to the Sumida, a broader, slothful Thames, gleaming with ten +thousand lanterns on _sampan_, houseboats and barges. The bridge of +Ah-My-Wife brought them to the farther side. At the entrance of a long +avenue of blooming cherry-trees a policeman halted them. _Rick'sha_ were +not permitted beyond this point and the sweating human horses were +abandoned. + +The road ran high along the river on a green embankment like a wide +wall, between double rows of cherry-trees, whose branches interlocked +overhead. It was densely crowded with people, each one of whom seemed to +be carrying a colored paper-lantern or a cherry-branch drooped over the +shoulder. In the hues of the loose, warm-weather _kimono_ bloomed all +the flowers of all the springs--golds and mauves and scarlets and +magentas--and everywhere in the lantern-light fluttered radiant-winged +children, like vivid little birds in a tropical forest. From tiny +one-storied tea-houses along the way, with elevated mats covered with +red flannel blankets, _biwa_ and _koto_ and _samisen_ gurgled and fluted +and tinkled. On the right the embankment descended steeply, giving a +view of sunken roadways and tiled roofs; on the left lay the long +reaches of the dreamy river murmuring with oars and voices and vibrating +like a vast flood of gold and vermilion fireflies. + +Barbara had never imagined such a welter of movement and color. The soft +flute-like voices, the slow shuffling of sandals on the dry earth, the +pensive smiling faces, the pink flowers on every hand, made this +different from any holiday crowd she had ever seen. It suggested a +carnival of Venice orientalized, painted over and set blazing with +Japanese necromancy. + +Here and there jugglers and top-spinners displayed their skill to +staring spectators. A cluster of shaven-headed babies swarmed silently +about a sweetmeat seller, and beside his push-cart a man clad like a +gray-feathered hawk whistled discordantly on a bamboo reed and gyrated +with a vacant grin on his pock-marked face. Where the crowd was less +close men tricked out in girls' attire, with whitened, clown-like faces, +turned somersaults, and through the thickest of the press a dejected, +blaze-faced ox, whose nose and forehead were painted with spots of +scarlet, slowly drew a two-storied scaffold on which was perched the god +of spring--a plaster figure wreathed with flowers. The animal's ears +were tickled by long tassels of bright green and red, and his look was +one of patient boredom. The man who led him wore a short jerkin, and his +bare legs, from thigh to knee, were tattooed in big, blue, graceful +leaves. + +The greatest numbers surged about a large tent, outside of which waddled +here and there mountains of men, their faces round as full moons, naked +save for gaily colored aprons. The fat hung on their breasts in great +creased folds like an overfed baby's, and in the lantern-light their +flesh looked an unhealthy, mottled pink. Each wore his hair wound in a +short queue, bent forward and tied in a stiff loop on the crown. As one +of the vast hulks lumbered by, cooling his moon-face with a tiny fan, +Daunt pointed him out to Barbara. + +"That is the famous Hitachiyama," he told her, "the champion wrestler of +Japan." + +"How big he is!" + +"It runs in families," he said. "They diet and train, too, from +babyhood. He weighs three hundred and forty-seven pounds." + +A roar came from the lighted canvas and a man emerged and wrote +something on a sign-board like a tally-sheet. Daunt stopped and perused +it. "You may be interested, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "to learn +that Mr. Terrible-Horse has knocked out Mr. Small-Willow-Tree, but that +Mr. Tiger-Elephant has been allowed a foul over Mr. Frozen-Stork. I wish +we could see a bout, but we must hurry or we'll miss the _geisha_ +dancing." + +They came presently where the roadway overlooked a sunken temple yard +encircled by moats of oozy slime dotted with pink and white lotos buds. +The inclosure was set with giant cryptomeria centuries old, and was +crowded with people. Stone steps led down between twisted pine-trees and +_Shinto_ lanterns, to a gate on whose either side was a great stone cow, +rampant, like the figures in coats-of-arms. There was a droll contrast +between the posture and the placid bovine countenances. In the center of +the inclosure rose a wide platform with a tasseled curtain like the +stage of a theater. Opposite was a pavilion in which sat rows of women +in dark-colored dress, moveless as images and holding musical +instruments. The whole flagged space between jostled with the +iridescent, lantern-carrying throng. A priest led the party to seats at +one side on mats reserved for foreign visitors. + +"Look, Barbara," said Patricia. "There goes our friend the +expert--across there. He looks bigger and pastier than ever." + +Bersonin was dressed in white flannel which accentuated his enormous +size. A younger man was with him, smoking a cigarette, and in their wake +followed a Japanese servant. + +The rest of the party had turned and were looking in that direction. +"Why," said Baroness Stroloff, "that's Doctor Bersonin." + +One of the young army men looked at her curiously. "Do you know him?" he +asked. + +"Why, of course. One meets him everywhere. I saw him at a dinner last +week. Have you met him?" + +"Oh, yes, we're supposed to know everybody," he said carelessly. His +tone, however, held something which made her say: + +"Most men don't like him, I find. I wonder why." + +"Why don't people like lizards?" said Patsy. "Because they're cold and +clammy and wicked-looking." + +"They like them enough to eat them in Senagambia," said the young +officer smiling. "Bersonin is a great man, no doubt, but there's +something about him--I met a man once who had run across him in South +America and--he was prejudiced. Who's the young fellow with him, Daunt?" + +"His name is Ware--Philip Ware," was the answer. "I knew him at +college." + +Barbara felt the blood staining her cheeks. So that was "Phil," the +brother of whom Austen Ware had told her! The name called up thoughts +that had obtruded themselves in the moment she saw the white yacht lying +at anchor, and which since then she had wilfully thrust from her mind. +Her gaze studied the handsome, youthful form, noting the bold, restless +glance, the dissipated lines of the comely face, with a sudden distaste. +A twang from the orchestra recalled her, as the curtain was looped back +for the _Miyako Odori_, the "Dance of the Capital." + +It was Barbara's introduction to a native orchestra and at first its +strummings and squealings, its lack of modes and of harmony, its odd +barbaric phrasing, infected her with a mad desire to laugh. But +gradually there came to her the hint of under-rhythm--as when she had +listened to Haru's _samisen_ in the garden--and with it an overpowering +sense of suggestion. It was the remote cry of occult passions, a +twittering of ghostly shadows, the wailing of an oriental Sphynx whom +Time had abandoned to the eternal desert. It had in it melancholy and +the enigma of the ages. It wiped away the ugly modern European +buildings, the western costumes, the gloze of borrowed method, and left +Barbara looking into the naked heart of the East, old, intent, and full +of mystical meaning. + +The ivory plectrons chirruped, the flutes squeaked and wailed, the +little hour-glass drums thudded, and down the stage swept sixty +_geisha_, in blue, cherry-painted _kimono_. A sly, thin thread of +scarlet peeped from their woven sleeves. Their small _tabi'd_ feet, +cleft like the foot of a faun, moved in slow, hovering steps. When they +wheeled, swaying like young bamboo, they stamped softly, and the white +foot, raised from the boards, under the puffed _kimono_ edge writhed and +bent from the ankle like a pliant hand. Their faces, heavily powdered, +and held without expression, looked like white, waxen masks in which +lived sparkling black eyes. In the slow, languorous movement their _obi_ +of gold and fans of silver caught the cherry-shaded lights and tossed +them back in gleams of mother-of-pearl. + +Barbara fell to watching the Japanese spectators. All around her they +stood and sat at ease, drinking in the play of color and motion of which +they never tire. The dance had no passion, no sensuality, none of the +savagery and abandon of the dances of Southern Asia, with whose +reproductions the western stage is familiar. Beside a ballet of the +West, it would have seemed almost ascetic. She knew that it was +symbolic--that every posture was a sentence of a story they knew, as old +and as sacred, perhaps, as the birth of the gods. + +The parted curtain swung together and Daunt seated himself at Barbara's +side. "Do you like it, ever so little?" he asked. + +"Ever so _much_!" + +"I wonder if you are going to like me, too," he said, so softly that no +one else heard. + +She felt her color coming as she answered: "Why, of course. How could I +help it, when you plan things like this for me?" + +"I have at last found my _métier_; give me more things to do." + +"Very well. When will you take me to see your Japanese house?" + +For a second Daunt hesitated. The little native house in the +Street-of-the-Misty-Valley was a sentimental place to him. There he had +worked out the models of his first Glider; there he had talked with his +Princess of Dreams, his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires." The glimpse of +Phil had reminded him that it now had a tenant. When he showed it to +Barbara, it should not be with Phil in possession. + +She noted the hesitation, and, somewhat puzzled, and wondering if to +oriental ethics the suggestion was a _gaucherie_, waved the matter +lightly aside. "You are just going to say 'one of these days.' Please +don't. When I was little, that always meant never. I withdraw the +motion--but what is this coming?" + +A boy was ascending the platform. He bowed and laid a box of thin +unpainted wood at Daunt's feet. It contained a _kakemono_, or +wall-painting, rolled and tied with a red-and-white cord of twisted +rice-paper. Daunt read the accompanying card. + +"'Miss Happy-for-a-Thousand-Years,'" he said, "'presents her compliments +to the illustrious strangers.' She is the star. The gift is a pretty +custom, isn't it, even if it is advertisement. Here comes the lady +herself to present her thanks for our distinguished patronage." + +She bowed low before them, smiling, her small piquant face powdered +white as mistletoe-berries above her carmine-painted lips. Daunt +unrolled the _kakemono_, revealing a delicately-painted cluster of +butterflies. He chatted with her in the vernacular, and she replied with +much drawing-in of breath and flute-like laughter. + +"She says," he translated, "that this is a picture of her honorable +ancestors." A little smile, a genuflection, a breath of perfume and the +powdered face and gorgeous _kimono_ were gone. The orchestra chirruped, +the curtain parted and another figure began. + +Miss Happy-for-a-Thousand-Years! As the party walked back to the waiting +_rick'sha_, Barbara wondered what lay beneath that smiling surface. She +had heard of the strenuous training that at five years began to teach +the gauzy, fragile, child-butterfly to paint its wings, to flirt and +sing and dance its dazzling moth-flame way. For the _geisha_ nothing was +too gorgeous, too transcendent. Her lovers might be statesmen and +princes. But in return she must be always gay, always laughing, always +young--all things to all men--to the end of the butterfly chapter! +Butterfly hair, butterfly gown--and butterfly heart? + +Barbara wondered. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + THE DEVIL PIPES TO HIS OWN + + +Doctor Bersonin, huge and white-flanneled, with Phil by his side, +strolled away through the swarming crowd. + +Not a word, not a glance of the younger man that evening, had escaped +him--he had been studying him with all the minute attention of that +great, overweening brain that, from an origin of which he never spoke, +had made him one of the foremost experimenters in Europe. The swift +gleam in Phil's eye as he watched the _geisha_, the eager drinking in of +the girlish daintiness, the colors and perfumes to which he stretched +himself like a cat--the watchful, impassive eyes took note of +everything. All Bersonin's talk had held an evil lure. It had touched on +the extravagant and sensual vagaries of luxury, the sybaritic pleasures +of the social _gourmet_, subjects appealing to the imagination of the +youth whom he was examining like a slide under the microscope. They had +stopped once at a _chaya_ for tea, but Phil had called for the hot +native _saké_, and as its musty, sherry-like fumes crept into his blood +he talked with increasing recklessness. Beneath their veiled +contemptuousness, Bersonin's feline eyes began to harbor a stealthy +satisfaction. He had guessed why Phil had suggested coming to Mukojima. +The latter's restlessness, his anxious surveillance of the passers-by, +might have enlightened a less observant spectator. + +Phil's new passion had, in fact, a strong hold on him. That long-ago +picture of Haru, barefooted in the surf, frequent recollection had +stamped on his brain and the sight of her fresh beauty to-day had fanned +the coal to a flame. Those stolen kisses in the bamboo lane had roused a +lurking devil that counted nothing but his own desires. For this hour, +while the _saké_ ran in his pulses, the flame overshadowed even +Bersonin. + +"Well, my boy," said the latter at length quizzically, "when you find +her, just give me the hint and I'll go." + +Phil flushed, then laughed shortly. "So you are a mind-reader, too?" he +said. + +"It's written all over you," said Bersonin. "Why didn't you tell me? We +could have postponed our dinner and left you free for the chase. It _is_ +a chase, eh?" + +"Yes," said Phil. "I--I haven't had much luck with her yet. I just +happened to know she was to be here to-night. She's a pretty little +devil," he added, "the prettiest I've seen in Japan." + +"The Japanese type is the rage in Paris now," said the other. "Take her +there, dress her in jewels, and drive her through the _Bois_ some +afternoon and you'll be the most talked-of man in France next morning." + +The red deepened in Phil's cheek. The prospect drew him. He looked at +Bersonin. Paris and jewels! + +He drank more _saké_ at the next tea-house. It had begun to show in a +shaking of the hand, a louder voice. Suddenly Phil sprang to his feet. +"There she is!" he exclaimed. + +Bersonin looked. "Lovely!" he said, "I congratulate you. I'll walk back +to the motor-car--the sights amuse me. You can come along when you +please. Dinner will wait. And, anyway, what's dinner to a pretty woman?" + +Phil plunged into the crowd and the expert spoke quickly to the servant, +who was staring after him. "Better keep him in sight," he said. "You can +come when he does." + +Bersonin was sauntering on, when a turmoil behind him made him turn. A +woman's cry and an angry oath in English rang out, startlingly clear +above the low murmur of the multitude. He caught a glimpse of a Japanese +form leaping like a tiger--of Phil lying in the dust of the road--of a +girl vanishing swiftly into the shadows. + +As the expert hurried forward, Phil stumbled to his feet. Lights were +dancing before his eyes and his neck felt as if he had been garroted. +With his first breath he turned on Ishida, incoherent with rage and +curses. The big man caught his arm. + +"The honorable sir make mistake," said the Japanese smoothly. "Man have +done that who have ranned away." + +"He lies!" said Phil fiercely. "There was no one else near me but the +girl. He did it himself! He tried to _ju-jits'_ me!" + +The fingers of the Japanese were clenched, but his face was impassive as +he added: "I think he have been snik-thief." + +"That's no doubt the way it was, Phil," said Bersonin. "Why on earth +would Ishida touch you? That's an old thieves' trick. The fellow tried +to get your watch, I suppose. But we must move on. The police will be +here presently, and we don't want our names in the papers." + +They went rapidly through the close ranks that had been watching with +the decorous, inquisitive silence so typically oriental. + +"I suppose you're right," said Phil sulkily. "I--I beg your pardon, +Ishida." + +The Japanese bowed gravely. + +"Only a mistake," he said, "which honorable sir make." + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + A MAN NAMED WARE + + +The three-storied front of the Cherry-Moon Tea-House, when Daunt's party +arrived, was glowing with tiers of large round lanterns of oiled-paper +bearing a conventionalized moon and cherry-blossoms. At the door sat +rows of little velvet-lined sandals. Here shoes were discarded, and +servants drew on the guests' feet loose slippers of cotton cloth, soft +and yielding. One other guest was awaiting the party at the entrance. +This was Captain Viscount Sakai, of the General Staff, spruce, +fine-featured and in immaculate European evening dress. He had a clear, +olive complexion, and, save for the narrow, Japanese eye, might have +been a Spaniard. + +The small second-story _shokudo_ in which they dined was floored in soft +_tatamé_ edged with black and laid in close-fitting geometrical pattern. +Save for a plain alcove at one end, holding a dwarf pine and a single +_nanten_ branch with clusters of bright red berries, it was empty. There +was no drapery. The walls were sliding screens of gold-leaf on which +were finely drawn etchings of pine-trees covered with snow, the effect +suggested rather than finished. It was brilliant with electric light. + +Tiny square tables of black lacquer were disposed along three sides of +the room, one for each guest. They were but four inches high and on the +floor behind each lay a thin, flat _zabuton_ or cushion of brocade. The +bowing _geisha_ in wonderful rainbow _kimono_ who awaited them might +have stepped from the temple stage at Mukojima. These pointed to the +tables with inviting smiles: + +"Plee shee down!" they said in unison. + +"I never _could_ 'shee down' gracefully when any one is looking!" +complained Patricia, as she tucked her small feet under her on the +kneeling-cushion. + +"_Banzai!_" commented Voynich, setting his monocle. "You have practised +before a mirror!" He collapsed beside her with a groan. "I shall be +reincarnated an accordion!" + +"Count," said Patricia plaintively, "no bouquets, please. I know when +you are stringing me." + +He looked blank and the Japanese officer hastily produced a lavender +note-book and a gold pencil. "That is a new one," he said. "I must--what +is it?--ah yes! I must _nail_ it. Excuse me. I write it in my +swear-album." + +"The Viscount is learning American slang," Patricia informed Barbara. +"One of these days you must tell him some of the very latest." + +He looked across with gravely twinkling eyes. "I shall be--ah--tickle to +die!" he said. "It is my specialty. Nex' year I become Professor in +Slang Literature at the Imperial University." + +The meal began merrily. Barbara sat on Daunt's left, with one of the +_attachés_ next her. Baroness Stroloff was on Daunt's other hand. +Barbara remembered it afterward as a meal of elfish daintiness--of warm, +pungent, wine-like liquor in blue porcelain bottles, of food of strange +look and cloying taste, highly colored and seasoned, in a hundred tiny +red and black lacquer dishes that carried her back to her doll-days, +with covers patterned in gold, served by prostrating _geisha_ whose +_kimono_ were woven with violet Fujis, winged dragons and marvelous +exotic blossoms. + +Daunt pointed to a dish which had just been set before her. "You must +try the _hasu-no-renkon_," he said. "That's cooked lotos-root. It's +nearly as good as it looks." + +"How do you ever remember the names!" + +"Oh, it's quite easy to talk Japanese," he replied recklessly. "There +are only fifty syllables in the language, and any way you string them +together it means something or other. It doesn't matter whether it's the +right thing or not, if you just bow and smile. There are seventeen ways +of drawing in your breath which are a lot more important than what you +say!" + +"What disgraceful nonsense! What is that pink thing?" + +"Raw bonito. The refuge of dyspeptics. Voynich, over there, eats nothing +else at home, they say. The variegated compound is _kuchitori_. It's +made of sugared chestnuts, leeks and pickled fish. May I compliment you +on the way you handle your chopsticks? At my first Japanese dinner I bit +one in two. Isn't Baroness Stroloff stunning, by the way!" + +The latter was deep in discussion with Patricia, moving her hands in +quick, vivacious gestures which clusters of opals made into flashes of +blue fire. "But you must send to Hakodate for your furs," she was +saying. "I will give you the address of my man there. You should get +them now, not wait till fall, when the tourists have bought all the +best." + +"I'm dying for an ermine stole." + +"Oh, my _dear_, not ermine! Get sables. One can be so insulting in +sables!" + +Barbara laughed with the rest. "What a nice lot you are," she said, "all +knowing each other, all friendly. I thought diplomatists were always +poring over international law books and drawing up musty treaties." + +"It's not all cakes and ale," he asserted. "I worked till three this +morning on a cipher telegram." + +"After the melodrama?" + +"Ah, it was opera!" he protested. "It has left me memories of only +flowers, and scents and music!" + +"You made most of the music, if I remember rightly." + +"How unkind! I could no more help it than fly." + +"On your Glider?" + +He laughed again. "Don't forget what is to happen one day with that same +machine." + +"What is that?" + +"I am to swoop down and carry you off. It was your own suggestion, you +know." + +"But it was to be at the Imperial Review. That doesn't happen again for +a year." + +"I won't wait that long!" + +She turned her head; her eyes sparkled in the caught light. Her fingers +were fluttering a square of red paper that had been rolled about her +chopsticks. On it was a line of tiny characters. "What is that writing?" + +"That is a love-poem," he answered. "You know a Japanese poem has only +thirty-one syllables. You find them everywhere and on everything, from a +screen to a fire-shovel. I've seen them printed on tooth-picks. Your +huckster composes them as he brings the fish from market, and your +_amah_ writes them at night by a firefly lantern." + +"Can you read it?" + +He translated: "_I thought my love's long hair drooped down from the +gate of the sky. But it was only the shadow of evening._" + +"How delicately pretty!" she exclaimed. "It's written in _kana_, the +sound-alphabet, isn't it?" + +"Yes. How much you have learned already!" + +"Haru has begun teaching me. Let me show you my proficiency." She took +his pencil and wrote: + + [Japanese: Donto] + +"There! who would guess that was Japanese for 'Daunt.' And what an +impression you must have made on Haru for her to select your name as my +first lesson!" + +Across the soft _shoo-shoo_ of spotless, _tabi_-clad feet, the flitting +of bright-hued _kimono_, the gay badinage that flew about the low +tables, Daunt felt her beauty thrill him from head to foot like a +garment of mist and fire. As she dropped her hand to the cushion it had +touched his, and for an instant their pulses had seemed to throb into +one. The tiny, lacquered cup she took up trembled in her fingers. + +She started when the young army officer nearest her said: "Speaking of +sailing, give me a steam-yacht like the one that berthed yesterday at +Yokohama. She belongs to a man named Ware--Austen Ware--a New Yorker, I +understand. Perhaps you know him, Miss Fairfax." + +"I have met him," she answered. + +The young army officer looked up quickly--he was an enthusiastic +yachtsman. "A beautiful vessel!" he said. "I noticed her to-day, but she +was too far away to make out her name." + +"It is the _Barbara_," said Voynich. + +"Why--" exclaimed Patricia, "that's--" She bit her tongue, caught by +something in Barbara's face. "Good gracious!" she ended. "My--my foot's +asleep!" + +Barbara had felt her flush fading to paleness. She felt a quick relief +that none there, save Patricia and Daunt, knew her first name. In the +diversion caused by Patricia's helpless efforts to stand up, she stole a +glance at Daunt. + +A shadow had fallen on his face. He did not look at her, but in his +brain the yacht's name was ringing like a knell. She knew Phil's +brother! Austen Ware's yacht had arrived in Yokohama on the same day as +her ship. And it was named the _Barbara_. Yet to-night he had +dreamed--what had he been dreaming? These thoughts mixed themselves +weirdly with the gaiety and nonsense that he forced himself to render. + +Barbara felt this with an aching sense of resentment. What was he +thinking of her? And why should she care so fiercely? The courses +passed, but the lightness and blitheness of the scene were somehow +chilled. The decorative food: the numberless, tiny cups and trays; the +taper, pink-tinted fingers that poured the warm drink; the _kimono_, the +music and lights,--all palled. + +She was glad when the Baroness decreed the dinner over by repeating +Patricia's experiment of painful unfolding, and calling for her wraps. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + + AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX-GOD + + +The street into which they trooped seemed an oriental opera-bouffe: +swaying, chatting people in loose, light-colored _kimono_, some carrying +crested paper lanterns tied to the ends of short rods: a thousand lights +and hues flashing and weaving. But for two of the party the colors had +lost their warmth and the movement its fascination. + +"I simply _can't_ coop up yet in a _rick'sha_!" pleaded Patricia, as +they donned their discarded shoes. "Why not walk a little?" The proposal +met with a chorus of approval. They set out together, and presently +Barbara found Daunt beside her. Her resentment did not cool as she +laughed and talked mechanically, acutely aware that he was answering in +monosyllables or with silence. + +Daunt was crying out upon himself for a fool. What right had he to feel +that hot sting in his heart? Yesterday morning he had not known that she +existed. If an hour ago the skies had been golden-sprinkled azure, and +Tokyo the capital of an Empire of Romance, it was only because he was a +boyish, silly dolt, sick with vanity and complacency. What had there +been between them, after all, save a light camaraderie into which a man +was an insufferable cad to read more? So he paced on, achingly cognizant +of the lapses in his conversation, quite unconscious that her own was +growing more forced and strained. + +They were in the midst of a densely packed crowd where a native theater +was pouring its audience into the street. They had fallen behind the +rest, and there were about them only _kimono'd_ shoulders and flowered, +blue-black head-dresses. He made a way for her ruggedly toward a paling +where there was a little space. Above it was hung a poster of a Japanese +actress. + +"That is the famous Sada Gozen," he told her. "She has just returned +from a season in Paris and New York, and Tokyo is quite wild about her." + +As he spoke numbers thrust him against her and the touch brought +instantly to him that moment in the garden when he had held her in his +arms to lift her to the arbor ledge. The picture of her that evening in +the pagoda was stamped on his heart: the sweet, moon-lighted profile, +the curling, brown hair, the faint perfume of her gown that mingled with +the wistaria. It came before him there in the bustle and press with a +sudden swift sadness. He knew that it would be always with him to +remember. + +A Japanese couple, hastening to their _rick'sha_, caromed against them, +and, with an effort, he tried to turn it to a smile: + +"Some say it's difficult for a foreigner to come into intimate contact +with the Japanese," he said. "You have already pierced that illusion. +One is always finding out that he has been mistaken in people." + +Her quivering feeling grasped at a fancied innuendo. "It doesn't take +long, then, you think?" Her tone held a dangerous lure, but he did not +perceive it. + +"Not where you are concerned, apparently," he answered lightly. + +She turned her head swiftly toward him, and her eyes flashed. "Where _I_ +am concerned!" she repeated fiercely, and in his astonishment he almost +wrecked the paling. "Oh, I hate double-meaning! Why not say it? Do you +suppose I don't know what you are thinking?" + +"I?" he said in bewilderment. "What _I_ am thinking?" + +"You mean you have found you are mistaken in _me_! You have no right--no +earthly right, to draw conclusions." + +"Ah!" he said, with a sharp breath. "I had no such meaning. You can't +imagine--" + +"Don't say you didn't," she interrupted. "That only makes it worse!" She +scarcely understood her own resentment, and a hot consciousness that her +behavior was quite childish and unreasonable mixed itself with her +anger. + +"What have I said?" he exclaimed, in contrition and distress. "I +wouldn't hurt you for a million worlds! Whatever it was, I ought to do +_hara-kiri_ for it! I--I will perform the operation whenever you say!" + +A ridiculous desire to cry had seized her--why, she could not have +told--and she would rather have died than have him see her do so. "If +you will go ahead," she said tremulously, "and make a path for me, I +think we can get through now." + +He turned instantly and his broad shoulders parted the crowd in a haste +that was thoroughly un-Japanese. But she did not follow him. Instead, +she drew back, and thinking only to hide momentarily her hurt and her +pride, slipped through a narrow gateway. + +She found herself in a crowded corridor of the emptying playhouse. The +mass of Japanese faces confused her. A door opened at another angle and +she passed through it hastily into the open air. The street she was now +in was narrow, and she followed it, expecting it to turn into the larger +thoroughfare. It did so presently, and at its corner she paused till the +burning had left her eyes, and her breath came evenly. Then she walked +back toward the theater, feeling an impatient irritation at her +behavior. + +Presently, however, she stopped, puzzled. The theater was not there. The +street, too, had not the character of the one in which she had left +Daunt. She must have taken the wrong turn. She walked rapidly in the +opposite direction, until another street crossed at right angles. This +she tried with no better result. In the maze of lantern-lighted vistas, +she was completely lost. + +She was not frightened, for she was aware that, so far as physical harm +was concerned, Tokyo, of all great cities of the world, was perhaps the +safest and most orderly. She knew that "_Bei-koku Taish'-kan_" meant +"American Embassy." She had mastered the phrase that morning, and had +only to step into a _rick'sha_ and use it. Daunt, however, did not know +this. Aware that she had been behind him, he would not go on, and she +contritely pictured him anxiously searching the crowds for her. The +thought overrode her anger and humiliation. She would not take the +_rick'sha_ till she despaired of finding him. + +Just before her, at the side of the way, stood a small temple with a +recumbent stone fox at its entrance. It made her think suddenly of the +riding-crop she had seen Daunt carrying, with its Damascene fox-head +handle. In the doorway burned a rack of little candles, and a chest, +barred across the top, sat ready to receive the offerings of worshipers. +Above this was suspended the mirror which is the invariable badge of a +_Shinto_ shrine. It was tilted at an angle and tossed back the glimmer +of the candle-flame. With a whimsical smile she took a copper coin from +her purse and leaned to toss it into the chest. + +But her fingers closed on it and she drew back hastily, with a quick +memory of one of the tales Haru had told her in the garden. She knew +suddenly that she stood before a temple of Inari, the Fox-God, patron +deity of her whose conquests brought shame to households and dishonor to +wives. She remembered a song the Japanese girl had sung to the tinkle of +her _samisen_: + + "My weapons are a smile and a little fan-- + _Sayonara, Sayonara_...." + +It was the song of the "Fox-Woman." She slipped the purse hastily back +into her pocket. + +The Fox-Woman! As she walked on, for the first time the phrase came to +Barbara with a sudden, sharp sense of actuality. There were fox-women of +every race and clime, women who came, with painted smile, between true +lovers! What if she herself--what if here, in this land, that baleful +wisdom were to strike home to _her_? Like a keen blade the thought +pierced through her, and something shy and sweet, newborn in her breast, +shrank startled and fearful from it. + +The street had narrowed curiously. It was paved now from side to side +with flat stone flags. She realized all at once that there were no +longer _rick'sha_ to be seen, only people afoot. A blaze of light caught +her eye, and she looked up to see, spanning the street, an arched +gateway, at either side of which stood a policeman, quiet and +imperturbable. Its curved top was decorated with colored electric bulbs, +and from its keystone towered a great image molded in white plaster--the +figure of a woman in ancient Japanese costume. One hand held a fan; the +other lifted high above her head a circular globe of light. A huge +weeping-willow drooped over one side of the archway, through which came +glimpses of moving colors, crowds, hanging lanterns and elfish music. + +Barbara hesitated. To what did that white, female figure beckon? She +looked behind her--direction now meant nothing. Perhaps she had wandered +in a circle and the theater lay beyond. + +She stepped through the gate. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + + THE NIGHTLESS CITY + + +Straight before her lay a wide pavement, humming with voices, lined with +three-story houses that glowed with iron-hooped lanterns of red, yellow +and green, and tinkled with the music of _samisen_. From their gaily +lighted _shoji_ swathes of warm, yellow light fell on the _kimono'd_ +figures of men strolling slowly up and down. A little way off rose a +square tower, with a white clock-face, illumined by a circle of electric +bulbs. Narrower streets, also innocent of roadway, crossed at right +angles and at mathematical intervals. They were starry with lamps that +hung in long projecting balconies ornamented with grill and carved work. +From these came the shrieking sounds of music and an indescribable +atmosphere of frivolity, of obvious dedication to some flippant cult. + +In and out of these side streets flowed a multitude of boys and men, in +unbelted summer robes of light colors, lazily vivacious, moving on +naked, clogged feet, making the air a bluish haze of cigarette smoke. In +the blazing dusk they suggested the populace of some crowded Spa +strolling to the pools in flowing bath-robes and straw hats. On some of +the far balconies Barbara could see women leaning, in ornate costumes, +smoking tiny pipes. Here and there girls strolled past her, for the most +part in couples, gaudily clad, their cheeks white with rice-powder, +their lips carmined, their blue-black hair wonderfully coaxed and +pomaded into shining wings and whorls, thrust through with many jeweled +hair-pins, like slim daggers. They jested freely with the men they +passed, laughing continually with low voices. In a doorway a slim girl, +dressed in deep red, gleefully tickled with one bare foot the hide of a +shaggy poodle vainly essaying slumber. As she went on, the crowd became +more numerous; men's _kimono_ brushed Barbara's skirts and eyes stared +at her with contemplative boldness. + +"Madame!" + +She felt a hand pluck her sleeve. It was a young Japanese, in foreign +dress, with a shining brown derby, shining aureated teeth, and shining +silver-handled cane. "Madame wishes a guide?" he inquired. She +recollected him instantly as the youth who had slipped into her hand the +printed card when she had landed from the ship at Yokohama. She did not +know the name of the theater she had left, however, so shook her head +and hurried on. + +Without warning she emerged into the nun-like quiet of a park with an +acre of growing trees and an irregular little lake that lay dark and +still under the moon. Beside it was a stretch of hard, beaten earth, +seemingly a playground. Benches were set under the trees, and among them +moved or sat other girls in costumes like those she had seen on the +pavement. At sight of Barbara's foreign dress some of them giggled with +amusement and called to one another in repressed, laughing voices. A +bell struck somewhere, and, as though this had been a signal, they all +rose and departed, passing out by the way Barbara had come. + +She traversed the park--to come face to face with a high palisade. She +took a new direction, only to come again on the same barrier. The park +seemed only a part of a vast inclosure into which she had penetrated. +Had this no outlet save the gate at which she had entered? Wondering, +she retraced her steps to the lighted pavement. She was puzzled now, and +turned into one of the cross streets. Its blaze of light, its movement +and murmur of humanity bewildered her for a moment; then what she saw +instantly arrested her. + +The lower stories of most of the abutting buildings had for fronts only +lattices of vertical wooden bars, set a few inches apart. Inside these +bars, which made strange, human bird-cages, seated on mats of brocade, +or flitting here and there, were galaxies of Japanese girls, marvelously +habited in chameleon colors--even more brilliant than the _geisha_ she +had seen at Mukojima--like branches of iridescent humming-birds or banks +of pulsing butterflies. Here and there, a foil to the fluttering cages, +stretched a silent arcade brilliantly lighted and hung with women's +photographs. Above each was fixed a placard with a name in Japanese +characters. + +What was this place into which she had strayed? She had heard of the +famous "Street-of-the-_Geisha_," where the dancers live. Had she +stumbled on this in the throes of some festival? Why were there no women +on the pavements? She had seen none save those in the gaudy robes whom +the bell had called away. What was the meaning of the high +palisades?--the narrow gate with its stolid policemen?--the barred house +fronts? + +Projecting on to the pavement, at the side of each building, was a +small, windowed kiosk like the box-office of a theater. In the one +nearest Barbara a man was sitting. His arm was thrust through the +window, and his hand, holding a half-opened fan, tapped carelessly on +its side while he chanted in a coaxing voice. Inside a man with +close-cropped gray hair strode along the seated rows, striking sharply +together flint and steel, till a shower of gleaming sparks fell on each +head-dress. This done, he emerged and paced three times up and down the +pavement, making squeaking noises with his lips, and describing with his +hands strange passes in the air. These reminded Barbara irresistibly of +a child's cryptic gestures for luck. He then struck the flat of his hand +six times smartly against the door-post and retired. She noticed that he +paused at the entrance to snuff the row of candles that burned in a +shrine beside it. + +The whole street, with its rows of gilded cages was a gleaming vista of +_tableaux-vivants_, drenched in prismatic hues. Each, Barbara noted, had +its uniform scheme of costume: one showed the sweeping lines and deep, +flowing sleeves of the pre-_Meiji_ era; another the high, garnet skirt +of the modern school-girl; in one the _kimono_ were of rich mauve, +shading at the bottom to pale pink set with languorous red peonies; in +another, of gray crepe figured with craggy pine-trees; in a third, of +scarlet and blue, woven with gold thread and embroidered in peacock +feathers. Before each inmate's cushion sat a tiny brass _hibachi_, or +fire-bowl, in whose ashes glowed a live coal for the lighting of pipes +and cigarettes, and a miniature toilet-table, like a doll's-cabinet, +topped by a small, round mirror. From tiny compartments now and then one +would draw a little box of rouge, a powder-puff of down, or an ivory +spicula, with which, in complete indifference to observation, she would +heighten the vivid red of a lip, or smooth a refractory hair. The +background against which they posed was of heavy and exquisitely +intricate gold-lacquer carvings of stork, dragon and phoenix, of +cunningly disposed mirrors, or of draped crimson and silver weaves. +Before the bars men paused to chat a moment and pass on: behind them the +gorgeous robes and tinted faces flitted hither and thither with a magpie +chatter, with glimpses of ringed fingers clutching the lattice, and of +naked feet, slim and brown against the flooring. + +Barbara watched curiously. She was no longer conscious that passing men +studied her furtively--that here and there, through the slender bars, a +delicate hand waved daringly to her. In all the fairy-like gorgeousness +she felt a subtle sense of repugnance that kept her feet in the middle +of the pavement. She noted now that, however the costumes varied, they +agreed in one particular: the _obi_ of each inmate was tied, not at the +back, but in front. It seemed a kind of badge. Somewhere she had read +what it stood for. What was it? + +A group of men passed her at the moment--foreigners, speaking an +unfamiliar tongue. They talked loudly and pointed with their sticks. One +of them observed her, and turning, said something to his companions. +They looked back. One of them laughed coarsely. + +At the sound, which echoed a patent vulgarity in the allusion, the blood +flew to her cheeks. The tone had told her in a flash what the palisades, +the barred inclosures, the gaudy finery and reversed _obi_ had failed to +suggest. A veil was wound about her hat and with nervous haste she drew +down its folds over her face, feeling suddenly sick and hot. Driven now +by an overpowering desire to find her way out, she doubled desperately +back to the wider street. + +"Madame!" + +She turned, with relief this time, to see "Mr. Y. Nakajima," the guide, +of the gold fillings and silver-topped cane. + +"You are lost," he said. "Come with me, and I will find you." + +She bade him take her to the gate as quickly as possible and followed +him rapidly, stung with an acute longing for the noisy roadway with its +careening _rick'sha_. He was a thin, humorous-looking youth with a +chocolate skin and long almond eyes, from which he shot at Barbara +glances half obsequious, half impertinent and preternaturally sly, from +time to time making some remark which she answered as shortly as she +might. + +By the arch with its lofty female figure, under the weeping willow, +Barbara turned for an instant and looked back. The street seemed to +her a maze of reeling lights--a blur of painted lips and drowsing +eyes and ghostly sobbing of the _samisen_. Just outside the gate a +pilgrim-priest, his coffin-like shrine strapped on his back, was +mumbling a prayer. + +The guide spoke complacently: "Japan Yoshiwara are very famed," he said. +"I think other countries is very seldom to have got." + +"Where do they all come from?" Barbara asked suddenly. "How do they come +to be here?" + +"From many village," he answered. He had raised his voice, for several +passers-by had paused to listen inquisitively to the strange sounds, so +uncouthly unlike their own liquid syllabary; and he loved to display his +English. "A man have a shop. Business become bad; he owe so plenty +money. He can not pay, but he have pretty daughter. Here they offer +maybe two, three hundred _yen_, for one year. So she dutifully pay +honorable father debt." + +Barbara turned away. Again she felt the edge of mystery, bred of the +unguessable divergence between the moral Shibboleths of West and East. +It caught at her like the cool touch of dread that chills the strayer in +haunted places. In a hundred ways this land drew her with an +extraordinary attraction; now a feeling of baffled perplexity and pain +mingled with the fascination. It was almost a sort of terror. If in two +days Japan offered such passionate variety, such undreamed contrasts and +subtleties, what would it eventually show to her? Could she ever really +know it, understand it? + +"There is a theater near here where Sada Gozen is playing," she said. +"Can you take me there?" + +He nodded. "The _Raimon-za_--the Play-House-of-the-Gate-of-Thunder. It +is more five minutes of distant." + +He conducted her through a maze of narrow streets and pointed to the +building, which she saw with a breath of relief. Taking out her purse +she put a bill into his hand. "Thank you," she said, "and good night." + +"I shall go with Madame at her hotel." + +She shook her head. "I can find my way now." + +"But Madame--" + +"No," she said decidedly. + +He stood a moment swinging his cane, looking after her with impudent +almond eyes. Then he lighted a cigarette, settled his derby at a jaunty +angle and sauntered back toward the Yoshiwara. + + * * * * * + +Barbara came on Daunt in the middle of the block. He had stationed +himself in the roadway, towering head and shoulders above the lesser +stature of the native crowds. With him was a Japanese boy who, she noted +with surprise, was Ito, one of the house-servants. Her heart jumped as +she saw the relief spring to Daunt's anxious face. + +"_Mea culpa!_" she cried, and with an impulsive gesture reached out her +hand to him. "What a trouble I have been to you! I was actually lost. +Isn't it absurd?" + +Her slim, white fingers lay a moment in his. All his heart had leaped to +meet them. In the moment of her anger he had not read its meaning, but +since then it had been given him partly to understand. His thoughtless +words--blunderer that he was!--had seemed to carp at her like a whining +school-boy, with cheap, left-handed satire! Yet to his memory even her +hot, indignant voice had been ringingly sweet, for the stars again were +golden, and Tokyo once more fairy-land. + +"What _will_ the others say!" she said. "They will have missed us long +ago." + +"We will take extra push-men," he said, "and easily overtake them. We +can get _rick'sha_ at the next stand." + +"What did you think," she asked, as they rounded the corner, "when you +found I had vanished into thin air?" + +"I imagined for a while you were punishing me. Then I guessed you had +somehow turned into the side street. But I felt that you would find your +way back, so--I waited." + +"Thank you," she said softly. "I have not acted so badly since I was a +child. Are you going to shrive me?" + +"I am the one to ask that of you," he replied. + +"No--no! It is I. I must do penance. What is it to be?" + +He looked at her steadily; his eyes shone with dark fire. In the pause +she felt her heart throb quickly, and she laughed with a sweet +unsteadiness. "I am glad you are going to give me none," she said. + +"But I do," he answered, "I shall. I--" + +The boy Ito, behind them, spoke his name. Daunt started with a stab of +recollection and drew from his pocket a folded pink paper, fastened with +a blue seal. + +"How stupid of me! My wits have gone wool-gathering to-night. Here is a +telegram for you. It came soon after we left the Embassy, and Mrs. +Dandridge, thinking it might be urgent, sent Ito after us to the +tea-house. He missed us, but saw me here on his way back." + +Barbara broke the seal and held the message to the candle-light that +shone from a low temple entrance. She did not notice at the moment that +it was the temple of the Fox-God whose alms she had that evening denied. +She had guessed who was the sender and the knowledge fell like a cool, +fateful hand on her mood. + +And alas, on Daunt's also. For, as she turned the leaf, his gaze, +wandering through the temple doorway, to the candle-starred mirror above +the tithe-box, had unwittingly seen reflected there, in the painfully +exact chirography of a Japanese telegraph-clerk, the signature + + [Illustration: Austen Ware (in reverse)] + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + + LIKE THE WHISPER OF A BATS' WINGS + + +On the other side of Tokyo that night Doctor Bersonin sat with Phil in +his great laboratory. Dinner had been laid on a round table at one end +of the room. This was now pushed into a corner; they sat in deep leather +chairs with slim liqueur glasses of green _crême de menthe_ on a stand +between them, with a methyl lamp and cigars. + +Phil had more than once refilled his glass from the straw-braided, +long-necked vessel at his elbow. He was restless and ill at ease. The +tense excitement that had followed his hour with Bersonin at the Club +had been allayed by the lights and movement of the cherry-festival; but +in that cool, bare room, under the continuous, slow scrutiny of the +expert's pallid, mask-like face, the sense of half-fearful elation had +returned, reinforced by a feverish expectation. + +During the dinner, served at ten, conversation had been desultory, full +of lapses broken only by the plaintive chirp of the _hiwa_ from its +corner. When the cigars and cordial had been brought by the +silent-footed Ishida, Bersonin had risen to draw the curtain closely +over the window and to lock the door. When he came back he stood before +the mantelpiece, his arm laid along it, looking down from his towering +height on the other's unquiet hand playing with the chain of the +spirit-lamp. His face was very white. Phil drew a long, slow breath and +looked up. + +Bersonin spoke. His voice was cold and measured; the only sign of +agitation was in the slow, spasmodic working of the great white fingers +against the dark wood. + +"I have brought you here to-night," he said, "to make you a proposition. +I have need of help--of a kind--that you can give me. It will require +certain qualities which I think you possess--which we possess in common. +I have chosen you because you have daring and because you are not +troubled by what the coward calls conscience--that fool's name for +fear!" + +Phil touched his dry lips with his tongue. "I have as little of that as +the next man," he replied. "I never found I needed much." + +Bersonin continued: + +"What I have to say I can say without misgiving. For if you told it +before the fact there is possibly but one man in Japan who would think +you sane; and if you told it after--well, for your own safety, you will +not tell it then! Your acceptance of my proposition will have a definite +effect on your prospects, which, I believe, can scarcely be looked on as +bright." + +Phil muttered an oath. "You needn't remind me of that," he said with +surly emphasis. "I've got about as much prospects as a coolie stevedore. +Well, what of it?" + +The cold voice went on, and now it had gathered a sneer: + +"You are twenty-three, educated, good-looking, with the best of life +before you--but dependent on the niggardly charity of a rich brother for +the very bread you eat. Even here, on this skirt of the world where +pleasures are cheap, it is only by dint of debt that you keep your head +above water. Now your sedate relative has come to sit in judgment on +your past year. What does he care for your private tastes? What will he +do when he hears of the _geisha_ suppers and the bar-chits at the Club +and the roulette table at the bungalow? Increase that generous stipend +of yours? I fancy not." + +Phil lit a cigar with a hand that shook. The doctor's contemptuous words +had roused a tingling anger that raced with the alcohol in his blood. +He, with the tastes of a gentleman, as poor as a temple-rat, while his +brother sailed around the globe in his steam-yacht! He saw his allowance +cut off--saw himself driven to the cheap expedients of the Bund +beach-comber, cringing for a _yen_ from men who had won his hundreds at +the Roost--or perhaps sitting on an under-clerk's stool in some +Settlement counting-house, shabby-genteel, adding figures from eight in +the morning to five at night. No more moon-light cherry-parties on the +Sumida River, or plum-blossom picnics, or high jinks in the Inland Sea. +No more pony-races at Omori, or cat-boat sailing at Kamakura, or +philandering at the Maple-Leaf Tea-House. No more laughing Japanese +faces and tinted fingers--no more stolen kisses in bamboo lanes--no more +Haru! + +He struck the stand with his fist. "And if--I agree?" he said thickly. +"What then?" + +Bersonin leaned forward, his hands on the stand. It rocked under his +weight. "I have talked of money. I will show you a quick way to gain +it--not by years, but by _days_!--wealth such as you have never dreamed, +enough to make your brother poor beside you! Not only money, but power +and place and honors. Is the stake big enough to play for?" + +Phil stared at him, fascinated. It was not madness back of those +dappled, yellowish eyes. They were full of a knowledge, cold and +measured and implacable. + +"What do you--want me to do?" He almost gasped the words. + +The expert looked him in the eye a full moment in silence, his fingers +crawling and twitching. Then, with a quick, leopard-like movement, he +went to the wall-safe, opened it and took out what seemed a square metal +box. In its top was set an indicator, like the range-finder of a camera. +Its very touch seemed to melt his icy control. His paleness flushed; his +hand trembled as he set it upon the desk. + +"Wait!" he said. "Wait!" + +He looked swiftly about the room. His eye rested on the bamboo cage and +a quick gleam shot across his face. He opened the wire door and the +little bird hopped to his finger. He moved a metal pen-rack to the very +center of the desk and perched the tiny creature on it. It burst into +song, warbling full-throated, packed with melody. Bersonin set the metal +case a little distance away and adjusted it with minutest care. + +"Sing, Dick!" he cried loudly; "sing! sing!--" + +The song stopped. There had come a thrill in the air--a puff of icy wind +on Phil's face--a thin chiming like a fairy cymbal. Phil sprang up with +a cry. The fluffy ball, with its metal perch, had utterly disappeared; +only in the center of the desk was a pinch of reddish-brown powder like +the dust of an emery-wheel, laid in feathery whorls. + +He stared transfixed. "What does it mean?" he asked hoarsely. + +The doctor's voice was no longer toneless. It leaped now with an evil +exultation. "It means that I--Bersonin--have found what physicists have +dreamed of for fifty years! I have solved the secret of the love and +hatred of atoms! That box is the harness of a force beside which the +engines of modern war are children's toys." + +He grasped Phil's arm with a force that made him wince. The amber eyes +glittered. + +"At first I planned to sell it to the highest bidder among the powers. I +was a fool to think of that! The nation that buys it, to guard the +secret for itself, must wall me in a fortress! That would be the reward +of Bersonin--the great Bersonin, who had wrested from nature the most +subtle of her secrets! But I am too clever for that! It must be _I_--_I +alone_--who holds the key! It shall bring me many things, but the first +of these is money. I must have funds--unlimited funds. The money I +despise, except as a stepping-stone, but the money _you love_ and must +have! Well, I offer it to you!" + +Phil's heart was beating hard. The tension of the room had increased; a +hundred suffocating atmospheres seemed pressing on it. "How--how--" he +stammered. + +Bersonin took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the +stand. It was a chart of Yokohama harbor. A red square was drawn in the +margin, and from this a fine, needle-like ray pointed out across the +anchorage. With his pencil the Doctor wrote two words on the red +square--"The Roost." + +Phil shrank trembling into his chair. He seemed to see the other looking +at him over clinking glasses at the Club, while voices spoke from the +next room. "_What if one of those Dreadnaughts should go down in this +friendly harbor!_" It came from his lips in a thin whisper, almost +without his volition--the answer to the question that had haunted him +that day. + +A gleam like the fire of unholy altars came in Bersonin's eyes. + +"Not one--_two_! A bolt from a blue sky, that will echo over Europe! And +what then? A fury of popular passion in one country; suspicion and alarm +in all. Rumors of war, fanned by the yellow press. The bottom dropping +out of the market! It means millions at a single _coup_, for, in spite +of diplomatic quibbles, the market is like a cork. The Paris bourse is +soaring. Wall Street will make a new record to-morrow. In London, +Consols are at Ninety-two. My agents are awaiting my word. I have many, +for that is safer. I shall spread selling orders over five +countries--British bonds in Vienna and New York, and steel and American +railroads in London. I risk all and you--nothing. Yet if you join hands +with me in this we shall share alike--you and I! And with the winnings +we get now we shall get more. Trust me to know the way! Money shall be +dirt to you. The pleasure-cities of every continent shall be your +playgrounds. You shall have your pretty little Japanese _peri_, and +fifty more besides." + +Phil's face had flushed and paled by turns. He looked at the expert with +a shivering fascination: "But there are--there will be--men aboard those +ships...." He shuddered and wrenched his gaze away. + +Bersonin put out his great hand and laid it on the other's shoulder--its +weight seemed to be pressing him down into the chair. + +"Well?" he said, in a low intense voice. "What if there are?" + +There was a long silence. Then slowly Phil lifted a face as white as +paper. A look slinking and devilish lay in it now. + +The doctor bent down and began to speak in a low tone. The sound passed +around the room, sibilant, like the sound of a bat's wings in the dark. + + * * * * * + +It was an hour before midnight when Phil opened the gate of the expert's +house and passed down the moon-lighted street. He walked stumblingly, +cowering at the tree-shadows, peering nervously over his shoulder like +one who feels the presence of a ghastly familiar. + +In the great room he had left, Bersonin stood by the fireplace. The +nervous strain and exaltation were still on him. He poured out a glass +of the liqueur which he had not yet tasted and drank it off. The hot +pungent mint sent a glow along his nerves. Behind him Ishida was +methodically removing the dinner service. The doctor crossed the room +and stood before the bamboo cage. He drew back the spring-door and +whistling, held out his finger. + +"Here, Dick!" he called. "Here, boy!" + +There was no response. + +He started. His face turned a gray-green. He drew back and stealthily +turned his head. + +But the Japanese did not seem to have noticed the silence. With the tray +in his hands, he was looking fixedly at the feathery sprays of +reddish-yellow dust on the polished top of the desk. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + + THE FORGOTTEN MAN + + +Barbara pushed open the bamboo gate of the temple garden, then paused. +The recluse with whom she had talked yesterday sat a little way +inside, while before him, in an attitude of deepest attention, stood +the diminutive figure on the huge clogs whose morning acquaintance she +had made from her window. Thorn was looking at him earnestly with his +great myopic eye, through a heavy glass mounted with a handle like a +lorgnette. + +"My son," he said. "Why will you persist in eating _amé_, when I have +taught you the classics and the true divinity of the universe? It is too +sweet for youthful teeth. One of these days you will be carried to a +dentist, an esteemed person with horrible tools, prior to the removal of +a small hell, containing several myriads of lost souls, from the left +side of your lower jaw!" + +Barbara's foot grated on a pebble and he rose with a startled quickness. +The youngster bent double, his face preternaturally grave. Thorn thrust +the glass into his sleeve and smiled. + +"I am experimenting on this oriental raw material," he said, "to +illustrate certain theories of my own. Ishikichi-_San_, though a slave +to the sweetmeat dealer, is a learned infant. He can write forty Chinese +characters and recite ten texts of Mencius. He also knows many damnable +facts about figures which they teach in school. He has just propounded a +question that Confucius was too wise to answer: 'Why is poverty?' Not +being so wise as the Chinese sage, I attempted its elucidation. Thus +endeth our lesson to-day, Ishikichi. _Sayonara_." + +He bowed. The child ducked with a jerky suddenness that sent his round, +battered hat rolling at Barbara's feet. She picked it up and set it on +the shaven head. + +"Oh!" she said humbly. "I beg your pardon, Ishikichi! I put the rim +right in your eye!" + +"Don't menshum it," he returned solemnly. "I got another." He stalked to +the gate, faced about, bobbed over again and disappeared. + +Barbara looked after him smilingly. "Is Ishikichi in straitened +circumstances? Or is his bent political economy?" + +"His father has been ill for a long time," Thorn replied. "He keeps a +shop, and in some way the child has heard that they will have to give it +up. It troubles him, for he can't imagine existence without it." + +"What a pity! I would be so glad to--do you think I could give them +something?" + +He shook his head. "After you have been here a while, you will find that +simple charity in Japan is not apt to be a welcome thing." + +"I am beginning to understand already," she said, as they walked along +the stepping-stones, "that these gentle-mannered people do not lack the +sterner qualities. Yet how they grace them! The iron-hand is here, but +it has the velvet glove. Courtesy and kindness seem almost a religion +with them." + +"More," he answered. "This is the only country I have seen in the world +whose people, when I walk the street, do not seem to notice that I am +disfigured!" + +She made no pretense of misunderstanding. "Believe me," she said gently, +"it is no disfigurement. But I understand. My father lived all his life +in the dread of blindness." + +A faint sound came from him. She was aware, without lifting her eyes to +his, that he was staring at her strangely. + +"All his life. Then your father is not ... living?" + +"He died before I was born." + +She glanced at him as she spoke, for his tone had been muffled and +indistinct. There was a deep furrow in his forehead which she had not +seen before. + +"Do you look like him?" + +"No, he was dark. I am like my mother." + +Thorn was looking away from her, toward the lane, where, beyond the +hedge, a man was passing, half-singing, half-chanting to himself in a +repressed, sepulchral voice. + +"My mother died, too, when I was a little girl," she added, "so I know +really very little about him." + +She had forgotten to look for the Flower-of-Dream. They had come to the +little lake with its mossy stones and basking, orange carp. Through the +gap in the shrubbery the white witchery of Fuji-San glowed in the sun +with far-faint shudderings of lilac fire. She sat down on a sunny +boulder. Thorn stooped over the water, looking into its cool, green +depths, and she saw him pass his hand over his brow in that familiar, +half-hesitant gesture of the day before. + +"Will you tell me that little?" he asked. "I think I should like to +hear." + +"I very seldom talk about him," she said, looking dreamily out across +the distance, "but not because I don't like to. You see, knowing so +little, I used to dream out the rest, so that he came to seem quite +real. Does that sound very childish and fanciful?" + +"Tell me the dreams," he answered. "Mine are always more true than +facts." + +"He was born," she began, "in the Mediterranean--" + +She turned her head. The stone on which Thorn's foot rested had crashed +into the water. He staggered slightly in regaining his balance, and his +face had the pale, startled look it wore when he had first seen her from +the roadside. He drew back, and again his hand went up across his face. + +"Yes," he said. "Go on." + +"In the Mediterranean--just where, I don't know, but on an island--and +his mother was Romaic. I have never seen Greece, but I like to know that +some of it is in my blood. His father was American, of a family that had +a tradition of Gipsy descent. Perhaps he was born with the 'thumb-print' +on the palm that they call the Romany mark. As a child I used to wonder +what it looked like." + +She smiled up at him, but his face was turned away. He had taken his +hand from his brow, and slipped it into his loose sleeve, and stood +rigidly erect. + +"I often used to try to imagine his mother. I am sure she had a dark and +beautiful face, with large, brown eyes like a wild deer's, that used to +bend above his cradle. Perhaps each night she crossed her fingers over +him, and said--" + +"_En to onoma tou Patros_," he repeated, "_kai tou Ouiou kai tou Agiou +Pneumatos!_" + +"Yes," she said, surprised. "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy +Ghost. You know it?" + +"It is the old Greek-orthodox fashion," he said in a low voice. + +"I should not wonder," she continued, "if she made three little wounds +on him, as a baby, as I have read Greek mothers do, to place him under +the protection of the Trinity. She must have loved him--her first +boy-baby! And I think the most of what he was came to him from her." + +Thorn moved his position suddenly, and Barbara saw his shoulders rise in +a deep-taken breath. + +"Love of right and hatred of wrong," he said, "admiration for the +beautiful and the true, faith in man and woman, sensitiveness to +artistic things--ah, it is most often the mother who makes men what they +are. Not our strength or power of calculation, but her heart and power +to love! In the twilight of every home one sees the mother-souls glowing +like fireflies. I never had a picture of my mother. I would rather have +her portrait than a fortune!" + +His voice was charged with feeling. She felt a strange flutter of the +heart, a painful and yearning sympathy such as she had never felt +before. + +"I wonder what he saw from that Greek cradle," she resumed. "I could +never fancy the room so well. I suppose it had pictures. Do you think +so?" + +He nodded. "And maybe--on one wall--a Greek _ikon_, protected by a +silver case ... I've seen such ... that left exposed only the +olive-brown faces and hands and feet of the figures. Perhaps ... when he +was very little ... he used to think the brown Virgin represented his +mother and the large-eyed child himself." + +"Ah," she cried, and a deeper light came in her eyes. "You have been in +Greece! You have seen what he saw!" But he made no reply, and after a +moment she went on: + +"He had never known what terror was till one day an accident, received +in play, brought him the fear of blindness. It must have stayed with him +all his life after that, wherever he went--for he lived in other +countries. I have a few leaves of an old diary of his ... here and there +I feel it in the lines." + +She, too, fell silent. "And then--?" he said. + +"There my dreams end. You see how little I know of him. I don't know why +he came to Japan. But he met my mother here and here they were married. +I should always love Japan, if only for that." + +"He--died here?" + +"In Nagasaki. My mother went back to America, and there I was born." + +She was looking out across the wide space where the roofs sank out of +sight--to the foliaged slope of Aoyama. Suddenly a thrill, a curiously +complex motion, ran over her. Above those far tree-tops, sailing in +slow, sweeping, concentric circles, she saw a great machine, like a +gigantic vulture. She knew instantly what it was, and there flashed +before her the memory of a day at Fort Logan when a brave young +lieutenant had crashed to death before her eyes in a shattered +aëroplane. + +If Daunt were to fall ... what would it mean to her! In that instant the +garden about her, Thorn, the blue sky above, faded, and she stared +dismayed into a gulf in whose shadows lurked the disastrous, the +terrifying, the irreparable. "I love him! I love him!"--it seemed to +peal like a temple-bell through her brain. Even to herself she could +never deny it again! + +She became aware of music near at hand. It brought her back to the +present, for it was the sound of the organ in the new Chapel across the +way. + +Looking up, she was struck by the expression on Thorn's face. He seemed, +listening, to be held captive by some dire recollection. It brought to +her mind that bitter cry: + + "I can not but remember such things were, + That were most precious to me!" + +She rose with a sudden swelling of the throat. + +"I must go now," she said. "The Chapel is to be dedicated this morning. +The organ is playing for the service now." + +She led the way along the stepping-stones to the bamboo gate. As they +approached, through the interstices of the farther hedge she could see +the figure of the Ambassador, with Mrs. Dandridge, among the _kimono_ +entering the chapel door. In the temple across the yard the baton had +begun its tapping and the dulled, monotonous tom-tom mingled weirdly +with the soaring harmonies of the organ. + +With her hand on the paling she spoke again: + +"One thing I didn't tell you. It was I who built the Chapel. It is in +the memory of my father. See, there is the memorial window. They were +putting it in place when I came a little while ago." + +She was not looking at Thorn, or she would have seen his face overspread +with a whiteness like that of death. He stood as if frozen to marble. +The morning sun on the Chapel's eastern side, striking through its open +casements, lighted the iridescent rose-window with a tender radiance, +gilding the dull yellow aureole about the head of the Master and giving +life and glow to the face beside Him--dark, beardless, and passionately +tender--at which Thorn was staring, with what seemed almost an agony of +inquiry. + +"St. John," she said softly, "'the disciple whom Jesus loved.'" She drew +from the bosom of her dress the locket she always wore and opened it. +"The face was painted from this--the only picture I have of my father." + +His hand twitched as he took it. He looked at it long and earnestly--at +the name carved on its lid. "Barbara--Barbara Fairfax!" he said. She +thought his lips shook under the gray mustache. + +"You--are a Buddhist, are you not?" she asked. "And Buddhists believe +the spirits of the dead are always about us. Do you think--perhaps--he +sees the Chapel?" + +He put her locket into her hands hastily. "God!" he said, as if to +himself. "He will see it through a hundred existences!" + +Her eyes were moist and shining. "I am glad you think that," she said. + +In the Chapel the bishop's gaze kindled as it went out over the kneeling +people. + + "_We beseech Thee, that in this place now set apart to Thy + service, Thy holy name may be worshiped in truth and purity + through all generations._" + +The voice rang valiant and clear in the summer hush. It crossed the +still lane and entered a window where, in a temple loft, a man sat still +and gray and quiet, his hands clenched in his _kimono_ sleeves: + + "_We humbly dedicate it to Thee, in the memory of one for the + saving of whose soul Thou wert lifted upon the Cross._" + +The man in the loft threw himself on his face with a terrible cry. + +"My child!" he cried in a breaking voice. "My little, little child, whom +they have robbed me of--whom I have never known in all these weary +years! You have grown away from me--I shall never have you now! Never +... never!" + +Behind him the unfinished image of Kwan-on the All-Pitying, tossed the +sunlight about the room in golden-lettered flashes, and beneath his +closed and burning lids these seemed to blend and weave--to form bossed +letters which had stared at him from the rim of the rose-window: + + THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + + DAUNT LISTENS TO A SONG + + +The day had dawned sultry, with a promise of summer humidity, and Daunt +was not surprised to find the barometer performing intemperate antics. +"Confound it!" he muttered irritably, as he dressed. "If it was a month +later, one would think there was a typhoon waltzing around somewhere in +the China Sea." + +That morning had seen his first trial of his new fan-propeller, and +the Glider's action had surpassed his wildest expectation. The flight, +of which Barbara had caught a glimpse from Thorn's garden, had been a +longer one than usual--quite twelve miles against a sluggish upper +current--but even that failed to bring its customary glow. Thereafter +he had spent a long morning immersed in the work of the Chancery: the +study of a disputed mining concession in Manchuria; a report on a +contemplated issue of government bonds; a demand for a passport by a +self-alleged national with a foreign accent and a paucity of +naturalization papers; the daily budget of translations from +vernacular newspapers, by which a home government gains a bird's-eye +view of comment and public opinion in far-away capitals. The Chancery +was a pleasant nest of rooms opening into one another. Through its +windows stole the smell of the garden blossoms, and across the +compound wall sounded the shrill ventriloquistic notes of peddlers, the +brazen chorus of a marching squad of buglers, or the warning "_Hek! +Hek!_" of a flying _rick'sha_. The main room was cool, furnished with +plain desks and filing cabinets. Against one wall yawned a huge safe in +which were kept the code-books and records, and framed pictures of +former Chiefs of Mission hung on the walls. In the anteroom Japanese +clerks and messengers sat at small tables. The place was pervaded by the +click of type-writer keys, tinkling call-bells, and the various notes of +a busy office, and floating down from a stairway came the buzzing +monotone of a Student Interpreter in his mid-year oral examinations +under the Japanese secretary. + +But to-day Daunt could not exorcise with the mass of detail the leering +imps that plagued him. They peered at him over the edge of the +code-books and whispered from the margins of decorous despatches, +chuckling satirically. + +"Barbara!" they sneered. "Mere acquaintances often name steam-yachts for +girls, don't they! Arrived the same day as her ship, eh? Rather singular +coincidence! What a flush she had when Voynich spoke of Phil's brother +last night at the tea-house. Angry? Of course she was! What engaged girl +likes to have the fact paraded--especially when she's practising on +another man? And how about the telegram? How long have you known her, by +the way? Two days? Really, now!" + +The weekly governmental pouch had closed at noon, and pouch-days were +half-holidays, but Daunt did not go to the Embassy. An official letter +had arrived from Washington which must be delivered in Kamakura. Daunt +seized this excuse, plunged ferociously into tweeds and an hour +afterward found himself in a railway carriage thudding gloomily toward +the lower bay. In his heart he knew that he was trying to run away--from +something that nevertheless traveled with him. + +The sky was palely blue, without a cloud, but the bay, where the rails +skirted it, was heaving in long swells of oily amethyst like a vast +carpet shaken at a distance in irregular undulations, on which _junk_ +with flapping, windless sails, of the deep gold color of old straw, +tumbled like ungainly sea-spiders. The western hills looked misty and +uncertain, and Fuji was wrapped in a wraith-like mist into which its +glimmering profile disappeared. + +At a way-station a coolie with a huge tray piled with neat, flat, wooden +boxes passed the window calling "_Ben-to! Ben-to!_" It reminded Daunt +that he had had no luncheon, and he bought one. He had long ago +accustomed himself to Japanese food and liked it, but to-day the two +shallow sections inspired no appetite. The half which held the rice he +viciously threw out of the window and unrolling the fresh-cut +chop-sticks from their paper square, rummaged discontentedly among the +contents of the other: dried cuttlefish, bean-curd, slices of boiled +lily-bulb, cinnamon-sticks, lotos stems and a coil of edible seaweed, +all wrapped in green leaves. In the end, the _mélange_ followed the +rice. + +At Kamakura an immediate answer to the letter he brought was not +forthcoming, and to kill the time he strolled far down the curved beach. +The usual breeze was lacking. A haze as fine as gossamer had drawn +itself over the sky, and through it gulls were calling plaintively. Here +and there on the sea-wall women were spreading fish-nets, and along the +causeway trudged blue-legged peasant-women, their backs bent beneath +huge loads of brushwood. In one place a bronze-faced fisherman in a +fantastic _kimono_ on which was painted sea-monsters and hobgoblins in +crimson and orange, seated on the gunwale of his _sampan_ drawn above +the shingle, watched a little girl who, with clothing clutched +thigh-high, was skipping the frothy ripples as if they were ropes of +foam. A mile from the town he met a regiment of small school-boys, in +indigo-blue and white _kimono_, marching two and two like miniature +soldiers, a teacher in European dress at either end of the line--future +Oyamas, Togos and Kurokis in embryo. + +They were coming from Enoshima, the hill-island that rises in the bay +like an emerald St. Michael, where in a rocky cave, looking seaward, +dwells holy Ben-ten, the Buddhist Goddess of Love. Daunt could see its +masses of dark green foliage with their pink veinings of cherry-trees, +and the crawling line of board-walk, perched on piling, which gave +access from the mainland when the tide was in. On its height, if +anywhere, would be coolness. He filled his pipe and set off toward it +along the sultry sand. The hot dazzle of the sun was in his face. There +was no movement in the crisp leaves of the bamboo trees and the damp +heat beat up stiflingly from the gray glare. Somewhere in the air, +stirless and humid, there rested a faint, weedy smell like a steaming +sea-growth in a tidal ooze. + +Daunt's pipe sputtered feebly, and, girding at the heat, he hurled it at +a handful of blue ducks that plashed tiredly in the gray-green heave, +and watched them dive, to reappear far away, like bobbing corks. He +wished he could as easily scatter the blue-devils that dogged him. + +He drew a sigh of relief as he reached the long elevated board-walk and +shook the sand from his shoes. Underneath its shore-end a fisherman sat +in the stern of a boat fishing with cormorants. A row of the solemn +birds sat on a pole projecting over the water, each tethered by a string +whose end was tied to the man's wrist. They seemed to be asleep, but now +and then one would plunge like a diver, to reappear with a fish +wriggling in its beak. Daunt watched them listlessly a moment, then, +passing beneath a great bronze _torii_, he slowly climbed the single +shaded street that staggered up the hill between the multitudes of gay +little shops running over with colored sea-shells, with grotesque +lanterns made of inflated fish-skins, with carved crystal and pink and +white coral--up and up, by old, old flights of mossy steps, under more +ancient trees, by green monuments and lichen-stippled Buddhas, till the +sea below crawled like a wrinkled counterpane. Daunt knew a tea-house on +the very lip of the cliff, the _Kinki-ro_--"Inn of the Golden +Turtle"--and he bent his steps lazily in its direction. + +In the heavy heat the low tile roof looked cool and inviting. Tall +soft-eyed iris were standing in its garden overlooking the water, and +against the green their velvety leaves made vivid splashes of golden +blue. On a dead tree two black crows were quarreling and cherry-petals +powdered the paths like pink hail. The haze, sifting from the sky, +seemed to wrap everything in a vast, shimmering veil. At the hedge he +paused an instant. Some one, somewhere, was humming, low-voiced, an air +that he had once loved. He pushed open the gate and went on into the +tremulous radiance. Then he stopped short. + +Barbara was seated above him in the fork of a low camelia tree, one arm +laid out along a branch, her green gown blending with a bamboo thicket +behind her and her vivid face framed in the blossoms. She sat, chin in +hand, looking dreamily out across the bay, and the hummed song had a +rhythm that seemed to fit her thought--slow and infinitely tender. + +"You!" he cried. + +She turned with a startled movement that dissolved into low, delicious +laughter. + +"Fairly caught," she answered. "I don't often revert far enough to climb +trees, but I thought no one but Haru and I was here. Will you come and +help me down, Honorable Fly-man?" + +"Wait--" he said. "What was the song you were humming?" + +She looked at him with a quick intake of breath, then for answer began +to sing, in a voice that presently became scarce more than a whisper: + + "Forgotten you? Well, if forgetting + Be hearing all the day + Your voice through all the strange babble + Of voices grave, now gay-- + If counting each moment with longing + Till the one when I see you again, + If this be forgetting, you're right, dear! + And I have forgotten you then!" + +Daunt's hand fell to his side. A young girl's face nested in creamy, +pink blossoms--a sweet, shy, flushed face under a mass of curling, +gold-bronze hair. "I remember now!" he said in a low voice. "I ... sang +it to you ... that day!" + +"I am flattered!" she exclaimed. "The day before yesterday you had +forgotten that you ever saw poor little me! It was Mrs. Claybourne, of +course, that you sang to! Yet you were my idol for a long month and a +day!" + +"It was to _you_," he said unsteadily. "I didn't know your name. But I +never forgot the song. I remembered it that night in the garden, when I +first heard you playing!" + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + + THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT + + +They walked together around the curving road, leaving Haru with the +tea-basket. "Patsy would have come," Barbara had said, "but she is in +the clutches of her dressmaker." And Daunt had answered, "I have a +distinct regard for that Chinaman!" + +His black mood had vanished, and the leering imps had flown. In the +brightness of her physical presence, how baseless and foolish seemed his +sullen imaginings! What man who owned a steam yacht, knowing her, would +not wish to name it the _Barbara_? Walking beside her, so near that he +could feel the touch of her light skirt against his ankles, it seemed +impossible that he should ever again be other than light-hearted. She +was no acquaintance of hours, after all. He had known her for seven +years. He was in wild spirits. + +The sky was duller now. Its marvelous haze of blue and gold had turned +pallid, and the sun glared with a pale, yellowish effrontery. A strange +sighing was in the air, so faint, however, that it seemed only the +stirring of innumerable leaves, the resinous rasping of pine-needles and +the lisping fall of the flaming petals from the century-old camelia +trees, that stained the ground with hot, bleeding red. Far below in the +shallow pools, nut-brown, bare-legged girls were gathering seaweed in +hand-nets, _kimono_ tucked beneath their belts and scarlet petticoats +falling to their knees, like a flock of brilliant flamingos. At a turn +in the road stood a stone image of Jizo, with a red paper bib about its +neck. Before it lay three small rice-cakes; somewhere in the +neighborhood was a little sick child, three years old. At its base were +heaps of tiny stones, piled by mothers whose little children had died. + +They stopped at a tea-house open on all sides, and, sitting cross-legged +on its _tatamé_, drank tea from earthenware pots that held only a small +cupful, while they listened to a street minstrel beating on a tom-tom, +and singing a mysterious song that seemed about to choke him. They fed a +crisp rice-cake to a baby sagging from an urchin's shoulder. A doll was +strapped to the baby's back. They peered into a Buddhist temple where a +monotonous chant came from behind a blue-figured curtain. They went, +laughing like two children, down the zigzag stone steps, past +innumerable _uomitei_--crimson-benched "resting-houses," where grave +Japanese pedestrians sat eating stewed eels and chipping hard-boiled +eggs--to the rocky edge of the tide, which now rolled in with a +measured, sullen booming. He pointed to a gloomy fissure which ran into +the mountain, at a little distance. + +"O Maiden, journeying to Holy Ben-ten," he said, "behold her shrine!" + +"How disillusioning!" + +"People find love so, sometimes." + +She slowly shook her head. "Not all of them," she said softly. "I am +old-fashioned enough not to believe that." Her brown eyes were wistful +and a little troubled, and her voice was so adorable that he could have +gone on his knees to her. + +"We will ask Ben-ten about it," he said. + +"Oh, but not '_we!_'" she cried. "I must go alone. Don't you know the +legend? People quarrel if they go together." + +"I can't imagine quarreling with you. I'd rather quarrel with myself." + +"That would be difficult, wouldn't it?" + +"Not in some of my moods. Ask my head-boy. To-day, for instance--" + +"Well?" For he had paused. + +"I was meditating self-destruction when I met you." + +"By what interesting method, I wonder?" + +"I was about to search for a volcano to jump into." + +"I thought the nearest active crater is a hundred miles away." + +"So it is, but I'm an absent-minded beggar." + +She laughed. "May I ask what inspired to-day's suicidal mood?" + +"It was--a telegram." + +"Oh!" She colored faintly. "I--I hope it held no bad news." + +He looked into her eyes. "I hope not," he said. Something else was on +his tongue, when "Look!" she exclaimed. "How strange the sea looks off +there!" + +A sinister, whitish bank, like a mad drift of smoke, lay far off on the +water, and a tense, whistling hum came from the upper air. A drop of +water splashed on Daunt's wrist. "There's going to be a blow," he said. +"The seaweed gatherers are all coming in, too. Ben-ten will have to +wait, I'm afraid. See--even her High Priest is forsaking her!" + +From where they stood steps were roughly hewn into the rock, winding +across the face of the cliff. Beside these, stone pillars were socketed, +carrying an iron chain that hung in rusted festoons. Along this +precarious pathway from the cavern an old man was hastily coming, +followed by a boy with a sagging bundle tied in a white cloth. "That +parcel, no doubt," said Daunt, "contains the day's offerings. Wait! +You're not going?" For she had started down the steps. + +She had turned to answer, when, with the suddenness of an explosion, a +burst of wind fell on them like a flapping weight, spattering them with +drops that struck the rock as if hurled from a sling-full of melted +metal. Barbara had never in her life experienced anything like its +ferocity. It both startled and angered her, like a personal affront. + +Daunt had sprung to her side and was shouting something. But the words +were indistinguishable; she shook her head and went on stubbornly, +clinging to the chain, a whirl of blown garments. She felt him grasp her +arm. + +"Go back!" she shrieked. "It's--bad--luck!" + +As he released her there came a second's menacing lull, and in it she +sprang down the steps and ran swiftly out along the pathway. He was +after her in an instant, overtaking her on a frail board trestle that +spanned a pool, where the cliff was perpendicular. Here the wind, shaggy +with spume, hurled them together. Daunt threw an arm about her, clinging +with the other hand to the wooden railing. Her hair was a reddish swirl +across his shoulder and her breath, panting against his throat, ridged +his skin with a creeping delight. The rocks beneath them, through whose +fissures tongues of water ran screaming, was the color of raspberries +and tawny with seaweed. There was only a weird, yellow half-light, +through which the gale howled and scuffled, like dragons fighting. A +slather of wave licked the palsied framework. + +He bent and shouted into her ear. All she caught was: "Must--cave--next +lull--" + +She nodded her head and her lips smiled at him through the confused +obscurity. A thrill swept her like silver rain. Pulse on pulse, an +emotion like fire and snow in one thrilled and chilled her. She closed +her eyes with a wild longing that the wind might last for ever, that +that moment, like the ecstasy of an opium dream, might draw itself out +to infinite length. Slowly she felt the breath of the tempest ebb about +them, then suddenly felt herself lifted from her feet, and her eyes +opened into Daunt's. Her cheek lay against his breast, as it had done in +that short moment in the Embassy garden. She could feel his heart bound +under the rough tweed. Once more the wind caught them, but he staggered +through it, and into the high, rock entrance of the cave. + +Inside its dripping rim the sudden cessation of the wind seemed almost +uncanny, and the boom of the surf was a dull thunderous roar. He set her +on her feet on the damp rock and laughed wildly. + +"Do you realize," she said, "that we have transgressed the most sacred +tenet of Ben-ten by coming here together? We are doomed to +misunderstanding!" + +"Now that I recollect, that applies only to lovers," he answered. "Then +we--" + +"Are quite safe," she quickly finished for him. "Come, I want to see the +shrine. We must find a candle." + +He peered into the gloomy depths. "I think I see some burning," he said. +"We will explore." + +A little way inside they came to a small well, with a dipper and a rack +of thin blue-and-white towels to cleanse the hands of worshipers. On a +square pedestal stood a stone Buddha, curiously incrusted by drippings +from the roof. Near it was a wooden booth, its front hung with pendents +of twisted rice-straw and strips of white paper folded in diagonal +notches. It held a number of tiny wooden _torii_ strung with lighted +candles, above each of which was nailed a paper prayer. A few copper +coins lay scattered beneath them. Daunt thrust two of the candles into +wooden holders and they slowly followed the narrowing fissure, guttered +by the feet of centuries, between square posts bearing carven texts, and +small images, coated with the spermy droppings from innumerable candles. + +She held up her winking light toward his face. "What a desperate +absorption!" she said laughingly. "You haven't said a thing for five +minutes." + +"I'm thinking we had better explain at once to Ben-ten that we're not +lovers. Otherwise we may get the penalty. Perhaps we'd better just tell +her it was an accident, and let it go at that? What do you think?" + +"That might be the simplest." + +"All right then, I'll say 'Ben-ten, dear, she wanted to come alone; she +really did! We didn't intend it at all. So be a nice, gracious goddess +and don't make her quarrel with me!'" + +"What do you suppose she will answer?" + +"She will say: 'Young man, in the same circumstances, I should have done +exactly the same myself.'" + +The passage had grown so low that they had to bend their heads, then all +at once it widened into a concave chamber. The cannonading of the wind +rumbled fainter and fainter. He took her hand and drew her forward. +"There is Ben-ten," he said. + +The Goddess of Love sat in a barred cleft of the rock, enshrined in a +dull, gold silence. Beads of moisture spangled her robe, glistening like +brilliants through the mossy darkness. "Poor deity!" said Barbara. "To +have to live for ever in a sea-cavern! It's a clammy idea, isn't it?" + +"That's--" He paused. "I could make a terrible pun, but I won't." + +"One shouldn't joke about love," she said. + +"Have _you_ discovered that too?" + +She gazed at him strangely, without answering. In the wan light his face +looked pale. Her unresisting fingers still lay in his; he felt their +touch like a breath of fire through all his veins. Her eyes sparkled +back the eery witch-glow of the candle-flames. "You are a green-golden +gnome-girl!" he said unsteadily. "And I am under a spell." + +"Yes, yes," she said. "I am Rumptydudget's daughter! I have only to wave +my candlestick--so!--to turn you into a stalagmite!" + +She suited the action to the word--and dropped her candle, which was +instantly extinguished on the damp floor. Bending forward to retrieve +it, Daunt slipped. The arm he instinctively threw out to save himself +struck the wall and his own candle flew from its socket. As he regained +his footing, confused by the blank, enfolding darkness, he stumbled +against Barbara, and his face brushed hers. In another instant the touch +had thrilled into a kiss. + +A moment she lay in his arms, passive, panting, her unkissed mouth +stinging with the burn of his lips. The world was a dense blackness, +shot with fire and full of pealing bells, and the beating of her heart +was a great wave of sound that throbbed like the iron-shod fury of the +seas. + +"I love you, Barbara!" he said simply. "I love you!" + +The stammering utterance pierced the swift, confused sweetness of that +first kiss like a lance of desperate gladness. Through the tumbling +passion of the words he poured into her heart, she could feel his hands +touching her face, her throat, her loosened hair. + +"Barbara! Listen, dear! I must say it! It's stronger than I am--no, +don't push me away! Love me! You _must_ love me! + +With her arms on his breast, she had made a movement to release herself. +"We are mad, I think!" she breathed. + +"Then may we never be sane!" + +"I--you have known me only two days! What--" + +"Ah, no! I've known you all these years and have been loving you without +really knowing it. I made a woman out of my own fancy, that I dreamed +alive. In the long winter evenings when I worked at my models in the +little house in Aoyama, I used to see her face in my driftwood blaze and +talk to her. I called her my 'Lady of the Many-Colored Fires.' I never +thought she really existed, but that first night in the Embassy garden I +knew that my dream-woman was you!--_you_, Barbara!" + +Her hands pushed him from her no more. They fell to trembling on his +breast. In the dense, salty obscurity, she turned her head sharply, to +feel again his lips on hers, her own molding to his kiss. She drooped, +swaying, stunned, breathless. + +"Barbara, I love you!" + +"No--not again. Light--the candle." + +"Just a moment longer--here in the dark, with Ben-ten. It's fate, +darling! Why should I have been in Japan and not in Persia when you +came? Why did I happen to be there in the garden that night, at that +particular moment? Why, it was the purest accident that I came here +to-day! No--not accident. It was kismet! Barbara!" + +"Make--a light. I--beg you!" + +His lips were murmuring against her cheek. "Say 'I love you,' too!" + +"I--can not. You ... you would hold me cheap ... I would be--I am!... +What? Yes, it was a tulip tree. I was sixteen.... Oh, you couldn't +have--why, you'd forgotten the whole thing! You had, you _had_!... Don't +hold me.... No, I don't care what you think!... Yes, I _do_ care!... +Yes, I--I ... This is perfectly shameless!... Dark? That makes it all +the worse. What will you ... No, no! You must not kiss me again! We must +go back!--I will go back...." + +She freed herself, and he fumbled for his fallen candle. He struck a +match. The sputtering blue flame lit her white, languorous face, her +fallen hair, her heaving breast. It went out. He struck another and the +wick blazed up. + +"Look at me, dear!" he said. "Tell me in the light. Will you marry me?" + +"I can not answer--now." + +"Why? Don't you love me?" + +"I--in so short a time, how could I? Let us go now. I don't know +myself--nor--nor you!" + +She was trembling, and he noted it with a pang of compunction. + +"To-morrow, sweetheart? Will you give me my answer then?" + +"Yes!" It was almost inaudible. + +"At the Foreign Minister's ball to-morrow night? I'll come to you there, +dearest. I--" + +He stopped. She had caught her hand to her throat with a wild gesture. +"Ben-ten! She--she is frowning at us! There--look there!" + +"My poor darling!" he said. "You are nervous. See, it was only the +shadow! I ought not to have brought you into this dismal hole! You are +positively shivering." + +"Let us hurry," she said, and they went quickly into the warmer air and +light of the entrance. + +The squall had passed with the fateful swiftness of its coming. The +waves still gurgled and tumbled, but the fury of the wind was over. The +murk light had lifted, showing the wet sky a patchy drab, which again +was beginning to show glimpses of golden hue. + + * * * * * + +They walked back to Haru at the tea-house, beneath the wild, poignant +beauty of disheveled cryptomeria, echoing once more the eternal song of +the _semi_--along paths strewn with drenched petals and sweet with the +moist scents of sodden leaves--then together, down the steep, templed +hill and across the planked walk to the mainland, where a trolley buzzed +through the springing rice-fields, musical now with the _mé kayui_--_mé +kayui_ of the frogs. Daunt accompanied them to the through line of the +railway. From there he was to return to Kamakura for the answer to his +letter. + +The sun was setting when the Tokyo express pulled into the station. As +Haru disappeared into the compartment, Daunt took Barbara's hand to help +her to the platform. There had been no other first-class passengers to +embark and the forward end of the asphalt was deserted. Her lovely, +flushed face was turned toward him, and there in the dusk of the +station, he bent swiftly and kissed her once more on the lips. + +"Dearest, dearest!" he said behind his teeth, and turned quickly away. + +In the car, as the train fled through the glory of the sunset, Barbara +closed her eyes, the longer to keep the impression of that eager gaze: +the lithe, muscular poise of the strong frame, the parted lips, the +brown hair curling under the peak of the cloth cap. She tried to imagine +him on his backward journey. Now the trolley had passed the rice-fields, +now he was striding along the shore road toward Kamakura, where the +great bronze Buddha was lifting its face of dreamless calm. Now, +perhaps, he was turning back toward the deepening blur of the green +island. She shivered a little as she remembered the frown that had +seemed to rest on the stony countenance of Ben-ten in her cave. + +Her thought drifted into to-morrow, when she was to give him her answer. +Ah, she knew what that answer would be! She thought of the telegram of +the night before, which she had read in the candle-lighted street! +To-morrow Ware also was coming--for an answer! She knew what that would +be, too. She felt a sudden pity for him. Yet she knew now--what wisdom +she had gained in these two swift days!--that his was not the love that +most deserved it. Daunt's parting kiss clung to her lips like a living +flower. The hand he had clasped still burned to his touch; she lifted it +and held it against her hot face, while the darkening carriage seemed to +fill with the dank smell of salty wind and seaweed, mingled with his +voice: + +"Barbara, I love you!--Dearest! Dearest!" + + * * * * * + +She thought the gesture unseen, unguessed by any one. But in the forward +car, beyond the glass vestibule door, which to her was only a trembling +mirror, a man sat watching with burning eyes. He had been gazing through +the window when the train stopped, had risen to his feet with instant +recognition--to shrink back into his seat, his fingers clenched, his +bitten lip indrawn, and a pallor on his face. + +It was Austen Ware, and he had seen that kiss. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + + THE COMING OF AUSTEN WARE + + +Dusk purpled over the rice-fields as the train sped on. Still the man +who had witnessed that farewell sat crouched in his seat in the forward +car, stirless and pallid. + +From boyhood Austen Ware had trod a calculate path. Judicious, +masterful, possessed, he had gone through life with none of the +temptations that had lain in wait for his younger brother Phil. These +traits were linked to a certain incapacity for bad luck and an +unwearying tenaciousness of purpose. Seldom had any one seen his face +change color, had seldom seen his poise of glacial complacency shaken. + +To-night, however, the oil lamps which glowed dully in the ceiling of +the carriage threw their faint light on a face torn with passion. +Barbara's beauty, whose perfect indifference no touch of sentimental +passion had devitalized, had, from the first, aroused Ware's stubborn +sense of conquest. He had been too wise to make missteps--had put ardor +into the background, while surrounding her with tactful and graceful +observances which unconsciously usurped a large place in her thought. In +the end he had broken down an instinctive disinclination and converted +it into liking. + +But this was all. For the rest he had perforce been content to wait. +Thus matters had stood when they parted a few months ago. He recalled +the day he had sailed for Suez. Looking back across the widening water, +he had conceived then no possibility of ultimate failure. "How beautiful +she is!" he had said to himself. "She will marry me. She does not love +me, but she cares for no other man. She will marry me in Japan." There +had been nobody else then! + +As he peered out into the glooming dusk all kinds of thoughts raced +through his mind. Who was the man? Was this the resurrection of an old +"affair" that he had never guessed? No, when he left her, Barbara had +been fancy free! It was either a "steamer acquaintance," or one come to +quick fruition on a romantic soil. He took out a cigar-case and struck a +match with shaking fingers. Had it even come to clandestine +_rendezvous_? She had gone one way, the man another! A whirl of rage +seized him: the slender metal snapped short off in the fierce wrench of +his fingers. He thrust the broken case into his pocket with a muttered +curse that sat strangely on his fastidious tongue. + +Gradually, out of the wrack emerged his dominant impulse, caution. He +had many things to learn; he must find out how the land lay. He must +move slowly, reëstablish the old, easy, informal footing. Above all he +must lay himself open to no chance of a definite refusal. A plan began +to take shape. His telegram had told her he would arrive in Tokyo next +day. Meanwhile he would find out what Phil knew. + +He left the train at Yokohama under cover of the crowd. In a half-hour +he was aboard his yacht. Two hours later he sat down to order his dinner +on the terrace of the hotel, cool, unruffled, immaculately groomed. The +place was brightly barred with the light from the tall dining-room +windows, and the small, round tables glowed with _andons_ whose +candle-light shone on men's conventional black-and-white, and women's +fluttering gowns. There was no wind--only the long, slow breath of the +bay that seemed sluggish with the scents of the tropical evening. A +hundred yards from the hotel front great floating wharves had been built +out into the water. They were gaily trimmed with bunting and electric +lights in geometrical designs. A series of arches flanked them, and +these were covered with twigs of ground pine. Ware had guessed these +decorations were for the European Squadron of Dreadnaughts, of whose +arrival to-day's newspapers had been full. + +As he looked over the _menu_, a man sitting near-by rose and came to him +with outstretched hand. He was Commander DeKay, a naval _attaché_ whom +Ware had known in Europe. They had met again, a few days since, at +Kyoto. He hospitably insisted on the other's joining his own party of +five. + +Ware was not gregarious, and to-night was in a sullen mood. But, with +his habitual policy, he thrust this beneath the surface and in another +moment was bowing to the introductions: Baroness Stroloff, her sister, a +chic young matron whose natural habitat seemed to be Paris; the +ubiquitous and popular Count Voynich, and a statuesque American girl, +whose name Ware recognized as that of a clever painter of Japanese +children. He looked well in evening dress, and his dark beard, thick +curling pompadour and handsome eyes added a something of distinction to +a well-set figure. + +"So you have just arrived, Mr. Ware?" the Baroness said. "I hope you're +not one of those terrible two-days-in-Japan tourists who spoil all our +prices for us." + +"I expect to stay a month or more," he said. "And as for prices, I shall +put up as good a battle as I can." + +"You know," said the artist, with an air of imparting confidential +information, "everybody is scheduled in Tokyo. If you belong to an +Embassy you have to pay just so much more for everything. In the +Embassies, 'number-one-man' pays more than 'number-two-man,' and so on +down. You and I are lucky, Mr. Ware. We are not on the list, and can +fight it out on its merits." + +"Belonging to the rankless file has its advantages in Japan, then." + +"Not at official dinners, I assure you," interposed the Baroness' sister +with a shrug. "It means the bottom of the table, and sitting next below +the same student-interpreter nine times in the season. I have discovered +that I rank with, but not above, the dentist." + +"You tempt me to enter the service--in the lowest grade," said Ware, and +the Baroness laughed and shook her fan at him reprovingly. + +The sky above their heads was pricked out with pale stars, like +cat's-eye pins in a greenish-violet tapestry. Up and down the roadway +went shimmering _rick'sha_, and Japanese couples in light _kimono_ +strolled along the bay's edge, under the bent pines, their low voices +mingled with the soft lapping of the tide. Now and then a bicycle would +pass swiftly, bare sandaled feet chasing its pedals, and _kimono_ +sleeves flapping like great bats'-wings from its handle-bars; or a +flanneled English figure would stride along, with pipe and racquet, from +late tennis at the recreation-ground. From the corner came the cries of +romping children and the tapping staff and double flute-note of a blind +_masseur_. + +The talk flew briskly hither and thither, skimming the froth of the +capital's _causerie_: recent additions to the official set, the splendid +new ball-room at the German Embassy, and the increasing importance of +Tokyo as a diplomatic center--the coming Imperial "Cherry-Viewing +Garden-Party," and the annual Palace duck-hunt at the _Shin-Hama_ +preserve, where the game is caught, like butterflies, in scoop-nets--the +new ceremonial for Imperial audiences--whether a stabbing affray between +two Legation _bettos_ would end fatally, and whether the Turkish +Minister's gold dinner service was solid--and a little scandalous +surmise regarding the newest continental widow whose stay in Japan had +been long and her dinners anything but exclusive--a rumored engagement, +and--at last!--the arrival of the new beauty at the American Embassy. + +"A _real one_!" commented Voynich, screwing his eye-glass in more +tightly. "And that means something in the tourist season." + +Ware's fingers flattened on the stem of his glass of yellow chartreuse +as the artist said: "We are in the throes of a new sensation at present, +Mr. Ware; a case of love at first sight. It's really a lot rarer than +the novelists make out, you know! We are all tremendously interested." + +"But he knows her," said Voynich. "The other evening in Tokyo, Mr. Ware, +Miss Fairfax mentioned having met you. She is from Virginia, I think." + +Ware bowed. "She is very good to remember me," he said. "And so Miss +Fairfax has met her fate in Japan?" + +"Well, rather!" said the artist. "I hear betting is even that she'll +accept him inside a fortnight." + +Ware sipped his liqueur with a tinge of relief. Evidently the world of +Tokyo had not yet discovered that the new arrival's first name was that +of his yacht. + +"Daunt doesn't play according to Hoyle," grumbled Voynich. "She's a +guest of his own chief and he ought to give the others half a chance. He +lives in the Embassy Compound, too, confound him! He monopolized her +outrageously at the Review the other day! He's an American 'trust.' I +shall challenge him." + +The voice of DeKay broke in: + +"Coppery hair and pansy-brown eyes, a skin like a snowdrift caught +blushing, and a mouth like the smile of a red flower! A girl that Romney +might have loved, slim and young and thoroughbred--there you have the +capital sentence of the Secretary of the American Embassy!" + +Down the middle of the street came running a boy, bare-legged, +bareheaded and scantily clad. A bunch of jangling bells was tied to his +girdle, and his hands were full of what looked like small blue +hand-bills. DeKay got up quickly. "There's an evening extra," he said. +"It's the _Kokumin Shimbun_." He bolted down the steps, stopped the +runner and returned with one of the blue sheets. + +He scanned it rapidly--he was a student of the vernacular. "Nothing +especial," he informed them. "Prices in Wall Street are smashing the +records. That looks like a clear political horizon, in spite of what the +wiseacres have been saying. This visit of the Squadron will prove a +useful poultice, no doubt, to reduce international inflammation--its +officers being shown the sights of the capital, and the celebrations to +come off as per schedule, including the Naval Minister's ball to-morrow +night. By the way," he added, turning to Ware, "I arranged for an +invitation for you. It's probably at the hotel in Tokyo now, awaiting +your arrival." + +A little gleam came to Ware's eyes. The threads were in his hands, and +this suited his plan. "Thanks," he said; "you're very kind, Commander. I +shall see the subject of your rhapsody, then, before the Judge puts on +his black cap." + +"Ah, but you'll have no chance," laughed the Baroness. "Trust a woman's +eye." + +"Unless his aëroplane takes a tumble," said the American girl +reflectively. "There's always a chance for a tragedy there!" + +They rose to depart. "We are actually going to the opera, Mr. Ware," +said the Baroness; "the 'Popular Hardman Comic Opera Company,' if you +please, 'with Miss Cissy Clifford.' Doesn't that sound like Broadway? It +comes over every season from Shanghai, and it's our regular spring +dissipation. You'd not be tempted to join us, I suppose?" + +He bowed over her hand. "It is my misfortune to have an engagement +here." + +"Well, then--_jusqu'au bal_. Good night." + + * * * * * + +Ware drank his black coffee alone on the terrace. Daunt--a Secretary of +Embassy! A rival less experienced than he, full of youth's +enthusiasms--a young Romeo, wooing from the garden of officialdom! It +had been a handful of days against his own round year; a few meetings, +at most, to offset his long and constant plan! And, as a result, the +thing he had seen through the car window. He shut his teeth. He would +have taken bitter toll of that kiss! + +As he lit his cigar, one of the hotel boys came to him. On his arrival +Ware had sent him to Phil's bungalow on the Bluff with a note. + +"Ware-_San_ not at home," he said. + +"Where is he?" + +"No Yokohama now. He go Tokyo yesterday. Stay one week." + +"Is he at the hotel there?" + +"Boy say no hotel. House have got." + +"What is the address?" + +"Boy no must tell. He say letter send Tokyo Club." + +Ware's composure had been fiercely shaken that night and this obstacle +in his path pricked him to the point of exasperation. With impatience he +threw away his cigar and walked out through the cool, brilliant evening. + +But the glittering pageant of the prismatic streets inspired only a +rising irritation. When a pedestrian jostled him, the elaborate bow of +apology and ceremonial drawing-in of breath met with only a morose +stare. He left the Bund and threaded the _Honcho-dori_--the "Main +Street"--striving to curb his mood. Midway of its length was a jeweler's +shop-window with a beautiful display of jewel-jade. In it was hung a +sign which he read with a wry smile: "English Spoken: American +Understood." Ware entered and handed the Japanese clerk his broken +cigar-case. + +The counter was spread with irregular pieces of the green and pink +stone, wrought with all the laborious cunning of the oriental lapidary. +At his elbow a clerk was packing a jade bracelet into a tiny box for +delivery. He wrapped and addressed it painstakingly with a little +brush-- + + Esquire Philp Weare, + Kasumiga-tani Cho, 36. + Tokyo. + +In the street Ware smiled grimly as he entered the address in his +note-book. He had always believed in his luck. To-morrow he would find +Phil, and gain further enlightenment--incidentally on the matter of jade +bracelets! His mouth set in contemptuous lines as he walked back to the +hotel. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII + + THE WOMAN OF SOREK + + +"And as to the foreigner named Philip Ware, that is all you know?" + +"That is all, Ishida-_San_," Haru answered. + +They stood in the cryptomeria shadows of Reinanzaka Hill, from which he +had stepped to her side as she came from the Embassy gate. It was dark, +for the moon was not yet risen, and the evening was very still. One +sleepy _semi_ bubbled in the foliage and in the narrow street at the +foot of the hill, with its glimmering _shoji_, she could hear the fairy +tinkle of wind bells in the eaves. + +Such an ambush by her lover, unjustified, would have been a dire affront +to the girl's rigid Japanese code of decorum. That he had seen Phil +greet her at Mukojima the evening before had shamed her pride, and in +speaking of it to-night he had seemed at first to lay a rude finger on +her maiden dignity. But she had seen in an instant that his errand was +inspired by neither anger nor jealousy. He had touched at once her +instinct of the momentous. + +Her quick, clever brain and finely attuned perception read what lay +beneath his questions. The great European expert whom Japan herself +employed, and the young foreigner who had pursued her--were they, then, +objects of question to that wonderful, many-sided governmental machine +which was lifting Japan into the front rank of modern nations? Although +she had never shared the disfavor with which her father viewed her +lover's duties, she had wondered at his present apparently menial +position. To-night she was gaining a quick glimpse beneath the surface. +He told her nothing of the details which, though he could not himself +have built a tangible indictment from them, had one by one clung +together into a sharp suspicion that embraced the two men. But the +agitation she felt in his words had sent a quick thrill through her, had +tapped that deep racial well of feeling, the _Yamato Damashii_, which is +the Japanese birthright. She felt a sudden passionate wish that she, +though a woman, might pour herself into the mighty stream of +effort--though she be but a whirling cherry-petal in the great wind of +her nation's destiny. He had come to her for any shred of information +that might add to his knowledge of the youth who was now Bersonin's +satellite. But she had been able to tell him nothing. She had often seen +the huge expert--his automobile had clanged past her that morning--but +till to-night she had not even known the other's name or where he lived. +"That is all, Ishida-_San_." It hurt her to say these words. + +She bowed to his ceremonious farewell, a slim, misty figure that stood +listening to his rapid footsteps till they died in the darkness. She +walked up the dim slope with lagging pace. The steep road, always +deserted at night, had no sound of grating cart or whirring _rick'sha_, +but her paper lantern was unlighted and no song greeted the crow that +flapped his grating way above her head. She was thinking deeply. + +At the top of the hill, opposite the huge, rivet-studded gate of the +Princess' compound, lay the lane on which the Chapel stood. An evening +service was in progress and the faint sound of the organ was borne to +her. As she turned into the darker shade she was aware of two +pedestrians coming toward her,--of a voice which she recognized with a +shiver of apprehension. The sentry-box by the great gate stood close at +hand. It was empty, and she stepped into it. + +Doctor Bersonin and Phil paused at the turning, while the latter lit a +cigar from a match which he struck on the sentry-box. Haru's heart was +in her throat, but her dark _kimono_ blent with the wood and the flash +that showed her both faces blinded his eyes. + +"See!" said the doctor. A mile away, from the low-lying darkness of +Hibiya Park, a stream of fireworks shot to the zenith, to explode +silently in clusters of colored balls. "The first rocket in honor of the +Squadron!" + +"To-morrow the Admiral has an Imperial audience," said Phil, "and the +superior officers are to be decorated." + +"So!" said the other in a low, malignant voice. "And I--who have +designed Japan's turrets and cheapened her arsenal processes--I may not +wear the Cordon and Star of the Rising-Sun!" In the darkness a smile of +malice crossed his face. "We shall see if she will hold her head so +high--_then_! Whether war follow or not, it will damn her in the eyes of +the nations! She will not recover her prestige in twenty years!" + +They passed on down the dark slope, out of sight and hearing of the girl +crouched in a corner of the sentry-box. At the foot of the hill, +Bersonin said: + +"It will take some days longer to finish my work, but the ships will +stay for a fortnight. To-morrow night I will mark the triangle on the +roof of the bungalow, so that the angle of the tripod will be exact. +There must be no bungling. You can go by an earlier train, so we shall +not be seen together, and I shall return here in time for the ball." + +There was a fire in Haru's bosom as she went on along the thorn-hedges. +She had heard every word, and she said the English sentences over and +over to herself to fix them in her mind. What they had been talking of +was the secret that lay beneath Ishida's questions--for an instant she +had almost touched it. A feeling of deep pride rose in her. Japan was +not sleeping--it watched! And in the path of the plotting danger stood +her lover. + +These two men hated Japan! War? They had used the word. Japan did not +fear war! Had not that been proven? Her heart swelled. But the thing +they were planning was her country's enduring humiliation, "whether war +follow or not!" She felt a sudden deep horror. Could such plots be and +their God--_her_ God now--not blast them with His thunder? And one of +these men had spoken with her, touched her, _kissed_ her! She struck +herself repeatedly and hard on the lips. + +All at once she shivered. Might it be that in spite of all, such a black +design could succeed? + +The Chapel was brilliantly lighted and the rose-window threw beautiful +tints, like shawls of many-colored gauze, over the shrubbery. She +entered and slipped into a seat near the door, burning with her +thoughts. The first evening service had brought a curious crowd and the +place was nearly filled. She rose for the singing and knelt for the +prayer mechanically, her delicate fingers twisting the little +white-enamel cross hanging from its thin gold chain on the bosom of her +_kimono_. Painful imaginings were running through her mind. The lesson +was being read: it was from the Old Testament, the modern, somewhat +colloquial translation. + + This-after, Samson a Sorek Valley woman called Delilah did love. + + Then the Princes of the Philistines the woman-to up-came, + saying: + + As for you, by sweet discourse prevail that where his great + power is or by what means overcoming, to bind and torture him we + may be able ... + +It seemed to her suddenly that a great wind filled all the Chapel and +that the words sat on it. Slowly her face whitened till it was the hue +of death. + +_She_ might find out the secret! + + And Delilah to Samson said: where your great power is or by what + means overcoming to bind and torture you one may be able, this + me tell. + +She began to tremble in every limb. She, a _samurai's_ daughter? She +thought of her father, aged and broken, grieving that he had had no son +in the war. She had been but a useless girl-child, left to plant paper +prayers at the cross-roads for the brave men who longed to achieve a +glorious death. If she did this thing--would it not be for Japan? + + And he at last-to his mind completely opened. + + The woman's knees-upon Samson did sleep and she called a man who + of his head the seven locks cut off ... and the power of him was + lost. + +If she did, would it avail? She remembered Phil's eyes on her face the +day on the sands at Kamakura--their smouldering, reckless glow. She +remembered the bamboo lane! In those daredevil kisses her woman's +instinct had divined the force of the attraction she exercised over +him--had felt it with contempt and a self-humiliation that burned her +like an acid. To use that for her purpose? But she was a Christian! From +the Christian God's "_Thou shalt not_" there was no appeal. + +She remembered suddenly her last service at the Buddhist temple across +the lane, and how the old priest had bade her a gentle farewell, wishing +her peace and joy in her new religion, and saying smilingly that all +religions were augustly good, since they pointed the same way. She saw +the nunnery, with its tall clumps of yellow dahlias and wild hydrangeas; +above which hung gauzy robes that waved like gray ghosts escaping from +the mold into the sunshine. She saw the cherry-trees touched by the +golden summer light, the mossy monuments in the burying-ground, the +pigeons fluttering about the lichened pavement. + +The audience was singing now--the Japanese version of _Jesus, Lover of +My Soul_: + + _Waga tamashii wo + Ai suru Yesu yo, + Nami wa sakamaki, + Kaze fuki-arete._ + +She could no longer be a Christian! + +But the old gods of her people shining from their golden altars--the +ancient divinities who looked for ever down above the sound of +prayer--they would smile upon her! + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + + THE FLIGHT + + +For all save one, sleep came early that evening to the house in the +Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods. In her little room Haru lay as stirless as +a sleeping flower. There was no sound save the hushed accents of the +outer night that penetrated the wooden _amado_. + +At length she rose, noiselessly slid the paper _shoji_, and with +infinite care, inch by inch, pushed back the shutters. The moon had +risen and a flood of moonlight came into the room. Stealthily she opened +a wall-closet and selected her best and gayest robe--a holiday _kimono_ +of dim green, with lotos flowers, and an _obi_ of cloth-of-gold, with +chrysanthemums peeping from the weave. By the round mirror on her low +dressing-cabinet, she redressed the coiled ebony butterfly of her hair, +and set a red flower in it. She touched her face with the soft +rice-powder, and added a tint of carmine to the set paleness of her +cheeks. She wrapped in a _furoshiki_ some soberer street clothing, +toilet articles, and a mauve _kimono_ woven with silver camelias, set +the bundle by the opened _amado_ and noiselessly passed into the next +room. + +It was the larger living-apartment. The tiny lamp which burned before +the golden shrine of Kwan-on on the Buddha-shelf cast a wan glimmer over +the spotless alcove, and threw a ghostly light on her finery. Through +the thin paper _shikiri_ she could hear her father's deep breathing, and +in the room in which he slept a little clock chimed eleven. She opened +the door of the shrine and stood looking at the tablet it held--the +_ihai_ of her mother. The _kaimyo_, or soul name, it bore signified +"Moon-Dawn-of-the-Mountain-of-Light-Dwelling-in-the-Mansion-of-Luminous- +Perfume." She rubbed her palms softly together before it and her lips +moved silently. From the golden shadows she seemed suddenly to feel her +mother's hand guiding her childish steps to that place of morning +worship, to see that loving face, as she remembered it, looking down on +her across the rim of years. She bent and passed her hand along the two +swords, one long, one short, that rested on their lacquered rack beneath +the shelf--it was her farewell to her father. + +She had left no message. She could tell no one. If she succeeded, she +would have done her part. If she failed--there was only a blank darkness +in that thought. But she had no agitation now--only a dull ache. + +In her own room she took a book from a drawer and slipped it into her +sleeve, caught up the _furoshiki_, stepped noiselessly to the outer +porch and carefully closed the _amado_ behind her. + +She walked swiftly back to the empty Chapel. The great glass window that +had seemed so beautiful with the light behind it, was now dark and +opaque and dead. Only the cross above the roof in the moonlight looked +as white as snow. She drew the book from her sleeve. It was her Bible, +with her name on the fly-leaf. She unhooked the gold chain about her +neck and slipped off the little enamel cross. She put this between the +leaves of the Bible and laid it on the doorstep. + +A half-hour later she stood before a wistaria-roofed gate in +_Kasumiga-tani Cho_--the "Street-of-the-Misty-Valley"--near Aoyama +parade-ground. The glass lantern above it threw a dim light on a gravel +path twisting through low shrubbery. Down the street she could hear a +dozen students chanting the marching song of Hirosé Chusa, the young war +hero: + + "Though the body die, the spirit dies not. + He who wished to be reborn + Seven times into this world, + For the sake of serving his country, + For the sake of requiting the Imperial Favor-- + Has he really died?" + +Haru opened the gate. Cherry-petals were sifting down like rosy +snowflakes over the scarlet trembling of _nanten_ bushes. A little way +inside was a graceful house entrance half-shaded by a trailing vine. The +_amado_ were not closed, the _shoji_ were brilliantly lighted. + +With a little sob she unfastened the golden _obi_, rewound and tied it +with the knot in front. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV + + ON THE KNEES OF DELILAH + + +The room where Phil sat was softly bright with _andon_, through whose +thin paper sides the candle-light filtered tranquilly. + +It had been furnished in a plain, half-foreign fashion; a book-rack and +a French mahogany desk sat in a corner, an ormolu clock ticked on its +top, and beside it was a lounge piled with volumes from the shelves. On +a bracket sat three small carvings in dark wood, replicas of the famous +monkeys of the great Jingoro the Left-Handed, preserved in Iyeyasu +temple at Nikko. With their paws one covered his eyes, another his ears, +the third his mouth, representing the "I see not--I hear not--I tell +not" of the ancient wisdom. + +The place, however, to which these had given a suggestion of quaint and +extraordinary art, was now touched with a certain tawdriness. It would +have affected a Japanese almost to nausea. The severity of beauty of its +etched and paneled walls, the plain elegance of its satinwood fittings, +were cheapened with a veneer of vulgarity. A row of picture postcards in +colors was pinned on the wall--the sort the tourist buys for ten _sen_ +on the Ginza, too highly tinted and with much meretricious gilding--and +a photograph hung in a silver-gilt frame of interlocked dragons. It +showed a girl in abbreviated skirts and exaggerated posture; on the +mount was printed: "Miss Cissy Clifford in _Gay Paree_." The air was +full of the sickly-sweetish smell of Turkish cigarettes. The desk was a +confusion of pipes, ivory _nets'ke_, cigarette-boxes and what not, and a +man's cloth cap and a gauntlet were tossed in a corner, beside an open +gold-lacquer box heaped with gloves. + +Phil, however, felt no qualm. The room fitted him as a scabbard fits its +sword. He had discarded his heavier outer clothing and donned a loose, +wide-sleeved robe of cool silk, tied with a crimson cord. + +"Give me the whisky-and-soda," he said to the grizzled servant, in the +vernacular, "and I shan't want you again to-night." + +The bottle the Japanese left at his elbow was becoming Phil's constant +comforter. Alone with his thoughts, he fled to it as the _hashish_ eater +to his drug, because it banished his dread and bolstered the courage +that he longed for. To-night, as he sat with the intoxication creeping +like dull fire in his blood, he was thinking of Haru, with her soft +smooth skin, her perfect neck, her lithe, graceful limbs, her eyes that +held caught laughter like moss in amber. + +His thought broke off. He had heard a sound outside. It seemed to be a +light tapping on the grill of the outer door. Could it be Bersonin? Had +anything gone wrong? He went hastily into the anteroom and opened the +grill. + +For an instant he stared unbelievingly at the figure standing there, the +gay _kimono_, the rouged cheeks, the sparkling eyes. He took a step +forward. + +"Haru! Is it really you, little girl?" he cried. + +She laughed--a high, clear, flute-like note. "Such an astonish!" she +said. "You not know my _mus'_ come ... after ... after those kiss? Can I +not to come in, Phil-lip?" + +With a laugh that echoed her own--but one of ringing triumph--he caught +her hand, drew her into the lighted room and closed the _shoji_. His +look flamed over her. + +"I couldn't believe my eyes!" he cried. "I don't half believe them yet! +Why, your hands are as cold as ice. We'll have a drink, eh!" + +He went into an outer room, came back with a bottle of champagne and +knocked off its neck against the mantel. + +"Yes, yes!" she said. "My mus' drink--so to be gay, Phil-lip!" She drank +the bubbling liquor at a draft. "What are the use of to be good? _Né?_" + +"You're right, little girl! The pious people are the dull ones!" He came +to her unsteadily--he had noticed the reversed _obi_. "So you'll train +with me, eh? Well, we'll show them a trick or two! How would you like to +have plenty of money, Haru--as much as you can count on a _soroban_? +Would you think a lot more of me if I got it for you?" + +"You so--much clever!" she laughed. "No all same Japan man. He ve-ree +stupid! My think you mos' bes' clever man in these whole worl', to goin' +find so much money--_né?_" + +With a savage elation he drew her close in his arms. The great spiral of +her headdress drooped under his caresses, and the blue-black hair fell +all about the white face. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV + + WHEN A WOMAN DREAMS + + +Riding with Patricia in the big victoria next day, its red-striped +runner diving ahead, Barbara forgot her vague wonder at Haru's +disappearance, as she felt the enchanted mystery of Tokyo creep further +into her heart. They threaded the softly dreaming silence of the +willow-bordered moat that clasps the Imperial grounds with a girdle of +cloudy emerald, where the "Dragon Pines" of the great _Shogun Iyemits_ +fling their craggy masses of olive-green down over the leaning walls to +kiss the mirroring water--past many-roofed, Tartar-like watch-towers, +cream-white on the blue, and through little parks with forests of thin +straight-boled trees and placid lotos ponds seething with the +dagger-blue flashings of dragon-flies, all woven together into a +tapestry, lovely, remote, fantastic--like the projection of some +dream-legend whose people lived a fairy story in a picture-book world. + +On this oriental background continually appeared quaint touches of the +foreign and bizarre: a huge American straw hat, much befrilled and +befeathered, on the head of a baby strapped to its mother's back, or a +hideous boa of chenille like bunched caterpillars marring the delicate +native neckwear of an exquisite _kimono_. + +On the slope of a hill they came on a motley crowd, which included a +sprinkling of foreigners, gathered before the entrance of a temple yard, +where a rough, improvised amphitheater had been erected. Patricia called +to the driver, and he pulled up. + +"Fire-walk," said the _betto_. "Ontaké temple." + +From their elevated seat they could see white-robed and barefooted +priests waving long-handled fans and wands topped with shaggy paper +tassels over an area of red-hot cinders. Presently some of them strode +calmly across the smoking mass. + +"They call that the 'Miracle of Kudan Hill,'" said Patricia. "They are +making incantations to the god of water to come and drive out the god of +fire. It's a _Shinto_ rite." + +A laugh rose from the spectators. The High Priest was inviting the +foreigners to attempt the ordeal. + +"Look!" said Patricia. "There is the man who got the free lecture out of +your uncle on the train--the man with the white waistcoat and the red +beard. And there's 'Martha,' too. I do believe she's going to try it!" + +She was. Undeterred by the misgivings of the rest, the lady of the +painted muslin calmly divested herself of shoes and stockings and +marched across and back again. "There!" she said triumphantly. "I said I +would, and I _did_! It may be a miracle, but my feet are simply +_frying_!" + +The carriage rolled on across a section of busy trade. From a side +street came the brassy blare of a phonograph. + +"What a baffling combination it is!" said Barbara. "Last night some of +those people were at Mukojima, listening to dead little drums and +squealing fifes, and to-night here is Damrosch and the _Intermezzo_." + +"The other day when I passed," said Patricia, "it was _Waltz Me Around +Again, Willie_, and forty children were prancing to it. Martha's husband +is 'in' phonographs, by the way. She told me all about it at the Review. +He's making a set of Japanese records--_geisha_ songs and native +orchestra pieces and even street-noises--to copyright at home." + +Presently the horses stopped before a great gate of unpainted cedar, +roofed with black and white tiles and bossed with nails of hammered +copper. Above it two pine-trees writhed like a Doré print. "One of the +Empress' ladies-in-waiting lives here," Patricia said. "I'll walk home +and on the way I can leave some 'call-tickets'--Tucker's name for +visiting-cards. Give my love to the bishop." + +She looked wistfully after Barbara as the latter bowled away toward +Ts'kiji and her uncle's. Under her flyaway spirits Patricia had the +warmest little heart in the world, loyal to its last beat to those she +liked. Daunt was decidedly in this category. Like the rest, she had been +weaving a cheerful little romance for these two friends. Since the +evening at the Cherry-Moon, however, when the newly arrived yacht had +been talked of, she had had misgivings. Yesterday, too, Barbara, while +confiding nothing, had told her of Austen Ware's coming. Patricia walked +up the driveway slowly and with a puzzled frown. + +But the girl driving on under cherry-stained sky and cherry-scented +winds, knew, that one hour, no problems. She was full of the flame and +pulse of youth, of a new nascent tenderness and a warm sense of loving +all the world. She asked herself if she could really be the poised, +self-contained girl who a few weeks ago sailed for the Orient. Some +magic alchemy had transmuted all her elements. New emotions dominated +her, and through the beauty before her gaze went flashing more beautiful +thoughts that linked with the future. + +In her pocket was a letter. It had been brought to her that morning when +she woke and she had read it over and over, kneeling in the drift of +pillows, her red-gold hair draping her white shoulders, thrilling, +murmuring little inarticulate answers to its phrases, looking up now and +then to peer through the bamboo _sudaré_ to the white and green cottage +across the lawn. He would not see her to-day--until evening. Then he +would ask her.... + +As the carriage bore her on, she whispered again and again one of the +sentences he had written: "There has never been another woman to me, +Barbara. There never will be! My Lady of the Many-Colored Fires!" + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI + + BEHIND THE SHIKIRI + + +Mr. Y. Nakajima, the almond-eyed guide of gold-filled teeth, came to the +end of his elaborate conversation. He turned from the old servant, +leaning on his pruning knife, and spoke to the man who stood waiting +outside the wistaria-gate in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley. + +"He say Mr. Philip Ware stay here," he announced, "but house is +ownerships of his friend, Mr. Daunt, of America Embassy. He regret sadly +that no one are not at home." + +Ware reflected. Daunt's house? He lived in the Embassy compound--so they +had said at dinner last night. Why should he maintain this native house +in another quarter of Tokyo? There came to his mind that hackneyed +phrase "the custom of the country," the foreigner's specious +justification of the modern "Madame Butterfly." In this interminable +city, with its labyrinthine mazes, who could tell what this or that gray +roof might shelter? Was this a nook enisled, for pretty Japanese +romances "under the rose"? He had loaned it to Phil--they were friends. + +Ware struck his stick hard against the hedge. He scarcely knew what +thought had entered his mind, so nebulous was it, so indefinable. If he +had thought to use this discovery, he knew no way; if it was Daunt's +covert, here was Phil in possession. + +"Ask him if he has any idea where he is." + +The guide translated. The servant was ignobly unacquainted, as yet, with +the _danna-San's_ illustrious habits. He arrogantly presumed to suggest +that he might augustly be in any one of a hundred esteemed spots. + +Ware thought a moment, frowningly. "Tell him I am Ware-_San's_ brother," +he said then, "and that I have just arrived in Tokyo. I shall wait in +the house till he comes." + +The old man bowed profoundly at the statement of the relationship. He +spoke at some length to the guide. The latter looked at Ware +questioningly but hesitated. + +"Well?" asked the other tartly. + +"He think better please you wait to the hotel." + +Ware struck open the gate with a flare of irritation. "You can go now," +he said to the guide, and disdaining the servant, strode along the +gravel path to the house entrance. + +The old man looked after him with an enigmatic Japanese smile. It was +not his fault if the foreigners (the _kappa_ devour them!) ate dead +beasts and were all quite mad! He tucked up his _kimono_, stacked his +gardening-tools neatly under the hedge, and betook himself across the +street for a smoke and a game of _Go_ with the neighbor's _betto_. + +Under the trailing vine Ware slid back the _shoji_ and entered the +house. + +As he stood looking at the interior his lip curled. He hated the +cheapness and vulgarity to which Phil turned with instinctive liking, +and he had long ago come thoroughly to despise his younger brother and +to relish the whip-hand which the law, with its guardianship, gave him. +The place fitted Phil, from the cigarette odor to the loud photograph in +the dragon-frame and the partly open wall-closet with its significant +array of bottles. It expressed his idea of "a good time!" + +He slid open a _shikiri_. It showed a room, evidently unused, littered +with tools, a dusty table with models of curious wing-like propellers, a +small electric dynamo and a steel-lathe. He opened another, and stood +looking at the room it disclosed with a faint smile. It was scrupulously +clean and orderly, and, in contrast to the outer apartment, had an +atmosphere of delicate refinement. On the wall hung a tiny gilt image of +Kwan-on and below it on an improvised shelf an incense rod was burning +with a clean, pungent odor. At one side was suspended a mosquito-bar of +dark green gauze, and across a low stool was laid a _kimono_, with +silver camelias on a mauve ground. He picked this up and looked at it +curiously, half conscious of a faint perfume that clung to it. + +He shut his teeth. The camelia had always been Barbara's favorite +flower! + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the girl thus incongruously in his thought had felt a +gray shadow across her sunshine. She found her uncle greatly +perplexed and troubled. Haru's Bible, found on the Chapel doorstep, +had been brought to him that morning. He had sent at once to the +Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods and the messenger had returned with news of +her disappearance. The fact that she had taken clothing with her showed +that the flight was a deliberate one. + +It pained him to think what the return of the book and the little cross +might mean. In his long residence in Japan the bishop had grown +accustomed to strange _dénouements_, to flashing revelations of subtle +deeps in oriental character. But save for one instance of many years +ago--which the sight of Barbara must always recall to him--he had never +been more saddened than by to-day's disclosure. What he told her had +left Barbara with an uneasy apprehension. She drove away pondering. The +anxious speculation blurred the glamour of the afternoon. + +The homeward course took her through Aoyama, by unfrequented streets of +pleasant, suburban-like gardens and small houses with roofs of fluted +tile as softly gray as silk. Here and there a bean-curd peddler droned +his cry of "_To-o-fu! To-o-fu-u!_" and under a spreading _kiri_ tree a +blind beggar squatted, playing a flute through his nostrils, while his +wife, also blind and with a beady-eyed baby strapped to her back, +twanged a _samisen_ beside him. In the road groups of little girls were +playing games with much clapping of hands and shouting in shrill voices. + +In one of the cross-streets a dozen coolies strode, carrying flaming +white banners painted in red idiographs. The last bore a huge +_papier-maché_ bottle--an advertisement of a popular brand of beer. A +brass band of four pieces, discoursing hideously tuneless sounds, led +them, and between band and banners stalked a grotesquely clad figure on +stilts ten feet tall, the shafts pantalooned so that his legs seemed to +have been drawn out like India-rubber. The spidery pedestrian was +followed by a score of staring children of all ages and sizes. + +Suddenly Barbara rose to her feet in the carriage. She had seen a girl +emerge from a small temple and turn into a side street. + +"Fast! Drive fast, Taka," she called quickly. "The street to the left!" +He obeyed, but a _soba-ya_ had halted his shining copper cart of +steaming buckwheat, and momentarily delayed them. + +The hastening figure was farther away when they rounded the turning. +Barbara clasped her hands together. "It _was_ Haru! It _was_ Haru! I am +_sure_!" she whispered. + +The girl slipped through a gateway hung with wistaria. As Barbara sprang +to the ground she was hurrying through the garden. + +"Haru!" But the flying figure did not seem to hear the call. + +Barbara ran quickly after her along the gravel path. + + * * * * * + +In the house, Austen Ware, standing with the _kimono_ in his hand, had +heard the rumble of carriage wheels. He had left the outer _shoji_ open, +and through the aperture he saw the slim form hastening toward the +doorway. An exclamation broke from his lips. Behind her, just entering +the gate, was Barbara! + +For a breath he stared. A cool, thriving suspicion--one bred of his +anger and humiliation, that shamed his manhood--ran through him. +Barbara, _there_? Was it another _rendezvous_, then? The fierce, +self-dishonoring doubt merged into the mad jealousy that already burned +him like a brand. + +He dropped the _kimono_, drew back the _shikiri_ of the unused +apartment, and stepped inside. + +Swiftly and noiselessly the light partition slipped into place behind +him. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII + + [Japanese: Donto] + + +Through the thin paper pane, parted by his moistened finger, Ware's hot, +hollow eyes saw the Japanese girl come into the room. She had not waited +to shut the _shoji_ behind her. She drew quick sobbing breaths and her +eyes had the desperate look of a hunted animal. She ran into the +sleeping apartment and closed its _shikiri_. + +Barbara had halted at the doorway. As she stood looking in, her eyes +fell on the mauve _kimono_ with its silver camelias. It was the robe +Haru had worn the first evening she came to her. If she had doubted, all +doubt was now gone. An instant she hesitated, then, with sudden +resolution, knocked on the grill and stepped across the threshold. + +The man who watched could not solve the puzzle, but in that instant the +sick suspicion he had harbored became a cold and lifeless thing in his +breast. A sense of shame rushed through him as he saw her gaze wander +about the interior with its veneer of the foreign: to the disordered +desk--the lounge and its litter of books--the photograph on the +wall--the open panel with its champagne bottles. In her glance distaste +had grown to a quick question. The coarse suggestions of the place were +welling over her. Whose house was this? Had Haru seen her and was she +hiding from her? + +Suddenly she saw the man's cap and gauntlet in the corner. Her cheeks +rushed into flame. She seemed to see Haru's innocent face smiling at her +over the throbbing _samisen_ and through its tones to hear again the +echo of a ribald laugh before the gilded cages of the Yoshiwara. +Something in her cried out against the inference. All at once she took +an abrupt step forward. She was looking at the round glass lantern just +outside the doorway, painted with three characters: + + [Japanese: Donto] + +She chilled as if ether had been poured in her veins. The name they +stood for had been her first lesson in Japanese--_which Haru had taught +her_! She snatched up one of the volumes from the chair. It was +Lillienthal's _Conquest of the Air_. She opened it to the title page. + +Ware, watching, saw with surprise that she was trembling violently. She +had grown pale to the lips. The book slipped from her fingers and +crashed on to the _tatamé_. It lay there, open as she had held it, and +he saw what was written across the white leaf. It was Daunt's name. + +His thought leaped as if at the flick of a lash. Daunt's book! What was +she thinking? The piteous pallor that swept her face like an icy wave +answered him. Why she was there--her interest in this Japanese girl who +fled from her--he could not guess. But it was clear that she had not +known the house was Daunt's, and that with the knowledge, she was face +to face with what must seem a damning complicity. Perhaps some hint of +this retreat had come to her--he knew how gossip feathered its +shafts!--some covert allusion, some laughing _oui-dire_, to which her +coming had now given such verity. Phil was the _deus ex machina_ of the +situation. His Japanese _amour_ she was now laying at Daunt's door! All +this flashed through his mind in an instant. He watched her intently. + +Over Barbara was sweeping a hideous chaos of mocking voices, bits of +recollection barbed with agony. The little house near Aoyama +parade-ground--the carriage had passed the great empty plaza a few +moments ago--that he had kept from "sentiment"! The house she had asked +him to show her, when he had evaded the request. And Haru! A feeling of +physical anguish like that of death came to her; a dull pain was in her +temples and the floor seemed to be rising up with her toward the +ceiling. Daunt? He whose lips had lain on hers, whose letter was in her +bosom--it burned her flesh now like a live coal! "There has never been +another woman to me, Barbara. There never will be!" The words seemed to +launch themselves from the air, stinging like fiery javelins. + +Behind the _shikiri_, a weird, malevolent clamor was shouting through +Ware's brain. He stood alone with his temptation. What had he to do with +Daunt, or with her belief in him? She had accepted his own advances, +beckoned him half around the world--for what? To discard him for this +man whom she had known but a handful of days! Chance had arranged this +_mise en scène_. Was he to tell her the truth--and lose her? The key to +the situation was in his hand. He had only to keep silence! + +At that moment he felt crumble down in some crude gulf within the fabric +of his self-esteem--the high-built structure of years. Something colder, +formless and malignant, came to sit on its riven foundations. A savage +elation grew in him. + +Suddenly a _shikiri_ was flung aside. Haru stood there, her face deathly +pale, her hands wrenching and tearing at her sleeves. She laughed, a +high, gasping, unnatural treble. + +"So-o-o, _Ojo-San_! You come make visiting--_né_? The shrill voice rang +through the silent room. "My new house now, an' mos' bes' master. No +more Christian! My bad--oh, ve-ree bad Japan girl!" With another peal of +laughter she pointed to the knot of her _obi_. It was tied in front. + +Barbara ran down the garden path as if pursued. She stepped into the +carriage blindly. The _Fox-Woman_! Votary of the Fox-God, at whose +candle-lighted shrine she had refused tribute! + +This, then, was the end. It came to her like the striking of a great +bell. To-morrow the streets would lie as vivid in the sunlight, the +buglers would march as blithely, the bent pines would wave, the +lotos-pads in the moat glisten, the gorgeous _geisha_ flash by: she +alone would know that the sun had died in the blue heaven! + +"Home, Taka," she said, and leaned back and closed her eyes. + + * * * * * + +Behind her Haru's laughter had broken suddenly. She rushed into the +little sleeping-room and threw herself on the _tatamé_ before the tiny +image of Kwan-on, in a wild burst of sobbing. + +Ware opened the _shikiri_ softly, and with noiseless step, passed out of +the house. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII + + THE LADY OF THE MANY-COLORED FIRES + + +The spacious residence of the Minister of Marine that night was a maze +of light. All social Tokyo would be at the ball in honor of the Admiral +and officers of the visiting Squadron. + +It was late when Daunt turned his steps thither through the fragrant +evening. The deciphering of a voluminous telegram had kept him at the +Chancery till eleven. + +All that day he had worked with a delicious exhilaration rioting in his +pulses. He had not seen Barbara, but her face had seemed always before +him--quiveringly passionate as he had seen it in Ben-ten's cave, hazed +with daring softness as it had turned to his on the steps of the railway +carriage. There had been moments when some aroma of the spring air made +him catch his breath, mindful of the crisp, sweet scent of her hair or +the maddening fragrance of her lips. He thought of "Big" Murray and his +letter, at which he had bridled--how long ago? He understood now what +the complacent old pirate had been talking about! He would have an +epistle to write him to-morrow in return! To-night he was to see her! In +fancy he could feel her slim hand on his sleeve as they danced--could +see himself sitting with her in some dusky alcove sweet with +plum-blossoms--could hear her say ... + +A hoarse warning from a _betto_ and he sprang aside for a carriage that +dashed past through the gateway. He shook himself with a laugh and +walked on through the shrubbery. By day it was a place of mossy shadows, +of shrubberied red-lacquer bridges and glimmering cascades; now its +polished dwarf-pines and twisted cypresses gleamed with red paper +lanterns that hung like goblin fruit and quivered, monster misshapen +gold-fish, in the miniature lake. Along the drives stood policemen, +wearing white trousers and gloves. Each held a paper lantern painted +with the Minister's _mon_ or family crest. Farther on carriages became +thicker, till the approach was a crawling stream of gleaming black +enamel, sweating horses, crackling whips, and shouting _bettos_. Daunt +picked his way among these to where a wide swath of electric light +beneath the porte-cochère struck into high relief a strip of scarlet +carpet. + +The interior was dressed with that marvelous attention to minutiæ and +artistic _ensemble_ that is characteristically Japanese. The great hall +was brilliant _opera bouffe_: a mingling crowd of gold-braided uniforms +crossed by colored cordons and flashing with decorations, white necks +and shoulders rising from dainty French gowns, gleaming lights, Japanese +men in European costume, languorous black eyes under shining Japanese +head-dresses, and silken _kimono_ woven in tints as soft as dreams. In +the large central room opposite was hung a painting of the Emperor. +Japanese who passed it did so reverently. They did not turn their backs. +Some of the older ones bowed low before it and withdrew backward. +Through a doorway came glimpses of couples on a polished floor swaying +to music that swelled and ebbed unceasingly, and down a long vista a +pink dazzle of cherry-blooms under a cloth roof. Over all was the exotic +perfume of flowers. + +Daunt had seen many such affairs where the blending of colors and +sounds, the scintillant shifting of forms, had been but a maze. +To-night's, however, was wound in a glory. All these decorative people, +this scented echo of laughter and music, existed only to form a +kaleidoscopic setting for the one woman. He went to search for her with +his handsome head erect, his shoulders square and a color in his face. + +He passed through several rooms, revealing one oriental picture after +another. In one a series of glass-cases reproduced a _daimyo's_ +procession in Old Japan: hundreds of dolls, six inches high, fashioned +in elaborate detail--coolies with banners; chest-bearers; caparisoned +horses; bullock-carts with huge, black lacquer wheels; _samurai_, +visored and clad in armor, with glittering swords and lances. In another +were cabinets spread with pieces of priceless gold-lacquer that had cost +a lifetime of loving labor. A third the host denominated his +"ghost-room," since it was lined with quaint pottery unearthed in +ancient Korean tombs. These rooms were filled with the social world of +the capital, a gay glimmer of urbanity set off against masses of all the +blossoms of spring. In the last room the host stood with the visiting +Admiral and several Ambassadors. He was a perfect type of the modern +Japanese of affairs, a diplomatist as well as a seasoned Admiral. He had +been at Annapolis in '75 and his wife was a graduate of Wellesley. He +was one of the strongest of the powerful coterie which was shaping the +destinies of new Japan. Daunt greeted him and paused to chat a while +with his own chief and Mrs. Dandridge. Her gown was gray and silver, +with soft old lace that accentuated the youthful contour of her face, +and framed the graciousness and charm that made her marked in however +charming and gracious an assembly. Barbara was not there. + +He entered a veranda where people sat at little tables eating ices +frozen in the shape of Fuji, under fairy lamps whose tiny bamboo and +paper shades were delicately painted with sworls of water and swimming +carp. From one group the Baroness Stroloff waved a hand to him, but +Barbara was not there. Beyond, through a canopied doorway, hung the +cherry-blooms. He paused on the threshold. It was a portion of the +garden walled in with white cloth, and roofed with blue and gold. The +space thus inclosed was set with cherry-trees from whose every gray twig +depended the great pink pendants. It was floored with soft carpeting, in +the center a fountain tinkled coolly, and the roof was dotted with +incandescents. In this retreat the violins of the ball-room wove +dreamily with the talk and laughter, tenuous and ghost-like, soft as the +music of memory. She was not there. Daunt turned back, threaded the hall +and entered the ball-room. + +There, through the shifting crowd, over flashing uniforms and diamonded +tiaras, he saw her. Beside her stood a little countess, one of the noted +court beauties, lotos-pale, bamboo-slender, in a _kimono_ of Danjiro +blue, with woven lilies. In the clear radiance, Barbara stood almost +surrounded. Her white satin gown shimmered in the light, which caught +like globes of fire in the gold passion-flowers with which it was +embroidered. A new sense of her beauty poured over him. She had always +seemed lovely, but now her loveliness was touched with something removed +and spiritual. In the blaze of light she looked as delicately pale as a +moon-dahlia, but a spot of color was on either cheek and her eyes were +very bright. Daunt stood still, feasting his gaze. + +The Baroness Stroloff paused beside him, chatting with the Cabinet +Minister and the representative of the Associated Press. They watched +the forms flit past in the swinging rhythm of the _deux-temps_, _kimono_ +weaving with black coats and uniforms, varnished pumps gliding with +milk-white _tabi_ and velvet pattens. "Pretty tinted creatures," she +said. "How do they ever keep on those little thonged sandals?" + +"Ah, their toes were born to them," the journalist answered. + +The statesman shrugged his shoulders. "Waltzing in _kimono_ with men is +very, very modern for our Japanese ladies," he said. "I myself never saw +it until two years ago--when the American Fleet was here. That +established it as a fashion. Some of us older ones may frown, +but--_shikata-ga-nai!_ 'Way out there is none,' as we say in our +language. It's a part of the process of Westernization!" + +Daunt started when Patricia's fan tapped his arm. + +"You're frightfully late," she said, as her partner, the German +_Chargé_, bowed himself away. "Father will give you a wigging if you +don't look out." + +"I saw him a few moments ago," he answered. "He didn't seem very +fierce." + +"Was he still looking at those spooky curios? I can't see what anybody +wants such things for! I always feel like saying what Mark Twain's man +said when they showed him the mummy: 'If you've got any nice fresh +corpse, trot him out.'" + +Daunt's smile was a mechanism. She knew that he had ceased to listen. As +she looked at his side-face with her clear, kind eyes, a shadow came to +her own. Her loyal heart was troubled. After her drive that afternoon, +Barbara had kept her room on the plea of rest for the evening; she had +not come down to dinner and had appeared only at the moment of starting. +At the first glance, then, Patricia had noticed the change. The Barbara +she had always known, of flashing impulses and girlish graces, was gone; +the Barbara of the evening had seemed suddenly older, of even rarer +beauty, perhaps, but with something of detachment, of unfamiliarity. +Riding beside her to the ball, Patricia had felt, under the eager, +brilliant gaiety, this chilly sense of estrangement, and it had puzzled +her. Later she had come to connect it with the man of whose coming +Barbara had told her, the man with handsome, bearded face who had +seemed, since his greeting in the moment of their entrance, to take +unobtrusive yet assured possession of such of her moments as were not +given to the great. Withal, he had lent this an air of the natural and +habitual which, nicely poised and completely conventional as it was, +seemed to convey a subtle atmosphere of proprietorship. So now, as she +saw Daunt's gaze, Patricia was a little sad. There had fallen a silence +between them which he broke with a sudden exclamation. + +"No wonder!" he said. + +"No wonder what?" + +"That she is a success." + +"Success! I should think so. She's danced with three Ambassadors and +Prince Hojo sat out two numbers with her. Just look at the men around +her now!" + +The music had drifted into a waltz and the group about Barbara was +dissolving. A dark face was bending near. Its owner put his arm about +her and they glided into the throng. Ware, like all heavy men, danced +perfectly and the pair seemed to skim the mirroring floor as easily as +swallows, her red-bronze hair, caught under a web of seed-pearls, +glowing like a net of fire-flies. Heads turned back over white shoulders +and on the edges of the room people whispered as they passed. Floating +lightly as sea-foam, the shimmering gown drew near, passing so close +that Daunt could have touched it. The lovely white face, over her +partner's shoulder, met Daunt's. For a fraction of a second Barbara's +eyes looked into his--then swept by as if he had been empty air. It was +as if a clenched hand had struck him across the face. + +He whitened. Patricia felt a sudden sting in her eyelids. She slipped +her hand through his arm, and saying something about the heat (it was +deliciously cool), drew him down the corridor. She chatted on airily, +fighting a desire to cry. But when they came to the entrance of the +cherry-blooms, he had not spoken a word. + +"I see mother still in the spook room," she said. "I must go back to +her--no, please don't come with me! Thank you so much for bringing me so +far." + +She left him with a nod and a bright smile that he did not see. He was +in a painful quicksand of bewilderment. The cherry-garden was almost +empty and the fountain tinkled in a perfumed quiet. He sat down on a +bench in its farthest corner. What did it mean? Why, it had been like +the cut direct! From her?--impossible! She had not seen him! He had been +mistaken! He would go to her--now! He sprang up. + +A page came into the garden. He was a part of the Minister's +establishment; Daunt had often seen him in that house. He carried a tray +with a letter on it. + +"For you, sir," he said. + +Puzzled, Daunt took it and the boy withdrew. It bore no address. He tore +it open. It contained some folded sheets of paper. A tense whiteness +sprang to his face as he unfolded them. It was his letter--the only +love-letter he had ever written--torn across. + +Now he knew! It had been true--what he had imagined of the yacht! The +cherry-trees seemed to writhe about him, bizarre one-legged dancers +waving pink draperies, and a tide of resentment and grief rose in his +breast as hot as lava. Had she been only playing with him, then? When +she had lain panting in his arms in Ben-ten's cave--when her lips had +quivered to his kisses--had it all been acting? Was this what she really +was, his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires?" He, poor fool! had deemed it +real, when it had been only a week's amusement. He had almost guessed +the truth that night at the tea-house, and how cleverly she had fooled +him! His jarring laugh rang out across the tinkle of the fountain. Then, +Austen Ware's telegram! It was he who had danced with her to-night, no +doubt--Phil's brother. For her the little play was over. The curtain had +to be rung down, and this was how she did it. + +Dim thoughts like these went flitting through the gap of his racked +senses. He dropped on the bench and bowed his head between his hands. It +had been real enough to him. Painted on his closed eyelids he seemed to +see, with a chill, numb certainty, his future unrolling like a gray +panorama, incoherent and unwhole, its colors lack-luster, its purpose +denied, its meaning missed. Pain lifted its snake-head from the shadows +and hissed in his ear, like the jubilant serpent that coiled its bright +length by the gate of Eden when the flaming sword drove forth the first +man to the desert of despair. + +Daunt did not know that Patricia, pausing in the corridor, had seen the +letter delivered and opened. She went back to her mother with a slow +step. + +"You look worn, dear," said Mrs. Dandridge, as they entered the +ball-room. "Are you tired?" + +"Yes," she said. "I think I won't dance any more, mother." + +The host had entered before them and now stood at the end of the room +with the Admiral of the Squadron and the Ambassador of the latter's +nation. Suddenly a young man pushed hastily through the press. He handed +his chief a telegram. The Ambassador scanned it, changed color, and held +it out to the Admiral with shaking hand. The Secretary who had brought +it said something to the Foreign Minister, who turned instantly to give +a quick order to a servant. The orchestra stopped with a crash. + +There was a dead hush over the brilliant room-full, broken only by the +movement of the Squadron's officers as they came hurriedly forward +beside their Admiral. All looked at the white-haired diplomatist who +stood, his eyes full of tears, the pink telegram in his hand. + +He addressed the grave group of naval men. "Gentlemen," he said, in a +low voice, "I have the great grief to announce the sudden death to-day +of His Majesty, the King." + +He bowed to his host, and, followed by the Admiral and his officers, +left the house. The Ambassadors and Ministers of the other powers, in +order of their precedence, each with his glittering staff and their +ladies about him, followed. The gaiety was over; it had ceased at the +far-away echo of a nation's bells, tolling half a world away. + + * * * * * + +The great house was almost emptied of its guests when the solitary +figure that had sat in the cherry-garden passed out along the deserted +corridors. Daunt went utterly oblivious that its bright pageantry had +departed. A feverish color was in his cheek and his eyes were dulled +with a painful apathy. + +Count Voynich was lighting a cigarette in the cloak room as he entered. +"_Sic transit!_" he said. "This calls a quick halt on the plans of the +Squadron's entertainment, doesn't it!" + +There was no answer. Daunt was fumbling, from habit, for the lettered +disk of wood in his pocket. + +"If the King could have lived a few weeks longer," said Voynich, "we'd +have heard no more talk of trouble with Japan. He was a great +peacemaker. The new regent may be less circumspect. What do you think?" + +No reply. He spoke again sharply. + +"I say, Miss Fairfax seems to be making a tremendous walkover, eh?" + +There was only silence. Daunt did not hear him. Voynich looked at his +face, whistled softly under his breath, and went quietly away. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX + + THE HEART OF BARBARA + + +The Ambassador, standing by the mantel, looked thoughtfully at his wife. +She sat in a big wicker chair, in a soft dressing-gown, her hands +clasped over one knee in a pose very pretty and girlish. + +"Come!" he said good-humoredly. "You women are always imagining romances +and broken hearts. Why, Barbara and Daunt haven't known each other long +enough to fall in love." + +She looked at him quizzically. "Do you remember how long we had known +each other when you--" + +"Pshaw!" he retorted. "That's just like a woman. She never can argue +without coming to personalities. Besides, there never was another girl +like you, my dear--I couldn't afford to take any chances." + +"Away with your blarney, Ned! You know I'm right, though you won't admit +it." + +"Of course I won't. Daunt's not a woman's man. He never was. He's been +getting along pretty well with Barbara, no doubt. But this man she's +going to marry she's known for a year. The bishop told me about him the +day after they landed. He thought she was practically engaged to him +then." + +"'Practically!'" she commented with gentle scorn. "Are girls who have +been properly brought up ever 'practically' engaged, and not fully so? +She may have expected to marry him, and yet if I ever saw a girl in +love--and, oh, Ned, remember that I understand what that means!--she was +in love with Daunt yesterday. We women see more than men and feel more. +Patsy saw it too. She's feeling badly about it, poor child, I think." + +"Nonsense!" the ambassador sniffed. "There isn't a shred of evidence. +Barbara's not a flirt in the first place, and, if she were, Daunt can +take care of himself." + +"He came to your study, didn't he, after the ball? I thought I heard his +voice in the hall." + +"Yes," he answered. + +"How did he look?" + +"Well," he said hesitatingly, "he was a bit off color, I thought. I told +him to take a few days off and run up to Chuzenji." + +"Is he going?" + +"Yes. He's leaving early in the morning. But don't get it into your +sympathetic little head that it has the slightest thing to do with +Barbara. The idea's quite absurd. He's never thought of such a thing as +falling in love with her!" + +"Don't you think a woman _knows_ about these things?" + +"When she's told. And Barbara has told you, hasn't she?" + +"That she is going to marry Mr. Ware. Yes." + +"Well, what more do you want?" + +She shook her head. "Only for her to be happy!" she said tremulously. +"I've never known a girl who has grown so into my heart, Ned. I feel +almost as though she were Patsy's sister. She has no mother of her +own--no one to advise her. And yet--I--somehow I couldn't talk about it +to her. I _tried_. She doesn't want to. It seemed almost as if she were +afraid." + +"Afraid?" + +"Of doing something else. As if she were going into this marriage as a +refuge. I don't know just why I felt that, but I did. She was so very +pale, so very quiet and contained. It didn't seem quite natural. It made +me think of Pamela Langham. You remember her? She was in love with a man +who--well, whom she found she couldn't marry. He wasn't the right sort. +I suppose she was afraid she would marry him anyway if she waited. So +she married another man at once--a man who had been in love with her for +years. We were just the same age and she told me all about it at the +time. To-night when Barbara told me she had promised to marry this Mr. +Ware--and soon, Ned!--I seemed to see poor little dead Pamela looking at +me with her pale face and big, deep eyes." + +She turned her head and furtively wiped her eyes. "If I could only be +sure!" she said. "But I think how I should feel--if it were Patsy, Ned!" + + * * * * * + +And while they talked, Barbara lay in her blue-and-white room, wide-eyed +in the dark. The smiling, ball-room mask had slipped from her face and +left it strained and white. She had drawn the curtain and shut out the +misty glory of the garden--and the small white cottage across the +scented lawn. + +In those few agonized hours of the afternoon, while she had lain there +thrilling with suffering, something deep within her had seemed to +fail--as though a newly-lighted flame, white and pure, had fallen and +died. Where it had gleamed remained only a painful twilight. It had been +a different Barbara that had emerged. The fairest fabric of those +Japanese days had crashed into the dust, and in the echo of its fall she +stood anchorless, in terror of herself and of the future. The harbor of +convention alone seemed to offer safety--and at the harbor entrance +waited Austen Ware. At the ball the die had been cast. + +Outside the window she could hear the rasp of the pine-branches and the +sleepy "korup! korup!" of a pigeon. A tiny night-lamp was on the stand +beside her. Its gleam lit vaguely the golden Buddha on the Sendai chest. +Its face now seemed cold and blank and cruel, and in its dim light, on +the shadowy wall, sharp detached pictures etched themselves. She saw +herself looking at Austen Ware's yacht, set in that wonderful, warm, +orient bay--a swift, white monitor, watching her! She saw a yellow rank +of convicts filing into the yawning mouth of Shimbashi Station--like the +long, drab years of savorless lives! She saw the great white plaster +figure over the entrance-arch of the Yoshiwara--beckoning to hollow +smiles that covered empty hearts! + +Over the thronging pictures grew another--a misty, nightgowned little +figure who stood by her, whispering her name. Patricia, after sleepless +hours, crept from her bed to Barbara's room, longing for some assurance, +she knew not what, some breath of the old girlish confidences to melt +the ice that seemed to have congealed between them. And Barbara, with +the first phantom of softened feeling she had known that night, took the +other into her arms. + +But it was she who comforted, whispering words that she knew were empty, +caressing the younger girl with a touch that held no tremor, no hint of +those anguished visions that had floated through the leaden silences of +her soul. + +Till at last, Patricia, half-reassured, smiled and fell asleep; while +Barbara, her loose gold hair drifting across the pillow, her bare arm +nestling the dark, braided head beside her, lay stirless, staring into +the shadows, where the pale glimmer of the Buddha floated, a ghostly +_chiaroscuro_. + + + + + CHAPTER XL + + THE SHADOW OF A TO-MORROW + + +Nikko's thin street, with its gigantic isle of cryptomeria, was a +shimmer of gold, a flicker of crimson and mandarin-blue. All the town +was out of doors, for it was the _matsuri_, the local festival of +Ieyasu, the great _shogun_ deity, when the ancient furniture and +treasures of the temple are carried in priestly processional through the +streets. The path of the pageant was lined with spectators: old +country-women with shaven eyebrows and burnished, blackened teeth, and +with hair tightly plastered in old-fashioned wheels and pinions; +children in kaleidoscopic dress, frantically dragged by older girls with +pink paper flowers in their stiff black hair; men sitting sedately on +sober-colored _f'ton_, bowing to pedestrian acquaintances with elaborate +and stereotyped ceremony. In the moldy shade above a grim, wizened row +of images of the god of justice, was nailed a sign-board: "Everybody are +require not to broke the trees." Beside the moss-covered replicas a +booth had been erected for foreign spectators. It was crowded with +tourists--a bank of perspiring, fan-fluttering humanity. Up and down +trudged post-card sellers, and _saké_ bearers with trays of shallow, +lacquer cups. The air shimmered with a fine white dust from the +thousands of wooden clogs, and the trees were sibilant with the tumult +of the _semi_. + +The procession seemed interminable. Priests rode on horseback, clothed +in black gauze robes with stoles of gold brocade and queer, winged hats. +Acolytes marched afoot in green or yellow with stoles of black, like +huge parti-colored beetles. Groups of bearers in white _houri_ carried +brass altar furniture, great drums fantastically painted, ancient +chain-armor and tall banners of every tint. The center of interest was a +sacred _mikoshi_, or palanquin, holding the divine symbols, elaborately +carved and gold-lacquered, borne by sixty men in white, with cloths of +like hue bound turban-wise about their foreheads. Around these circled +drum-beaters and pipe-players, making an indescribable medley of sounds. +The god entered into his devotees. The palanquin tossed like the waves +of the sea. The bearers howled and chanted gutturally. Sweat poured from +their faces. Some of them smiled and danced as they staggered on under +the immense bearing-poles. + +Austen Ware saw the strain on Barbara's face. "You are tired," he said. +"Let us go back to the hotel." + +"Where is Patsy?" she asked. + +"She went with the bishop to see the priestesses dance at the temple. +But we can skip that." + +He drew her out of the crowd and they walked slowly down a side street +to the road that skirts the brawling Alpine torrent, rushing between its +steep stone banks. Here the spray filled the air with a cool mist and +the westerning sun tied the seething water with silver tasseling. +Caravans of panier-laden Chinese ponies passed them, led by women in +tight blue breeches with sweat-bands about their heads, and squads of +uncomfortable tourists bound to Chuzenji, the summer capital of the +_Corps Diplomatique_, crumpled in sagging red-blanketed chairs hanging +from the bearing-poles of lurching, bronze-muscled coolies. Young +peasant girls trotted by swinging baskets of yellow asters and purple +morning-glories. A _rick'sha_ carried a baby with gay-colored dolls and +painted cats of _papier-mâché_ tied behind it, on its way to the family +shrine where the toys could be blessed. The _rick'sha_ man was smiling, +but his cough rattled against Barbara's heart. A line of white-robed +Buddhist pilgrims trudged along under mushroom hats, with rosaries +crossed over their breasts and little bells tinkling at their girdles on +their way to worship the Sun on the sacred mountain of Nantai-Zan. Now +and then the cut-velvet of the hills rolled back to display clumps of +dwellings--the wizard-gray of thatched roofs set in a rippling sea of +leaves--and green flights of worn stone steps, staggering up to weird +old temples where droning priests were ever at prayer. At the bottom of +the road the stream narrowed to a gorge, spanned by the sacred +red-lacquer bridge which no foot save the Emperor's may ever tread. On +the farther side the wooded hills rose in fantastic, top-heavy shapes +like a mad artist's dream. Everywhere they were split and seamed by +landslide, gashed by torrents and typhoon, but covered with a wealth and +splendor of color. Here and there century-old cryptomeria stood like +gray-green bronze pillars, towering over younger forests as straight and +symmetrical as Noah's-ark trees. + +As they walked, Ware chatted of his trip up the China coast--an +interesting recital that took Barbara insensibly out of herself. More +than once he looked at her curiously. Since that fateful hour when he +had stood behind the _shikiri_, he, like Barbara, had gone through much +to look so unflurried. He had known moments of bitterness that were +galling and stinging, and that left behind them a sense of degradation. +But he held to his course. So short-lived a thing as her love for Daunt +must wither! "It will pass," he had told himself, "and she will turn to +me." + +The trip to Nikko had encouraged him. It had been the time of the +bishop's regular spring visit and Barbara had welcomed the opportunity +to leave Tokyo, which was so full of painful memories. Patricia adored +Japan's "Temple Town" and Ware had joined the party there with as little +delay as was seemly. In the three days of the poignant mountain air +Barbara had seemed to Patricia to be more like her old self. She could +not guess the strength of the effort this had cost or the fierceness of +the fight Barbara's pride was making. + +It was sunset when they mounted the steep road to the hotel--a long, +two-storied, modern structure, whose gardens and red balconies gave it a +subtle Japanese flavor. On one side of the building the ground fell in a +precipitous descent to the rocky bed of the river, whose rush made a +restful monotone like wind sighing through linden trees. Behind it the +height rose abruptly, and up its side clambered a twisting path, from +which a light foot-bridge sprang to the upper piazzas. The path led to a +shrine a hundred yards above, set beside an old wisteria tree, musical +with the chirp of the "silver-eye," and fluttering with countless paper +arrows of prayer. Before it were two wooden benches, and from this eyrie +one could look down on the hotel with its graceful balconies, and far +below the tumbling stream with its guarded red-lacquer arch. + +Ware walked with Barbara up the path to the foot-bridge. Near its +entrance a small stand had been placed and on it was a phonograph, its +ungainly trumpet pointing down toward the stretch of lawn. A heavy +red-bearded man, in a warm frock-coat, a white waistcoast and a silk hat +pushed far back on his head, was laboring over this, and a plump lady +stood near-by, fanning her beaming face with a pocket-handkerchief. + +They greeted Barbara heartily. + +"Good afternoon," said the husband. "You can't guess what me and Martha +are up to, can you?" + +"The _samisen_ concert to-night?" she hazarded. + +"Right!" he said. "First crack out of the box, too! I'm going to take a +record of it." He tapped the cylinder. "This is a composition of my own. +I leave it out here all night to harden, and then I give it a three +days' acid bath that makes it as hard as steel. It'll last for ever. Now +what do you suppose I'm going to do with the record? I'm going to give +it to you." + +The lady beside him nodded and smiled. "He's been planning it ever since +he heard you say the other day that you liked _samisen_ music," she +said. + +"You see," he went on with a laugh. "I haven't forgotten that line of +talk your uncle gave me on the train, my first day in Japland. It did me +a lot of good. I guess what he doesn't know about it isn't worth +telling," he added with a glance at Ware. + +"He is an authority, of course," said Ware. + +"Well, I'm an authority, too--on phonographs. And if you'd accept this, +Miss Fairfax--" + +"I shall be _delighted_!" said Barbara warmly. "I shall value it very, +very highly." + +She smiled back at them over her shoulder. The frank, honest kindliness +of the couple pleased her. + +The piazza opened into a small sitting-room with cool bamboo chairs and +portières of thin green silk stenciled with maple-leaves. + +"Will you wait a moment, Barbara?" asked Ware. "I have something to show +you." + +She stopped, looking at him with a trace of confusion. "Certainly," she +answered. "What is it?" + +He put a folded paper into her hands. "To-day is the anniversary of our +meeting," he said. "This is a memento." + +She took it with a puzzled look and scrutinized it. Wonder filled her +face. "You have made over your yacht to me!" she cried. + +"My engagement gift," he said. "She is your namesake; I want her to be +yours." + +A flush crept over her cheek. She knew the yacht was his favorite +possession and the action touched her. At the same time it brought +swiftly home to her, in a concrete way, a numbing reminder of the +imminence of her marriage. + +"The deed has been recorded," he went on, "and the sailing-master and +crew have signed articles under the new owner. Perhaps you will let me +come aboard of her to hear that _samisen_ record," he added whimsically. +"There's a phonograph in her outfit." + +She smiled, a little tremulously. "You are most kind, Austen," she said. +"I--I don't know what to say." + +"Then say nothing," he answered cheerfully. He stepped to the door and +drew aside the portière. She was agitated, feeling unable to meet the +situation in the conventional way. At the threshold she paused and held +out her hand. + +He bent and kissed it. She half-hesitated, but in the pause there was a +laughing voice and a footstep in the hall. + +"It's Patsy," she said, and passed quickly out. + +As Ware walked back across the foot-bridge, the proprietor of the +phonograph called to him. + +"I clean forgot to ask the young lady where to send this record," he +said. "Do you know her address?" + +"It will be more or less uncertain, I fancy," said Ware. "But her yacht +is in Yokohama harbor. It is named the _Barbara_. You might send it +there." + + + + + CHAPTER XLI + + UNFORGOT + + +The sharp sense of imminence which had come to Barbara with Austen +Ware's gift remained with her that evening. The dinner was none too +merry. For the first time Patricia had failed to be enthused over the +Nikko _matsuri_, and the bishop, since Haru's disappearance, had lacked +his usual sallies. Barbara had told him nothing of her visit to the +house in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley; to speak of it would probe her +own wound too deeply. + +The after-dinner piazza exhaled the bouquet of evening cigars and the +chatter of tourists. Far below, across the gorge, lights twinkled in +native doorways and _shoji_ glimmered like oblong yellow lanterns. The +air was heavy with balsam odors, and beneath the trees, sparkling now +with incandescents, tiny black moths had replaced the sunlight flashing +dragon-flies. Sitting in a semicircle on straw mats the _samisen_ +players at length mingled their _outré_, twittering cadences with the +soft thunder of the water. + +As the musicians finished their last number and trooped away, Patricia +yawned and rose. "Here," she observed, "is where little Patsy puts her +face and hands to bed. This mountain air is perfectly demoralizing!" The +two girls went up-stairs together. + +At her own room Patsy put her arms around the other and kissed her. "Oh, +I wonder if you're _sure_!" she said. Then she fled inside. + +Barbara threw open the window of her room and drew a low stool to the +balcony. "I wonder!" she said aloud. With elbows on the railing and chin +in hands, she looked long and earnestly into the dark void. Why was she +no longer able to warm to all this beauty and meaning? These cryptomeria +shadows, dreaming of the faded splendors of a feudal past--the streets +along which legions of pilgrims had walked muttering prayers to their +gods--the marvelous lacquered temples of red and gold, wrought by +patient love of long dead yesterdays, in handiwork to which time had +given a softened glory such as those who dreamed them never saw--the +heavenly soaring of pagoda doves against the peach-blow sky--the shrines +worn with their centuries of worship and dancing and booming bells! +Forgetting--and remembering no more--would that be a soul-task too hard +for her? Was all that had been instinct with wonder and joy to be +henceforth but emptiness and desolation--because an ideal had gone from +her for ever? She thought of the belled and rosaried pilgrims climbing +Nantai-Zan. She seemed to see the faint, far glimmer of their lanterns. +Beyond that pilgrimage over dark crags and grim precipices lay for them +the sunrise of hope! + +In the room behind her hung one of the famous prints of Hiroshige, the +great Japanese master--a group of peasants crossing the long skeleton +bridge of Enoshima. She thought of this now, and suddenly all the spot +had meant to her welled over her. She saw again the enchanted +Island--the long shaded stairways of gray stone, the brown-legged girls +gathering seaweed, and beyond the old seawall the gulls calling to their +mates. She saw the generations of lovers pass one by one before +Ben-ten's altar, murmuring their hearts' desire. Daunt's arms seemed to +be again around her. She felt his kisses, heard his voice as they walked +under the singing trees--walked and dreamed and forgot that pain was +ever born into the world. + +She started. A horse was coming up the hill, his hoofs thudding softly +in the loose shale. The rider dismounted at the porch. A moment later, +crop in hand, he passed beneath her window. The light fell on his face. +Barbara's heart bounded and then stood still, for she recognized him. + +"There has never been another woman to me, Barbara!" Mocking voices +seemed to shout it satirically from the emptiness, and against the dark +Haru's face rose up before her. + +She shivered. She went in and closed the window, drawing down the blind +with a nervous haste. + +But she could not shut out that face, and in spite of herself her +thoughts had their will with her. What was Daunt doing there? Patsy had +said that he was in Chuzenji. But that was only a handful of miles away. +He looked worn and older--he had been suffering, too! She hugged this +knowledge to her heart. He knew, of course, why she had ended it +all--_Haru would have told him_! + +She clenched her hands and began to pace up and down the room, now +stopping to peer with bright miserable eyes into the mirror, now +throwing herself into a chair. Once she put her hand into her bosom, +groping for her father's picture--to withdraw it with an added pang. For +she had forgotten; she had lost the locket the afternoon of her drive +with Patricia. + +A knock came at the door, and a bell-boy handed her a penciled note. + +She read it wonderingly, then, hastily smoothing her hair, went quickly +along the hall to the sitting-room. + +In the dimly lighted room a figure came toward her from the shadow. It +was Philip Ware. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII + + PHIL MAKES AN APPEAL + + +The youth who stood before her now, however, was not the Phil Barbara +had seen at Mukojima. There was no hint of spruce grooming in his +attire; it was overlaid with the dust and grime of the road. The jaunty, +self-satisfied look was ravaged by something cringing, that suggested +sleeplessness and undefined anxiety. Why should he come at such an +hour--and to her? The distaste which her first view of him had inspired +returned with added force as she felt the touch of his hand and heard +herself say: + +"So this is 'Phil.' I have often heard of you from your brother. Have +you seen him?" + +"No," he said. "I don't want him to know I'm here--yet. I--I came to see +you." He paused, twisting his cloth cap in his fingers. + +He was in a desperate strait. His brother's silence since his visit to +the house in Aoyama (of which Phil had learned from the servant) had +seemed to mean the worst. The place had contained sufficient documents +in evidence as to his mode of living, and the reflection opened gloomy +vistas of poverty from which he turned with abject fear and dread. There +was one alternative, and this, a grisly shadow, had stalked beside him +since an evening when he had dined with Bersonin. It had peopled his +sleep with terrifying visions which even Haru and the brandy had been +unable to banish, and his waking hours had been haunted by the expert's +yellowish eyes. Between devil and deep sea, he had heard of his +brother's engagement, and the wild thought of appealing to him through +Barbara had come to him as a forlorn hope. Now, face to face with her, +he found the words difficult to say. + +"Won't you sit down?" she said, and took a chair opposite him, looking +at him inquiringly. + +"I ought to apologize for a rig like this," he went on, glancing at his +sorry raiment, "but I came in a friend's motor, and I'm going back +to-night. I thought you wouldn't mind, now--now that you are engaged to +marry Austen. You are, aren't you?" + +She inclined her head. "Yes," she said slowly, "I have promised to marry +him." + +"Then you know him pretty well, and you know that he--that he doesn't +altogether approve of me." + +"I have never heard him say that," she interrupted quickly. + +"It's true, though," he rejoined bitterly. "He's always been down on me. +I'm not staid enough for him. He made his money by grubbing, and he +thinks everybody else ought to do the same. It's--it's the matter of +money I want to speak to you about." + +He paused again. "Yes?" she said. + +"Since I left college," he went on, "Austen has always made me an +allowance. But I've been out here a year now, and I--well, you know what +the East is. I've had to live as other young fellows do, and I've spent +more than he gives me. I've--played some, too, and then this spring I +got hit hard at the races. It was just a run of bad luck, when I had +expected to square myself." + +He was eager and voluble now. She seemed to be considering--he was +making an impression. He might come out all right after all! His +volatile spirits rose. + +"You see," he said, "Austen never overlooks anything. He's as likely as +not to cut me off entirely and leave me high and dry. I--I thought +perhaps you would--you might get him to do the decent thing and help me +out of the hole. If I once got straight I'd stay so, but I want a fair +allowance. It isn't as if he had to work for what I spend. He ought to +give it to me. I can't go on as I am; I'm in debt--in deep. I can't take +up my _chits_ at the club. I'm living in Tokyo now--in a Japanese house +in Aoyama that a friend has loaned me--because I haven't the face to +show myself in Yokohama!" + +He twirled his cap and looked up at her. "That reminds me," he said, +with a sudden recollection. "Austen was there the other day when I was +away, and afterward I found something of yours which he must have +dropped. Here it is. It has your name on it." He handed her a small +locket with a broken chain. + +She took it with an exclamation. She was staring at him strangely. "This +house you speak of--whose is it?" + +"It belongs to Mr. Daunt." + +"You mean--you say--that you have been living in it?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +She had risen slowly to her feet, her face hotly suffused. "Then--then +Haru--" She spoke in a dry whisper. + +He started, looking at her with quick, resentful suspicion. "What do you +know about Haru?" + +"Never mind! Never mind that! I want to know. Haru--she is--Mr. Daunt +was not--" + +"He never saw her in his life so far as I know," he answered sulkily. +"What has that to do with it?" + +For an instant she looked at him without a word, her fingers working. +Then she began to laugh, in a low tone, wildly, chokingly. "Of course! +Of course! What has that to do with it? What you want is more money, +isn't it! That is all you came to tell me!" + +He, too, was on his feet now, uncertain and mistrustful. Was she making +game of him? He saw Barbara's gaze go past him--to fasten on something +in the background. He turned. In the doorway with its maple-leaf +portière stood Austen Ware. + +Barbara's laugh had fallen in a shuddering breath that was like a sob. +"Here is your brother now," she said. "Austen, Phil and I have been +getting acquainted. And what do you think? He has found my lost locket." +She held it up toward him. + +He had come toward them. In the dim light his face looked very white, +and his eyes glittered like quicksilver. He held out his hand. + +"Why, Phil!" he exclaimed. "This is a great surprise. When did you +arrive, and are you at this hotel?" + +Phil had stood shamefaced. At the tone, however, which seemed an earnest +of renewed favor, he flushed with relief. "I've just come," he +answered--"in a friend's motor, and I must go back at once. But I'll +come up again by train to-morrow, if you'd like me to." + +"Very well," was Ware's reply. "We'll wait till then for our talk. I'll +come and see you off." Neither of the others caught the tense repression +in the tone or realized that his smile was forced and unnatural, as he +added: "We must put a ban on late hours, Barbara, if you are to climb +Nantai-Zan to-morrow." + +She went to the door, her thoughts in a tumult, a wild exhilaration +possessing her. She wanted to laugh and to cry. The black, cold mist +that had enveloped her had broken, and the warm sunlight was looking +again into her heart. + +"Good night, Phil," she said. "Thank you so much for--for bringing me +the locket. You can't guess how much it meant to me!" + +As the silk drapery fell behind her, the self-control dropped from +Austen Ware's face, and a hell of hatred sprang into it. Chance had +given Phil the one card that spelled disaster, and chance had prompted +him to play it. In Barbara's mind Daunt stood absolved! He saw the +castle he had been building tottering to its fall. He turned on his +brother a countenance convulsed with a fury of passion from which Phil +shrank startled. + +"Come," he said in a muffled voice. "We can't talk here." He led the way +through the hall and across the foot-bridge to the hillside, gloomy now, +for the incandescents in the trees had been extinguished. + +Phil followed, his face gone white. A rack stood at the outer door, and +his fingers, slipping along it as he passed, closed on a riding-crop. + +On the shrubberied slope Ware turned. One twitching hand dropped on his +brother's shoulder; the other pointed down the path. + +"Go, damn you!" he said, "and never show your face to me again! Not one +cent shall you have from me! Now nor hereafter--I have taken care of +that!" + +Phil lifted the crop and struck him across the head--two savage, heavy +blows. Ware staggered and fell backward down the steep declivity, his +weight crashing through the bushes with a dull, sickening sound. + +There was a silence in which Phil did not breathe. The stars seemed +suddenly very bright. From an open window came a woman's shrill, +careless laugh, threading the hushed roar of the water below. The +lighted _shoji_ across the river seemed to be drifting nearer. He could +see the glow of a forge in a native smithy, like an angry, red-lidded +eye. The crop fell from his grasp. He leaned over, staring into the +dark. + +"Austen!" he whispered hoarsely. "Austen!" + +There was no response. As he gazed fearfully into the shadow, the rising +moon, peeping through a bank of cloud, deluged the landscape with a +misty gossamer. The light fell on the phonograph. Phil recoiled, for its +long metal trumpet seemed a rigid arm stretched to seize him. With a low +cry he turned and fled. + +He skirted the hill to the hotel stables, where Bersonin's huge +motor-car stood silent. The Japanese chauffeur was curled up in the +tonneau, fast asleep. + +Five minutes later Barbara heard the throb of the great mechanism +speeding down the shadowy cryptomeria road. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIII + + THE SECRET THE RIVER KEPT + + +Daunt had dined cheerlessly in the deserted dining-room. Afterward, +shrinking from the gay piazzas, he had struck off for a long rambling +walk. Only the frail moonlight, glimpsing through a cloudy sky, lay over +the landscape, when, returning, worn but in no mood for sleep, he found +himself at the hill shrine looking down on the white hotel with its long +red balconies, brightened here and there by the lighted window of some +late-retiring guest. + +His few days at Chuzenji had passed in a kind of stifled fever. The +report of Barbara's engagement had added its poisoned barb. That +morning, however, a careless remark had torn across his mood as +sheet-lightning tears the weaving dusk. Tokyo was talking of it--of +_him_!--making a jest of that sweet, dead thing in his heart? The +thought had stung his pride, and there had grown in him a sharp sense of +humiliation at his own cowardice. The afternoon had found him riding +down the mountain trail to Nikko. To-morrow he would go back to +Tokyo--to the round of gaieties that would now be hateful, and to his +work. + +He put out his hand to one of the benches in the deep pine-shadow, but +drew it back with a sharp breath. A sliver of the warped wood had +pierced his knuckle to the bone. + +Frowning, he wrapped the bleeding member in his handkerchief and sat +down at the bench's other end, bitterly absorbed. The vagrant, +intermittent moonlight touched the tumbling water below with creeping +silver, and on the horizon, where the cloud-bank frayed away, one white +constellation swung low, a cluster of lamps in golden chains. But +Daunt's thought had no place for the delicate beauty of the night. His +pipe was long since cold, and he knocked out the dead ashes against the +bench, and did not relight it. He thought of Tokyo, that to-morrow would +stretch so blank and irksome, of the humdrum tedium of the Chancery, in +which a few days ago he had worked so blithely. Then all had been +interest and beauty. Now the future stretched before him dull and +savorless, an arid Desert of Gobi, through whose thirsty waste he must +trudge on for ever to a comfortless goal. + +How long he sat there with bowed head he could not have told, but at +length he rose heavily to his feet As he did so he became aware of a +sound below him--a footfall, coming toward him. It crossed a bar of the +moonlight. + +He shrank, and a tremor ran over him, for it was Barbara. + +She had thrown over her a loose cloak, and a bit of soft, clinging lace +showed between its dark edges. Her brilliant hair was loosely gathered +in a single braid, and in the moonlight it shone like beaten copper +against the vivid pallor of her face. He sat stirless, smitten with +confusion, conscious that a movement must betray him. A painful +embarrassment enveloped him, a fastidious sense of shrinking from her +sight of him. He felt a dull wave of resentment that an antic irony of +circumstance should have brought them beneath the same roof--to make him +seem the moody pursuer, the unwelcome trespasser on her reserve--and +that now thrust him into a position which at any hazard he would have +shunned. But all thought of himself, all feeling save one vanished, +when, with sudden piteous abandon, she threw herself on her knees by the +bench and broke into slow sobs, shuddering and tearless. + +In that outbreak of emotion, were not alone the pent-up pain and +humiliation she had suffered, or the desperate joy of that evening's +knowledge. There were in it, too, grief and compunction, dismay and +doubt of the future. She was engaged to Austen Ware. Would Daunt ever +forgive? Would he want her--now? In the first realization of her error, +wound with the knowledge that he was so near her, she had felt only joy; +but in the silence of her room, shock on shock had come the incredulous +question, the burning revulsion. A while she had lain wide-eyed, but at +length, sleepless, she had stolen out to the balmy, fragrant night, +craving its peace, longing passionately for its soft shadows and the +hovering touch of the mountain's breath on her hair. And in its friendly +shadows the gust of feeling had swept her from her feet. + +The action took Daunt wholly by surprise. The sound tore his heart like +a ruthless talon, and drew a hoarse word from his lips: + +"Barbara!" It was little more than a whisper, but she sprang erect with +a gasp, her breath labored and terror-stricken. + +"I--I beg pardon," he said, with a dry catch in his throat. "Don't be +frightened. I will go at once. I should not have stayed. But you came so +suddenly, and I did not dream--I--" + +"How strange that you should have been here!" She thought he must hear +the loud drumming of her pulse. + +He laughed--a hard, colorless little laugh. "Yes," he answered, "it +seems so." + +A mist blinded her eyes, for his tone carried to her, even more sharply +than had the look she had seen from the balcony, a sense of the pain he +had undergone. In what words could she tell him? + +"You have been suffering," she said in a low voice. "I see that. And it +was my fault." + +He gathered himself together with an effort of will, to still the tingle +that flashed along his nerves. "It was quite sane and right, no doubt," +he said. "When I have learned to be honest enough with myself, I shall +see it so. My mistake was in ever dreaming that I was worth one of your +thoughts or a single second's memory." + +She turned her head abruptly. "Do you hear some one talking? I thought I +heard it as I came up the path--like some one muttering to himself." + +He listened, but there was no sound. + +"I must have imagined it," she said. There was a moment's pause, and +presently she went on: + +"You have been thinking hard things of me. It is natural that you +should. And yet I--whatever you think--whatever you do--that day in the +cave, I was not--was not--" + +"You were nothing you should not have been," he replied rapidly. Her +voice had sent a tremor over him--he felt it with a new wave of the +morning's contempt. "I understand. There is nothing for you to justify, +nothing to regret." + +She shook her head. "_We have left undone those things which we ought to +have done_," she quoted in a low voice, "_and have done those things +which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us_. We all +recite that every Sunday. I have something now to confess to you. Won't +you stand there in the light? I--I want to see your face." + +He stepped slowly into a bar of moonlight. + +"Why," she said, "you have hurt your hand!" She made a quick step toward +him, her eyes on the stained bandage. + +"It is nothing," he said hastily. "I struck it a little while ago. +What--" + +He turned, suddenly alert. A sharp whistle had sounded below them, and +bright points here and there pricked the gloom. "They have turned on the +tree-lights," he said. There was a sound of voices on the path. Some one +ran across the foot-bridge. + +"Something has happened," she said. "What can it be?" + +He made no reply. There had flashed to him a quick realization of the +position in which, unwittingly, they had placed themselves. She must not +be seen at such an hour, in that lonely spot with him! He knew the +canons of the world he lived in! With a hushed word he drew her back +into the shadow. + +The voices were speaking in Japanese, and now he heard them clearly. +"Some one is injured," he told her. "He fell down the hillside, they +think." A hurried step crossed the bridge, and a voice, sharp and +peremptory, asked a question in nervous English. Daunt chilled at the +answer, turning to her, every unselfish instinct alive to spare her. + +But she had heard a name. "It is Mr. Ware who is hurt!" + +He grasped her wrist. "Wait!" he said hurriedly. "I beg you to go by the +upper path to the side door." But she caught away her arm and ran +quickly down the path. + +Daunt sprang up the hill, skirted the building, gained its upper +corridor, now simmering with excitement, and crossed the bridge. Near +its farther end a small group stood about a figure, prostrate beside the +phonograph whose cylinder gleamed in the lantern-light. By it Barbara +was kneeling. + +But something came between her gaze and the pallid face--something which +she saw with the distinctness of a black paper silhouette on a white +ground: a glimmering object, unnoted by the rest, which had lain +half-concealed by a bush--something that one day, a thousand years ago, +had glittered against Daunt's brown hair as he saluted her from his +horse! It was a riding-crop, whose Damascene handle bore the device of a +fox's head. + + * * * * * + +Two hours later the corridors were silent and the bishop and Daunt sat +together in the darkened office, saying few words, both thinking of a +man lying straight and alone--and of a girl in an upper room whose +promise he had taken with him out of the world. Daunt was to leave for +Tokyo on the early morning train. Half the night through he sat there +listening to the moan of the rising weather. + +But a little while before the sky whitened to a rainy dawn, a gray +wraith glided along the upper piazza of the hotel. It crossed the +foot-bridge to the hillside. + +Barbara groped and found the crop. Across the night she seemed to see an +endless procession of stolid, sulphur-colored figures, linked with thin, +rattling chains, filing into the humid, black mouth of a mine. +Shuddering, she swung the stick with all her strength, and threw it from +her down the steep, into the water that roared and tumbled far below. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIV + + THE LAYING OF THE MINE + + +Doctor Bersonin lunched at the Tokyo Club. + +For three days the rain had fallen steadily, in one of those seasons of +torrential downpour which in Japan are generally confined to the typhoon +season and which flood its low-lands, turn its creeks into raging rivers +and play havoc with its bridges. For three days the sky had been a dull +expanse of pearl-gray, and the city a waste of drenched green foliage +and gleaming tile, whose roadways were lines of brown mud with a surface +of thin glue, dotted with glistening umbrellas of oil-paper and bamboo. +Under their trickling eaves the shop-fronts, dark and hollow and +comfortless, had held the red glow of _hibachi_; teamsters had shown +bristling tunics of rice-straw and loads covered with saffron tarpaulin; +_rick'sha_ had reeled past with rubber fronts tightly buttoned against +the slanting spears of rain, and the foreign carriages that dragged by +had borne coachmen swathed to the ears. This morning, however, the rain +had ceased and wind had supervened. + +The Club was cheerful, with a sprinkling of the younger diplomatic set, +Japanese business men and journalists, all men of note. The up-stairs +dining-room was full of talk as the expert arrived and chose a small +table by himself. + +While he waited, the boy brought him one of the English-printed +newspapers, and he cast his eyes over the head-lines. He read: + + SQUADRON'S SAILING ORDERS + + To Leave To-morrow Morning. An + Answer to the Alarmists. + + All Differences Between the Two Governments + to Yield to + Diplomacy. + +On the other side was the caption in smaller type: + + BEAR RAID ON MARKETS + + Mysterious Selling Movement + Causes Uneasiness. + +He read the latter despatch--an Associated Press wire, under a New York +date-line: + + "At noon to-day the bear movement, heretofore regarded as a + natural reaction following an over-advancement, and hence of + purely academic interest, suddenly assumed such proportions as + to make the outlook one of anxiety. It seems significant that + before the Wall Street opening this morning the London market + responded to an attack of the same nature. In an era of + industrial prosperity and general peace such a phenomenon is + alarming, and a serious decline is anticipated in some quarters. + The short sales which were such a factor in to-day's market were + so distributed that it seems impossible to trace them to any + single interest." + +Bersonin's face expressed nothing. He folded the crackling sheet and +laid it to one side. + +Most of the comment about him turned on the departure of the Squadron. +Since the royal death, whose announcement had so abruptly ended the +festivities, the black battle-ships had lain motionless in the bay. The +appointment of a regent of confessedly more positive policy had given +rise to many speculations, and the apostles of calamity had seized the +opportunity to sow the seeds of disquiet. The great world, however, had +as yet given little thought to their prognostications. The bourses had +gone higher and higher. Only in diplomatic circles, where the mercury is +habitually unquiet, had there been perceptible effect. To-day the +comment showed a sub-tone of relief. + +The doctor ate little. He left the _petit verre_ with his coffee +untouched, signed his _chit_ and went down to his automobile. + +"Bersonin must be under the weather," one of the men at another table +observed, as he passed them. "He looks like a putty image." + +"Curious chap," remarked the other. "Got a lot in his head, no doubt. +Some queer stories afloat about him, but I don't suppose there's +anything in them." + +The other lit his cigar reflectively. "I can't somehow 'go' him, +myself," he said. + +Bersonin was whirled to his house, and presently was in his laboratory +with its glass shelves, its books and its wall-safe. A cheerful fire +burned in the grate against the dampness. + +He began to walk restlessly up and down the floor. To-day his government +contract expired and Japan had not asked its renewal. He thought of this +with a sudden recrudescence of the hatred he had nurtured for the +Empire. This had been based on fancied slights, on his failure to +receive a decoration, on the surveillance he had lately imagined had +been kept on his movements. Well, to-morrow would repay all with +interest! There was no hitch in the plan which chance had aided so well. +The Roost was the one house on the Yokohama Bluff that could have served +his purpose, planted on the cliff-edge and in line with the anchorage. +And it had happened to be in the hands of this weak fool for his +cat's-paw! + +His great, cunning brain turned to the future--to that vast career which +his stupendous egotism had painted for himself. His discovery was so +epoch-making, so terrifying in its possibilities to civilization, that +it had nonplussed him. It was too big to handle. He had made the +greatest dynamic engine the world had seen--possibly the greatest it +would ever see--and yet he knew that the Ambassador had laid his finger +on the truth when he had said: "_Humanity would revolt! The man who knew +the secret would be too dangerous to be at large!_" + +But with wealth--wealth enough to buy men and privilege--what might he +not do? It would take time, and scheming, and secrecy, but he had them +all. And the great secret was always his, and his alone! It would make +him more powerful than Emperors, for he who possessed it, with the means +to use it, could laugh at fleets and fortifications. Before the machines +that he should build the greatest steel-clad that was ever floated would +vanish like smoke! He clenched his great hands and his massive frame +quivered. + +"The future, the future!" he said in a low, tense voice. "I shall be +greater than Caesar, greater than Napoleon, for I shall hold the force +that can make and unmake kings! So surely as force rules the world, so +surely shall I, Bersonin, rule the world!" + +A knock came at the door and Phil entered. He was as pale as the doctor +and his clothing was soaked with the rain. Without a word Bersonin +locked the door, wheeled an arm-chair before the blaze, pushed him into +it and mixed him a glass of spirits. Then he stood looking at him. + +"It's all right," said Phil. "The tripod fitted to a hair. It can't be +seen from either side, and I've sent the boy away and locked the house." + +"Good," said Bersonin. "All is ready, then. The mechanism is set for the +moment of daybreak. Our gains will be enormous, for in spite of the +selling the market is up. There has been a little distrust of the +situation here and there, though the optimists have had their way. And +this latent distrust will add to the _débâcle_ when it comes. We are +just in time, for the Squadron has its sailing-orders for to-morrow. +Strange how near we were to failure! Who could have foreseen the death +of the King? And the rains, too. They say it is doubtful if the trains +will run to-morrow." + +Phil's hand, holding the drink, shook and wavered. + +"The damned clock-work in the thing!" he said. "I could hear it all the +way--I thought every one would hear it. I can't get the ticking out of +my brain!" He set down the glass and turned a glittering gaze on the +other. + +"It's worth all that comes from it," he said. "You play me fair! Do you +understand? You'll play me fair, or I'll settle with you!" + +The doctor smiled, a smile of horrible cunning. + +"As you settled with your brother?" he said. + +Phil shrank into the chair speechless, looking at him with trepidation +in his eyes. The shot had gone home. + +"Pshaw!" said Bersonin. "Do you take me for a fool not to guess? Come, +we needn't quarrel. Our interests are the same. Go home, now, to your +Japanese butterfly--and wait!" + + + + + CHAPTER XLV + + THE BISHOP ANSWERS A SUMMONS + + +The Chapel was but sparsely filled. From where she sat, Barbara, through +the open door, could see the willows along the disconsolate roadway +whipping in the fleering dashes of wind. A woman trudged by, +bare-legged, her _kimono_ tucked knee-high, the inevitable, swaddled +baby on her back. The hot, fibrous song of the _semi_ had died to a thin +humming, like bees in an old orchard. Across the bishop's voice she +heard the plaintive call of a huckster, swinging by in slow dogtrot with +panier-pole on shoulder, and the chirr of a singing-frog under the +hedge. + +The service was in the vernacular, and though she tried to follow it in +her _Romaji_ prayer-book--whose words were printed in Roman letters +instead of the Japanese ideograph--the lines were meaningless, and she +could not fasten her mind on them. + +She had reached a point in these few tragical days where her mind, +overwrought with its own pain, had acquired a kind of benumbing +lassitude that was not apathy and yet was far removed from spontaneous +feeling. Daunt's presence that dreadful night on the hillside--his +confusion--his bleeding hand--his round-about return to the hotel--all +this, at the sight of the Damascene crop in the bushes, had flashed to +her mind in damnable sequence. And yet something deep and unfathomed +within her had driven her to the obliteration of that mute evidence. +Austen Ware had slipped and fallen--such was the universal verdict. The +truth was sealed for ever in the urn now bound over-seas to its last +resting-place. She alone, she thought, knew the secret of that Nikko +tragedy. + +With the next daylight the storm had broken and the ensuing gloomy +weather had formed a dismal setting for gloomier scenes, through which +she had moved dully and mechanically. When all was over, to Patricia's +sorrow, she had not returned to the Embassy, but had gone immediately to +her uncle's. The pity offered her--though not openly expressed, since +her engagement had not been formally announced--hurt her like physical +blows, and the quiet of the Ts'kiji rectory was some solace. To-night, +an unwelcome task lay before her. She was to visit the yacht--now, by a +satiric freak of chance, legally her own!--to seal the private papers of +the man whose deed of gift might not now be recalled. + +As she sat listening to the meaningless reading and the sighing of the +wind above the Chapel roof, Barbara's eyes on the stained-glass figure +in the rose-window were full of a wistful loneliness. If her father were +only alive--if he could be near her now! Unconsciously her gaze strayed +across the hedges, to the gray roof of the old temple where lived the +eccentric solitary to whom her thought insistently recurred. In her +trouble she longed to go to him, with a longing the greater because it +seemed fantastic and illogical. She recalled suddenly the quaint +six-year-old of the huge clogs and patched _kimono_--Ishikichi, troubled +over the giving up of the family establishment, puzzling his baby brain +over the hard things of life. + +She was startled by a sound outside--the single, shrill, high scream of +a horse in some stable near at hand. It cut through a pause in the +service, sharp, curdling, like a cry of mortal fear. A baby, near +Barbara, awoke and began to cry and the mother soothed it with whispered +murmurings. + +Suddenly there arose a strange rattling, a groaning of timbers. The +bishop ceased reading. People were rising to their feet. The building +was shifting, swaying, with a sickening upward vibration, as though it +were being trotted on some Brobdingnagian knee. Barbara felt a qualm +like the first touch of _mal de mer_. "_Ji-shin! Ji-shin!_" rose the +cry, and there was a rush for the open air. In another moment she found +herself out of doors with the frightened crowd. + +It was her first experience of earthquake, and the terror had gripped +her bodily. The wet trees were waving to and fro like gigantic fans, and +a dull moan like an echo in a subterranean cavern seemed to issue from +the very ground. A section of tiling slid from the Chapel roof with a +crash. "Rather severe that, for Tokyo," said the bishop at her elbow, +where he stood calmly, watch in hand. "Almost two minutes and vertical +movement." + +"Two minutes!" she gasped. She had thought it twenty. + +The nauseating swing had ceased, but in an instant, with a vicious +wrench, it began again. "The secondary oscillations," he said. "It will +all be over in a ..." + +As he spoke, the air swelled with a horrible, crunching, grinding roar, +like the complaint of a million riven timbers. Across the lane a +sinister dust-cloud sprang into the air like a monstrous hand with +spread fingers. "It is one of the temples!" said the bishop, and hurried +with the rest, Barbara following him. + +The paved yard was filling with a throng. Agitated priests and acolytes +ran hither and thither and slate-colored nuns, with shaven heads and +pale, frightened faces, peered through the bamboo-lattices of the +nunnery. The newer temple faced the open space as usual, but across the +hedged garden no ornate roof now thrust up its Tartar gables. Instead +was a huddle of wreckage, upon which lay the huge roof, crumpled and +shattered, like the fragments of a gigantic mushroom. From the tangle +projected beam ends, coiled about with painted monsters, and here and +there in the cluttered _débris_ lay great images of unfamiliar deities. +Over all hung a fine yellow dust, choking and penetrating. + +What was under those ruins? Barbara shivered. She was quite unconscious +of the mud and the pelting rain. The bishop drew her under the temple +porch, and they stood together watching the men now working with +mattocks, saws and with loose beams for levers, prying up a corner of +the fallen roof. It seemed an hour they had stood there, when a priest, +bareheaded, his robes caked with mud, came from the clustering crowd. +The bishop questioned him in Japanese. Barbara guessed from his face +what the priest had answered! She waited quiveringly. + +Through the bishop's mind swift thoughts were passing. He knew by +hearsay of the recluse--knew that he was not an Oriental. He had often +seen the placard on the little gate: "Maker of Buddhas." He had never +passed it without a pang. It seemed a satirical derision of the holiest +ideal of the West--a type and sign of reversion, a sardonic mockery of +the Creed of Christ. He was a priest holding the torch of the true light +to this alien people, and here, a dark shadow across its brightness, had +stood this derisive denial. Yet now, perhaps, this man stood on the +threshold of the hereafter--and he was a man of his own race! + +He turned to Barbara. "Wait here for me," he said. "I am going in. I +will come back to you as soon as I can." + + + + + CHAPTER XLVI + + THE GOLDEN CRUCIFIX + + +The bishop went quickly through the crowd to a gap under the great +gables, where the beams had been sawed through and the rubbish shoveled +to one side, making a difficult way into the interior. The enormous span +of the roof had sunk sidewise, splitting its supporting beams and +bending the walls outward, but its great ridge had remained intact and +it now stretched, a squat, ungainly lean-to, over what had been the +altar. The space was strewn with brasses, fragments of fretted and +carven doors, and splintered beneath a mass of tiling lay a great image +of Kwan-on. The daylight came dimly in through the chinks in the ruin. +The air was warm and close and had a smell of pulverized plaster, of +stale incense and rotting wood. A group of priests stood on the altar +platform beside a huddle of wadded mats and brocaded draperies, on which +a man was lying, his open eyes upturned to the painted monsters on the +twisted tangle of rafters. + +The bishop hesitated, then came close. + +The man's head turned toward him--for an instant he seemed to shrink +into the cushions; then in his eyes, dark with the last shadow, came a +swift yearning. He spoke to the priests and they drew back. + +"Arthur," he said, "don't you know me?" + +A gasping sound came from the leaning bishop. "John! John Fairfax!" he +cried, composure dropping from him, and fell on his knees. "After these +years!" + +The other lifted his hand and touched the bishop's pale, smooth-shaven +face. + +"I am going, Arthur," he said. "I never intended to speak, though I've +seen you often.... I thought it was best. Did she--did my wife never +tell you?" + +"Never a word, John! I have never known!" cried the bishop, in a shaken +voice. + +"It was my fault. All mine! I--never believed as she did, Arthur, and +here in the East what was breath and bread to her, to me came to seem +all mumbo-jumbo. I had had a hard life, and I wanted comfort--for her. +Then I found out about the gold-lacquer." + +He paused to gather the strength that was fast ebbing. + +"I got the formula from a crazy priest, and I began in a small way--the +idol-making, I mean. I had a shop at Saga. At first it was only for the +mandarins in the China trade, and ... no one knew. But the lacquer grew +famous, and within a year I was shipping to Rangoon and Thibet. I made +all sorts of praying-tackle. Then--then I quarreled with my agent, +and--he told my wife. She didn't believe it, but one day ... he brought +her to where I was at work. I was modeling an Amida for a temple in +Nagasaki!" + +He threw an arm across his face and moaned. + +"She left me that night. A ship was in the harbor. I ... never saw her +again. I never knew I had a daughter till a week ago!... I never knew!" + +There was a silence. + +"I have seen her. She must never guess, Arthur! She thinks I ... died in +Nagasaki. It's better so. Promise me!" + +"I promise, John," said the bishop. "I promise." + +The bell of the temple across the inclosure began to strike. "It sounds +... like the bell of the old Greek church," the failing voice said. +"When I left home the priest said I would do nothing good. But--" the +grim ghost of a smile touched his lips--"I made ... good idols, Arthur!" +The smile flickered out. "My little girl! My own, own daughter! Don't +you ... think it was cruel, Arthur?" + +"Would you like to see her?" asked the bishop. "She is just outside." + +The wan face was illumined. "Yes, yes," he said. "God bless you, Arthur! +Bring her--but quickly!" + +For a few moments there was stillness. The priests whispered together, +but approached no nearer. In the other temple, the _Bioki-Fuji_, the +Buddhist ceremony of Sick-Healing, had begun for the injured man, and +the muffled pounding of the _mok'gyo_ came dully into the propped ruins. +The dying man's eyes were closed when Barbara knelt down and took his +chilling hand between hers. + +"It is I," she said softly. + +His gaze was dimming, but he knew her. "I can't see your face much +longer," he said, "but I can feel your hands. How long ago it seems ... +our Flower-of-Dream. It bloomed to-day, my dear." + +She was weeping silently. There was a pause, in which the wind droned +through the shattered timbers. The dying man's free hand wandered feebly +at his side, found a gold-lacquer crucifix, and drew it closer. + +"The white cross on the roof. It ... called me back!" He tried to lift +the golden crucifix. "I've been ... making this for a long time. I was +outside when the shock came, but I ... went back to save it.... I should +like it to be ... in your Chapel, Barbara." + +She laid her young cheek against his hand; she could not speak. + +Across the silence the bishop's low and broken voice rose in the Prayer +for the Sick: + +"_O most merciful God, who, according to the multitude of Thy mercies, +dost so put away the sins of those who truly repent, that Thou +rememberest them no more: Open Thine eye of mercy.... Renew in him, most +loving Father.... Impute not unto him his former sins...._" + + * * * * * + +"Are you still there, Barbara?" + +"Yes." + +"A little longer." Death was heavy on his tongue. "_Namu Amida Butsu!_" +he muttered. "But at the end--the old things--the old faith--" + +The tears ran down the bishop's face. + +"They are all dead now," came the broken whisper through the closing +darkness. "There is no one to forgive me, except--" + +"God will forgive you!" said the bishop, with a sob. + +But the idol-maker did not hear. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVII + + "IF THIS BE FORGETTING" + + +The sailing-master of the yacht _Barbara_, with his mate and crony, sat +in the main saloon, whiling away a tedious hour. + +The room bore all the earmarks of "a rich man's plaything." It was +tastefully and luxuriously furnished. The upholstery was of dark green +brocade, thin Persian prayer-rugs were on the hardwood floor, and +electric bulbs in clusters were set in silver sconces, which swung with +a long, slow motion as the yacht rocked to the deepening respiration of +the sea. At one side a small square table held the remains of a +comfortable refection, and by it, on a stand, sat a phonograph with +which the two men had been gloomily diverting themselves. + +But though the _repertoire_ of the instrument was extended, it had +brought little satisfaction to-night. The last irksome fortnight of +inactivity had made each selection trite and familiar. Moreover, the +captain's spirits were not of the best. The abrupt change of ownership, +followed hard by the death of the yacht's former master, was a +_bouleversement_ that had confused his automatic temperament, and the +sight of the double-locked cabin-door in the saloon was a daily +depressant. He had never seen the yacht's new owner, though she had +written him that he might expect her at any time, and the enigma of a +future under a woman's orders troubled his sturdy and unimaginative +mind. + +"Wish to the Lord she'd come, if she's ever coming!" he muttered, as the +phonograph ran down with a wheeze. "This is two days I've kept the +dinghy lying at the _hatoba_." + +The mate nodded. It was not the first time the remark had been made. "I +wonder why she ordered his cabin door kept locked?" he said. + +"Papers," returned the captain sapiently. "Wants to seal 'em up for the +executor. New owner must be rich, I guess. I'd like to know what she +paid for the outfit. First time I ever signed under a new skipper sight +unseen!" + +"Miss Barbara Fairfax," mused the mate. "Nice name. Curious only one +piece of mail should come for her--and second class, too." He picked up +a thin package from the table, folded in dark paper. This had been made +sodden by the rain; now it parted and a flat, black disk of hard rubber +slipped from it and rolled across the floor. + +"Blamed if it isn't a phonograph record," he said, as he picked it up. +"It's out of the wrapper now--let's try it." He set it in place and +rewound the spring, and the saloon filled with a chorus of chirps and +tinklings from quivering catgut smitten by ivory plectrums. + +"_Samisen!_" said the captain. "I've heard 'em in the tea-houses. Give +me a fiddle for mine, any day." + +The yacht's cabin-boy entered. "The dinghy's coming, sir," he said. +"Lady and gentleman aboard of her." + +The captain got up hastily, put out a hand and stopped the machine. +"Take away those dishes, and be quick about it," he ordered. "Mr. +Rogers, pipe up the men." + +He hurried on deck and watched the bobbing craft approach. Under the +rising wind the sea was lifting rapidly and the dinghy buried its nose +in the spray. Presently he was giving a helping hand to the visitors at +the break in the rail, looking into a pair of brown eyes that he thought +were the saddest he had ever seen, and replying to a voice that was +saying: + +"I am Miss Fairfax, Captain Hart, and this is my uncle, Bishop +Randolph." + + * * * * * + +The train which brought Barbara and the bishop from Tokyo had crawled +for miles along what seemed a narrow ribbon laid on a yellow floor. The +steady, continuous downpour had flooded the rice-fields and the +landscape was a waste of turbid freshet, the rivers deep and swollen +torrents. At one bridge a small army of workmen were dumping loads of +stone about a pier-head and shoring-up the track with heavy timbers. The +train crossed this at a snail's pace, that inspired anxiety. + +"I'm not an engineer," the bishop had said, "but I prophesy this bridge +won't be safe to-morrow unless the water falls." + +The early daylight dinner at the hotel had been well nigh a silent +ceremonial. That day, with the temple solitary, Barbara had gone down +into a deeper Valley of Shadow. Just as her longing to go to him in her +trouble had seemed to her overwrought, so now her grief was strangely +poignant. When she thought of him her mind was a confusion of tremulous +half-thoughts and new emotions. She could not know that the voice she +dimly heard was the call of blood--that she was in the grip of that +mighty instinct of filiation which strengthens the life-currents of the +world. Her grief--mysterious because its springs were haunting and +unknown--added its aching pang now to the misery that had encompassed +her. She had felt the fierce bounding of the stout little boat, the +gusts of windy spray that flew over them, with a tinge of relief, since +the buffeting made the inner pain less keen. + +As she stood at length, with her task, in the cabin whose door had been +so long locked, she remembered the white-robed priests of Kudan Hill, +stalking barefooted across the hot coals. Her soul, she thought, must +tread a fiery path on which rested no miracle of painlessness, and which +had no end. Above her she could hear the irregular footfalls of the +bishop on the tilting deck, and the shrill humming of the wind in the +ventilators. It seemed to be mocking her. Before the world she was +living a painful pretense. Even her uncle believed her to be grieving +for the man whose life had gone out that night at Nikko! + +When all had been done and the papers sealed in a portmanteau for +delivery to the Consul-General, Barbara came into the brilliant saloon. +The yacht was pitching heavily and she could stand with difficulty. +Steadying herself against the table, she saw the empty wrapper addressed +to herself. It bore a Nikko postmark. Who could have sent it here? As +she stood holding the paper in her hand, the bishop entered. + +"Captain Hart thinks we would better stay aboard to-night, Barbara," he +said. "There is a nasty sea and we should be sure of a drenching in the +dinghy. We have no change of clothing, you know." + +"You will be quite comfortable, Miss Fairfax," the captain's voice spoke +deferentially from the doorway. "The guest-rooms are always kept ready." + +"Very well," she said, a little wearily. "That will be best, no doubt." +She held up the torn wrapper. "What was in this, I wonder?" + +The captain confessed his indiscretion with embarrassment, and she +absolved him with a smile that covered a sharper pang than she had yet +felt that evening. For that thin disk had been on the hillside that +Nikko night--perhaps had heard that quarrel, had seen that blow, had +watched a man crawling, staggering foot by foot, till he collapsed +against the frame that held it! By what strange chance had it been sent +to her here? + +Her uncle bade her good night presently, being an indifferent sailor, +and betook himself to bed. The room that had been prepared for her +opened into the saloon. She was too restless to retire, and after a time +she climbed up the companion-way to the windy deck. + +The vaulted sapphire of the sky had been swept clean of cloud and the +stars sparkled whitely. Off at one side, a flock of sinister shadows, +she could make out the Squadron of battle-ships, and beyond, in a +curving line, the twinkling lights of the Bund. Could it ever again be +to her that magical shore she had first seen from a ship's deck, with +hills which the cherry-trees made fairy tapestries of green-rose, and +mountains creased of purple velvet and veined with gold? The great white +phantom lifting above them--would it henceforth be but a bulk of ice and +stone, no longer the shrine of the Goddess-of-Radiant-Flower-Bloom? The +sky--would it ever again seem the same violet arch that had bent over a +Tokyo garden of musk flowers and moonlight? Would the world never seem +beautiful to her again? + +All about her the foam-stippled water glowed with points of +phosphorescence, as though a thousand ghostly lanterns were afloat. It +made her think of the festival of the _Bon_, of which Thorn had told +her, when the _Shoryo-buné_--the boats of the departed spirits--in +lambent flotillas, go glimpsing down to the sea. How unbelievable that +she should never see him again! She felt a sudden envy of the placid +millions encircling her to whose faith no life was ever lost, whose +loved ones were ever coming back in the perennial cherry-blooms, the +maple-leaves, the whispering pines. + +Her love would come back to her only in bitter memories, in painful +thoughts that would shame and burn. All else beside, she had been Austen +Ware's promised wife. How could she still feel love for the man who had +caused his death? Yet--if she must--if she could never tear that image +from her breast! + +Like the reflection of a camera-obscura, memory painted a sudden picture +on the void; she saw herself sitting amid the branches of a tulip-tree, +while some one sang--a song the wind was humming in the cordage: + + "Forgotten you? Well, if forgetting + Be yearning with all my heart, + With a longing, half pain and half rapture, + For the time when we never shall part; + If the wild wish to see you and hear you, + To be held in your arms again-- + If this be forgetting, you're right, dear, + And I have forgotten you then." + +Great, slow tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVIII + + WHILE THE CITY SLEPT + + +Daunt accompanied his chief that evening to a dinner at the Nobles' +Club--a "stag," for conventional functions had been discontinued since +the royal death had cast a pall over the stay of the Squadron. As they +drove thither a nearer shadow was over the Ambassador's spirits. His +thoughts would stray to Barbara and her misfortune, which seemed so deep +and irreparable. He had eventually accepted his wife's diagnosis as to +Daunt's _tendresse_, but he had a confidence that his Secretary of +Embassy, though hard-hit, would bear no scars. He could not guess all +that lay beneath the brave domino Daunt was wearing. + +The affair was a late one, with various native divertisements: +top-spinners, painters whose exquisite brush-etchings, done in a few +seconds, were given as mementoes to the guests, and jugglers who, +utterly without paraphernalia, caused live fowl to appear in impossible +places. Toward the close the Ambassador found himself seated beside the +Minister of Marine. + +"Very clever," he said, as a Chinese pheasant flew out of an inverted +opera-hat. "I almost believe he could produce my missing dog if he were +properly urged." + +"Have you lost one?" asked the Admiral. "I'm sorry." + +The Ambassador laughed. "It was really something of a relief," he said, +and told the story of the Russian wolf-hound which had so curiously +disappeared on the evening of Doctor Bersonin's call. "The oddest thing +about it," he ended, "is that, though the name of the Embassy was on his +collar, nothing has been heard of him." + +The two men chatted for some time on things in general, the conversation +veering to the Squadron. The Ambassador thought the other seemed +somewhat distrait. At two the affair ended and the carriages drew up to +the windy porte-cochère. There was a confidential matter which the +Ambassador wished to speak of with his host. He had mentioned it, but no +fitting opportunity had occurred. At the door the Admiral recalled it, +suggesting with a quizzical reference to the other's American fondness +for late hours that, as his house was on the way, the Ambassador stop +there, while they had their talk over a cigar. The latter, therefore, +departed in the Admiral's carriage, and Daunt drove alone to the +Embassy, directing the coachman to go in a half-hour for his chief. + +In the past three days Daunt had fought a constant battle. Every feature +of that night at Nikko was stamped indelibly on his mind. The passionate +resentment, the agony of protest that had come to him at the ball, when +he had received the torn fragments of his letter to Barbara, returned in +double force, opposing a strange, new sense of shame that his thought +should follow her even into the tragic shadow where she now dwelt. +Yet--for fancy will not be denied--his brain would again and again +circle the same somber treadmill: + +_We have done those things which we ought not to have done!_ He seemed +to hear her say it on the dark hillside. Her voice had had that in it +which, against his will, had thrilled him. What had she done that she +regretted? She had spoken of the day in the cave at Enoshima--had seemed +to wish him to believe that she had not then been acting a part. Could +anything have happened in that one day's interval so utterly to change +her? She had been unhappy, for he had surprised her weeping. What was it +she had wished to "confess?" So to-night his gloomy reflections ran--to +their submerging wave of self-reproach. + +He let himself into the Chancery with his latch-key, to get his +evening's mail. A telegram had been laid on his desk. It was a +cipher from Washington, and he opened the safe at once and from the +inner drawer took out the official code books. He sat down at one of +the desks and began the decoding of the text. For a time he worked +mechanically--as it were, with but one-half of his brain--tracing each +group of figures in the bulky volume, transposing by the secret key, +dragging, in the complicated process, sense and coherency from the +meaningless digits. Then he sat staring at the result: + + "Large short selling to-day in European bourses and in New York + (comma) unexplainable on usual grounds (comma) is creating + anxiety (period) Can scarcely be explained except on hypothesis + that secret group of dealers have suddenly come into possession + of information which leads them to consider the international + situation ominous (period) Newspapers in ignorance of anything + extraordinary (period) London and Paris evidently puzzled + (period) Has situation developed new phases and in your opinion + does it contain possible element of danger (period) Hasten + reply." + + +A full five minutes Daunt sat motionless, revolving the matter in all +its bearings. An answer must be sent without delay. A part of that +answer might be found in the departure of the Squadron. The newspapers +had announced its receipt of sailing-orders, but the news had yet to be +verified. The Naval Minister could give this verification. + +He went at once to the stables, where the carriage was about to start +for the Ambassador. He sprang in. A little later he was at the Admiral's +official residence and his chief was perusing the message. After a +moment's thought the Ambassador read it aloud. + +Daunt had made a move to retire, but the Admiral stopped him. + +"Pray don't go yet," he said. "There is something I should like to say +on this matter, and I count on your discretion, Mr. Daunt, as on His +Excellency's. Since the American Government attaches significance to +that peculiar incident, I think no harm can come from an exchange of +opinion. It may help us both." He paused a moment, his foot tapping the +floor. + +"The news contained in that telegram," he continued presently, "for the +past two days has caused my Government great concern. Your Excellency +will understand when I say that the particular objects of this attack +(if I may so call it) are precisely those securities which would suffer +most were Japan's peace or prosperity threatened. There has seemed to be +a concurrence in it not purely fortuitous. Back of this selling is no +mere opinion--it is too assured for that. Some interest or individual +abroad is apparently banking heavily on a belief that Japan is about to +enter a period of stress!" + +The Ambassador spoke for the first time. "_Abroad?_" he said shrewdly. + +The Admiral looked at him an instant without speaking. His expression +changed swiftly. He rose and went quickly to the telephone in the next +room. + +"He is talking with the Secret Service," said Daunt, in a low tone. + +In a few moments their host returned. There was something in his face +that made the Ambassador's keen eye kindle. "The suggestion was most +pertinent," he said. "There is one man in Japan who, exclusive of the +commercial codes, has sent in the past two days cipher telegrams to New +York, London and Berlin." + +He took a short turn about the room in some agitation. "Your +Excellency," he said, stopping short, "I make a confident of you. That +man is Doctor Bersonin." + +The Ambassador started. + +"Pray absolve me," said the Admiral quickly, "from an apparent +indiscretion. Doctor Bersonin is no longer in the Japanese service. His +contract expired at noon to-day. It will not be renewed. As one of _my_ +Government I speak to you, as the representative of _your_ Government, +concerning a private individual whose acts are in the purview of us +both. The circumstances are extraordinary, but I think the occasion +justifies this conversation." + +He rang a bell sharply and his private secretary entered. "Bring me," he +said in Japanese, "report number eleven of Lieutenant Ishida Hetaro." + +When it was brought, he turned to a leaf underscored scored with red. +"Your Excellency," he said, "interested me profoundly this evening by +the account of the disappearance of your dog. I am going to ask Mr. +Daunt--who reads Japanese so fluently--to give a running translation of +this." + +Daunt took the manuscript--as perfectly executed as an inscription in +Uncial Greek--and began to read. As he translated, his breath came more +quickly, and the Ambassador leaned forward across the table. Yet the +words chronicled nothing more than the curious disappearance from the +laboratory of a tiny song-bird--_and a steel pen-rest_. The close of the +narrative drew an exclamation from the Ambassador's lips. For it told of +feathery sprays of reddish-brown powder on the expert's desk, and he +seemed to see himself, his study lamp in his hand, bending over curious +whorls of dust on his own piazza. + +"May I ask," said the Admiral, "whether the episode of the dog suggested +to Your Excellency the possibility that your caller might himself be +able to solve the mystery of the animal's disappearance?" + +The Ambassador's reply came slowly, but with deliberate emphasis: + +"It did. The more so, from our previous conversation. In my study I have +the model of a Dreadnaught. We were discussing this, and the doctor +described the fighting machine of the future--an atomic engine which +should utilize some newly discovered law of molecular action, a machine +that might be carried in a single hand, to which a battle-ship would be, +as he expressed it, 'mere silly shreds of steel.' He spoke, I thought, +with a strange confidence that seemed almost unbalanced. In connection +with the conversation, the later incident, I confess, left a deep +impression. Yet the idea it suggested was so incredible that I have +never spoken of it to any one before." + +"Suppose," said the Admiral, "that the man we are discussing has +actually constructed such a machine. What possible connection can there +be between that and a confidence in some near event which will lower +Japan's credit in the eyes of the world?" + +Before the Ambassador replied there was the sound of voices outside--a +sudden commotion and a woman's agitated protestations. The secretary +came in hurriedly and whispered to the Admiral. A door slammed in the +hall, there was the sound of a short struggle, and a girl burst into the +room. She threw herself at the Admiral's feet, panting broken sentences. +Her _kimono_ was torn and muddied, her blue-black hair was loosened, and +her face white and pitifully working. + +A man had darted after her--he was the Admiral's _aide_. He grasped her +arm. "She has been at the Department," he said in English, with a glance +at the visitors. "They detained her there, but she got away. They have +telephoned a warning that she might attempt to see you." + +She struggled against him, her eyes sweeping the circle about her with a +passionate entreaty. Suddenly she saw the Ambassador. She lifted her +face, swollen with crying, to him: + +"You--nod know me--Haru?" she faltered, "_né_? Say so!" + +"Haru!" he exclaimed. Then, turning to the Admiral, "I know the child," +he said. "She was companion to one of our house-guests till a week ago, +when she disappeared from her home." + +His host made an exclamation of pity. "It is _no-byo_, no doubt," he +said, using the word for the strange Japanese brain-fever which is akin +to madness. "She must be cared for at once." He leaned and spoke +soothingly to her. + +A spasm seized Haru. She tore herself from the _aide's_ grasp and, +falling prone, beat her small fists on the floor. "They will none of +them listen! They will none of them listen!" she screamed, in Japanese. +"They call it the fever, and they will not hear! And to-morrow it will +be too late!" A peal of hysteric laughter shook her, mixed with +strangling sobs. "Are all the gods with Bersonin-_San_?" + +At that name the Admiral's face changed swiftly. "Leave her with me," he +said, "and wait in the anteroom." + +"But, Excellency--" + +The other lifted his hand, and the _aide_ withdrew with the secretary. +His two callers had risen, but he stayed them. "We have gone far along +the road of confidence to-night," he said in a low tone. "If you are +willing, we will go to the end." + +He bent and drew the girl to a sitting posture. + +"Tell us," he said gently, "what brought you here." + + + + + CHAPTER XLIX + + THE ALARM + + +As the three men listened to the swift, broken story, there was no sound +save the rustle of the wind outside, the clack of a night-watchman, and +the ticking of the clock on the marble mantel. The crouching form, the +sodden garments, the passionate intensity of the slim, clutched hands, +the fire in the dark eyes--all lent effect to a narrative instinct with +terrible truth. The Ambassador's knowledge of the colloquial was +limited, but he knew enough to grasp the story's main features. It +capped the edifice of suspicion and furnished a direful solution to what +had been mysterious. Once the Admiral's eyes met his, and each knew that +the other _believed_. Terrible as its meaning was--pointing to what +black depths of abysmal wickedness--it was true! + +The Admiral listened with a countenance that might have been carved of +metal, but the faces of the others were gray-white. Later was to come to +both the pathos and meaning of the sacrifice this frail girl had laid on +the knees of her country's gods, but for the hour, all else was +swallowed up in the horrifying knowledge, struck through with the sharp +fact that one of the partners in this devilish enterprise, however +expatriate, was of their own nation. To Daunt this was intensified by +his own acquaintance with Phil. Memories swept him of that worthless, +ribald career--the evil intimacy with Bersonin--the gradual dominance of +the bottle, which in the end had betrayed him! + +With a singular separateness of vision, he seemed, in lightning-like +flashes, to see that betrayal: the blind infatuation, the slow +enticements, the reckless, intoxicated triumph, the final surrender. He +seemed to see Haru, her secret won, running panting through the wind. He +saw Phil waking at last from his drunken slumber--to what shame and +penalty? He shuddered. + + * * * * * + +When the secretary entered at the crisp sound of the Admiral's bell, he +started at the pallid countenances in the room. The Japanese girl stood +trembling, half-supported by the Admiral's arm. The latter spoke--in a +voice that held no sign of feeling. It was to present the young man to +the girl in the most formal and elaborate courtesy. + +"The _Ojo-San_ deigns to be for but an hour the guest of my mean abode," +he said. "Instruct my _karei_ that in that unworthy interval he may +offer her august refreshment and afterward prepare her proper escort and +conveyance. Meantime, send my _aide_ to me." + +The secretary's gleam of astonishment veiled itself under oriental +lashes, and a tinge of color warmed the whiteness of Haru's cheek. He +bowed to her profoundly. As he deferentially opened the door, she turned +back, swayed, and sank suddenly prone in a deep, sweeping obeisance. + +An instant the Admiral stood looking after her. "The petal of a +plum-blossom," he said, "under the hoof of the swine!" + +His manner changed abruptly as the _aide_ entered. He spoke in quick, +curt Japanese, in a tone sharp and exact as steel shears snipping +through zinc: + +"Something has transpired of great moment. There is no time to deal with +it by the ordinary channels. It is of the first importance--the _first_ +importance!--that I reach Yokohama within the hour. You will call up +Shimbashi and order a special train with right of way. This admits of +_no delay_! Send for my carriage at once. You will accompany me. We +leave in ten minutes." The _aide_ went out quickly while he seated +himself at his desk and began to write rapidly. + +"Two battle-ships!" he said suddenly, wheeling in his seat. "With the +human lives on them! Perhaps even war between two or more nations! Gods +of my ancestors! All this to hang on the loyalty of a mere girl!" + +The Ambassador, pacing the floor, snapped the lid of his watch. "It must +still be close to two hours of sunrise," he said in an agitated voice. +"Surely there is time!" + +The Admiral was consulting an almanac when the _aide_ reëntered. "Here +is a telegram," he said. "Put it on the wire at once. It must arrive +before us." + +"Excellency," said the _aide_, "the train is not possible. The service +to Yokohama ceased at six o'clock. The rains--there is a washout." + +His chief pondered swiftly. "It must be left to others, then. Call up +the emergency long-distance for Yokohama and give me a clear wire at +once to the Governor's residence. I must make the telegraphic +instructions fuller." He bent over the desk. + +Trepidation was on the _aide's_ face when he returned this time. + +"Excellency the accident to the line was the failure of the bridge over +the Rokuga-gawa. It carried both the telegraph and telephone conduits. +No wire will be working before noon to-morrow." + +The Admiral half-rose. He stretched out his hand, then drew it back. + +"The wireless!" exclaimed the Ambassador. + +The _aide's_ troubled voice replied. Whatever the necessity he knew that +it was a crucial one. + +"The mast was displaced by to-day's earthquake," he said. "The system is +temporarily useless." + +There was a moment of blank silence. The Admiral sat staring straight +before him. The only sign of agitation was his labored breathing. + +"Can a horse get through?" + +The other shook his head. "Not under three hours. It would have to be by +_détour_--and there are no relays." + +"A motor car?" + +"Impossible!" exclaimed the Ambassador. "By the long road and in better +weather my Mercedes can not do it under eighty minutes." + +The Admiral lifted himself from his chair. His eyes were bloodshot and +on his forehead tiny veins had sprung out in branching clusters of +purple. + +"In the name of _Shaka_! Yokohama harbor but a handful of miles away, +and cut off utterly? It must be reached, I tell you! _It must be +reached!_" His voice was low-pitched, but terrible in its intensity. +"Drive to the Naval College and ask for twenty cadets--its swiftest +runners--to be sent after you to Shimbashi. A locomotive can take them +as far as the river. If there are no _sampan_, they can swim. Make +demand in my authority. Not a minute is to be lost!" He put what he had +been writing into the _aide's_ hand. "Read this in the carriage. It will +serve as instruction." + +The _aide_ thrust the paper into his breast and vanished. The Admiral +looked about him through stiffened, half-closed eyelids. Then, under the +stress, it seemed, of a mighty shudder--the very soul of that +overwhelming _certainty_ of the peril awaiting the red dawn on that +bungalow roof above the Yokohama anchorage--the racial impassivity, the +restraint and repression of emotion that long generations of ingrain +habit have made second nature to the Japanese, suddenly crumbled. He +struck his hand hard against the desk. + +"Has not Japan toiled and borne enough, that this shame must come to +her?" His deep voice shook. "Your Excellency--Mr. Daunt--in all this +land where heroism is hackneyed and sacrifice a fetish, there is no +prince or coolie who, to turn aside this peril, would not give his body +to the torture. Yet must we sit here helpless as _Darumas_! If man but +had wings!" + +Daunt stiffened. He felt his heart beat to his temples. He started to +his feet with an exclamation. + +"But man _has_ wings!" he cried. + +What of the long hours of toil and experiment, the gray mornings on +Aoyama parade-ground when his Glider had carried him circling above the +tree-tops? Could he do it? With no other word he darted to the hall. +They heard his flying feet on the gravel and a quick command to a +_betto_. The wind tossed back the word into the strained quiet. + +"Aoyama!" exclaimed the Ambassador, as the hoof-beats, lashed to an +anguish of speed, died into silence. "His Glider!" + +A sudden hope flashed into the Admiral's face. + +"The gods of _Nippon_ aid him!" he said. + + + + + CHAPTER L + + WHOM THE GODS DESTROY + + +There was one whose guilty eyes were closed to the red danger so near. +In the house in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley, under the green mosquito +netting, Phil lay in a log-like slumber. The soft light of the paper +_andon_ flowed over the gay wadded _f'ton_, the handsome besotted face +with its mark of the satyr and, at one side, a little wooden pillow of +black lacquer. There was no sound save the sweep of the wind outside and +the heavy breathing of the unconscious man. + +For three nights past, since his wild motor-ride from Nikko, he had not +slept, save in illusory snatches, from which he had waked with the sweat +breaking on his forehead. Short as were these, they had held horrid +visions, broken fragments of scenes that waved and clustered about the +lilied altar in the Ts'kiji cathedral, echoing to the solemn service of +the dead. Again and again there had started before him the stolid ring +of blue-clad coolie women, swaying as they had swayed to the straw-ropes +of the pile-driver in the moat-bottom with their weird chant-- + + _"Yó--eeya--kó--ra!_ + _Yó--eeya--kó--ra!"_ + +And now they chanted a terrible refrain: + + _"Thou--shalt--not--kill!"_ + +To-night, however, deeper potations had done their work. He was +dreaming--yellow dreams like the blackguard fancyings of the +half-world--visions in which he moved, a Prince of Largesse, through +unending pleasures of self-indulgence. He was on an European Boulevard, +riding with Haru by his side in silk and pearls, and people turned to +gaze as he went by. + +But now, with sinister topsyturvydom, the dream changed. The _cocher_ +drove faster and faster, into a mad gallop. He turned his head and Phil +saw that the face under the glazed hat was the face of his dead brother. +The staring pedestrians began to pursue the carriage. They showered blow +after blow on it, till the sound reverberated like thunder. + +Not the ghosts of his dream, but a hand of flesh and blood was knocking. +It was on the outer _shoji_ and the frail dwelling shook beneath it. The +servant, sunk in bovine sleep, heard no sound, but the chauffeur in the +automobile that throbbed outside the wistaria gate, rose from his seat, +and across a bamboo wattle a dog barked and scrambled venomously. + +Phil's eyes opened and he sat up giddily. He went unsteadily to the door +and unfastened the _shoji_, blinking at the great form that strode past +him into the inner apartment. + +Bersonin's gaze swept the room. "The girl!" he said hoarsely. "Where is +she?" + +Phil looked about him dazedly--at the tumbled _f'ton_, the deserted +wooden pillow. Haru gone? His senses, clouded by intoxication, took in +the fact dully, as a thing of no meaning. + +The expert grasped him by his shoulder and shook him till the thin silk +of the _kimono_ tore under the enormous white fingers. The violence had +its effect. The daze fell away. Phil broke into loud imprecations. + +"Did you tell her anything?" + +Phil's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. "What is--what makes you +think--" he stammered. + +Bersonin's face was a greenish hue. His great hands shook. + +"To-night," he said, in a whisper, "to-night--an hour ago--I saw her on +the street. I wasn't sure at first, but I know now it was she! A naval +officer was with her. _He took her into the house of the Minister of +Marine!_" + +The other gave a low cry. A chalky pallor overspread his features. +"Haru?--no, Bersonin! You're crazy, I say. She--she would never tell!" + +Fury and terror blazed out on the big man's countenance. A sharp moan +came from his lips. + +"So she _did_ know! You told her then! O, incredible fool!" + +For an instant the demon of murder looked from the doctor's eyes. Phil +quailed before him. A frenzy of fear twisted his features; he felt the +passion that had been his undoing shrivel and fade like a parchment in a +flame. His voice rose in a kind of scream: + +"Don't look at me like that!" he raved. "I was a fool to trust her, but +it's done now. It's done, I tell you, and you can't undo it! What can +they do to us? They may find the machine, but what can they _prove_? +We're foreigners! They can't touch us without proof!" + +He had no thought now of the millions that were to have been his. All +the grandiloquent pictures he had painted of the future faded in panic. +He trembled excessively. + +"Proof!" sneered Bersonin savagely. "There would have been none if--_it +happened_! I had arranged that! In its operation _the machine destroys +itself_! And neither of us is in Yokohama to-night." + +Phil's ashen face set; his tongue curled round his parched lips. "What +is to be done? Can we still--" + +"Listen," said the doctor. "A single hour more, even with your cursed +folly, and all would have been well, for no trains are running and all +wires are down. I heard this afternoon, too, that the wireless is out of +order." + +"Then--then--they can not--" Phil's voice shook with a nauseous +eagerness. + +"Wait! When I saw the girl there, I was suspicious. I watched. In a +little while your friend Daunt came from the gate. In some way he +happened to be there. The _betto_ was flogging the horses like a crazy +man. He came in this direction!--Can't you understand? His aëroplane! He +is going to use it as a last chance. If he succeeds, we may spend our +lives in the copper mines. If he can be stopped, we may win yet! There +will be nothing but the tale of a Japanese drab--that and nothing else!" + +Phil flung on his clothing in a madness of haste. The desperate dread +that had raged in him was become now a single fixed idea, frosted over +by a cold, demented fury. Unhealthy spots of red sprang in his white +cheeks; his eyes dilated to the mania of the paranoiac. + +Hatless, he rushed through the little garden, cleared the rear hedge at +a bound, and fled, like a runaway from hell, toward the darkness of the +vast parade-ground. + + + + + CHAPTER LI + + THE LAUGH + + +As Bersonin stood by the wistaria gate beside the pulsing motor, +confused thoughts rushed through his mind into an eddying +phantasmagoria. The fear and agitation which he had kept under only +by an immense self-control returned with double weight. + +All was known--thanks to the brainless fool in whom he had relied! The +Government knew. The wild tale the Japanese girl had told had been +believed! Had there been suspicions before? He thought of the espionage +he had fancied had been kept of late on his movements, of the silent, +saturnine faces he had imagined dogged his footsteps. Even his servants, +even Ishida, with his blank visage and fantastic English, might be-- + +He looked sharply at the chauffeur. He was lighting a cigarette in the +hollow of his hands; the ruddy flare of the match lit the brown placid +face, the narrow, secret-keeping eyes. + +He tried to _force_ his mind to a measure of control, to look the +situation in the face. + +If Phil failed. If the aëroplane won against darkness and wind--if the +bungalow was reached in time, and the machine made harmless. Nothing +would happen. Who, then, would believe the girl's wild story? Who could +show that he had made it? He had worked at night, alone in his locked +laboratory. Besides, it would tell nothing. It would yield its secret +only to the master mind. And if its presence on the roof damned anybody, +it would not be him! _He_ had not put it there. _He had not been in +Yokohama in three days!_ + +If the aëroplane did not start--he remembered the look on Phil's face +when he rushed away!--or if it failed. With its own deadly ray, the very +machine would vanish. Phil had not known this--could not have told. The +searchers would find nothing! The news would have flashed along the +cables that must roll up for him vast sums in the panic of markets. And +there would be nothing to bring the deed home to him! + +Nothing? The warning had been given _before the fact_. The Government +had taken alarm. Bureaus were buzzing already. Sooner or later the +accusation would be running through the street, swiftly and stealthily, +from noble to merchant, from coolie to beggar, from end to end of this +seething oriental city--wherein he was a marked man! What mattered it +whether there were evidence on which a court would condemn him? The +story of his huge _coup_ in the bourses would be told--would rise up +against him. He remembered suddenly a tale he had heard--of a traitor to +Japan cut to pieces in a tea-house. An icy sweat broke out on his limbs. + +Where was there any refuge? On a foreign ship? There were many in the +bay. He longed with a desperate longing for the touch of a deck beneath +his feet, a bulwark of blue water between him and possible vengeance. At +Kisaraz' on the Chiba Road, a dozen miles to the north in the curve of +the bay, was his summer villa, his frequent resort for week-end. His +naphtha launch lay there, always ready for use. He could reach it in an +hour. + +"Get into the tonneau," he said to the chauffeur. "I'll drive, myself." + +He took the wheel the other resigned, threw on the clutch, and the +clamorous monster moved off down the quiet lane. Past ranks of darkened +_shoji_, with here and there a barred yellow square; by lanterned +tea-houses, alight and tinkling, past stolid, pacing watchmen in white +duck clothing, and sauntering groups of night-hawk students chanting +lugubrious songs--faster and faster, till the chauffeur clutched the +seat with uneasiness. + +The fever of flight was on his master now. He began to imagine voices +were calling after him. From a police-box ahead a man stepped into the +roadway waving a hand. It was no more than a warning against over-speed, +but the gesture sent a thrill of terror through the big man at the +wheel. He swerved sharply around a corner, skidding on two wheels. + +Bersonin muttered a curse as he peered before him, for the stretch was +brilliantly illuminated. He was on the Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods, +which to-night seemed strangely alive with hubbub. + +That afternoon, with the passing of the rain, there had been held a +neighborhood _hanami_, a "flower-viewing-excursion." A score of +families, with picnic paraphernalia, had trooped to the wistaria arbors +of far-distant Kameido, to return in the small hours laden with empty +baskets and somnolent babies. To-morrow, like to-day, would be holiday, +when school and work alike should be forgotten. The cavalcade had just +returned--afoot, since the trams had ceased running at midnight--the men +merry with _saké_, the women chattering. A few children, still wakeful, +scampered here and there. + +The chauffeur leaned forward with an exclamation--they had all but run +down a hobbling figure. + +"Keep your hands off!" snarled Bersonin. "Let them get out of the way!" +The automobile dashed on, the people scattering before it. + +There was a small figure in the roadway, however, of whom no one took +account--a six year old. Ishikichi had not gone to the _hanami_ that +day. For many hours that long afternoon, while his mother cared for the +sick father, he had beat the tiny drum that soothed a baby's fret, +comforted by the promise that he should be waked in the great hour when +the crowd came home. Stretched on his worn _f'ton_ that night, he had +puzzled over the situation--the hard, blank fact that because they had +no money, they must give up the shop, which was the only home he knew. +When they took his father away to the _byo-in_, the sick-house, what +would he and his mother and the baby-_San_ do? Would they stand, like +the _kadots'ke_, playing a _samisen_ at people's doors? It was not +honorably pleasant to be a _kadots'ke_! Only men could earn money, and +it would be so long before he became a man. So he had been pondering +when he went to sleep. Now, standing in the road, he heard the hum of +the rushing motor, and a quick thought,--born of that instinct of +sacrifice for the parent, that is woven, a golden thread, in the woof of +the Japanese soul--darted into his baby brain. One of the big +fire-wagons of the _seiyo-jin_ was coming! When the carriage killed +Toru, his playmate, the foreigner had sent much money to Toru's house. +He was not sorry any more, because the white-faced man whom he liked, +who lived in the temple, had told him what a fine thing it had been. For +Toru's honorable father had been fighting with the _Gaki_, the +no-rice-devils--it was almost like a war--and Toru had died just as the +brave soldiers did in battle. A great purpose flooded the little soul. +Was he not brave, too? + +So, as Bersonin, with a snarl, shook off the hand of the chauffeur and +threw the throttle wide open, Ishikichi did not scamper with the rest. +With his hands tightly clenched in his patched _kimono_, his huge clogs +clattering on the roadway, he ran straight into the path of the hurtling +mass of steel. + +There was a sudden, sickening jolt. The car leaped forward, dragging +something beneath it that made no sound. The chauffeur hurled himself +across the seat on the gear, and the automobile stopped with a grinding +discord of screeching pistons. A surge of people came around it--a wave +without outcry, but holding a hushed murmur like the sea. _Shoji_ were +opening, doorways filling the street with light. A man bent and drew +something gently from between the wheels. + +With a writhing oath the expert wrenched at the clutch. + +"Go on!" he said savagely. "How dare you stop without my orders?" + +The Japanese made no reply, but the arms that braced the wheel were +rigid as steel. + +Bersonin sank back in his seat, his massive frame quivering, his eyes +glittering like flakes of mica. But for this, in ten minutes he would +have been clear of the city, flying along the Chiba Road! What if he +were detained? He felt strange, chilly tendrils plucking at his flesh, +and a hundred fiery needles seemed pricking through his brain. + +Peering over his shoulder, with his horrible fear on him, he saw the +crowd part to admit a woman who, quite silently, but with haste, came +forward and knelt on the ground. There was no movement from the crowd. + +In a hush like that of death, the mother rose with Ishikichi in her +arms. The white, still face looked pitifully small. One clog swayed from +its thong between the bare toes. The faded _kimono_ was stained with +red. She spoke no word. There was no tear on her face. But in the +dreadful silence, she turned slowly with her burden and looked steadily +at the twitching face in the car--looked and looked. The chauffeur swung +himself from the seat into the crowd. + +An insane desire had been creeping stealthily on Bersonin. He had felt +it coming when he faced the truth in Phil's cringing admission. The +horrible compulsion to laughter was on him. The damnable man-hysteria +had him by the throat. He fought it desperately, as one fights a wild +beast in the dark. + +In vain. + +His jaws opened. He laughed--a dreadful peal of merriment that echoed up +and down the latticed street. And as he laughed, he knew that he raised +a peril nearer, more fearful even than that from which he had been +flying. + +There was an instant's shocked calm, like the silence which follows the +distant spurt of blue flame from the muzzle of a Krupp gun. Then, like +its answering detonation--in such a menacing roar as might arise from +the brink of an Inferno--the silence of the quiet street burst into +awful sound. + + * * * * * + +Ten minutes later but a single lighted _shoji_ glimmered on the darkened +thoroughfare. The roadway was deserted save for a soldierly figure in +policeman's uniform who stood thoughtfully looking at a huddle in the +dim roadway--a mixture of wrenched and battered iron and glass, in the +midst of which lay an inert, shapeless something that might have been a +bundle of old clothes fallen from a scavenger's cart. + + + + + CHAPTER LII + + THE VOICE IN THE DARK + + +Barbara rested ill in her cabin bed that night. Confused dreams troubled +her, mingling familiar thoughts in kaleidoscopic confusion, dragging her +from one tangle to another in a wearying rapidity against which she +struggled in vain. One thing ran through them all--the gold-lacquer +Buddha that had stood on the Sendai chest in her bedroom at the Embassy; +only it seemed to be also that lost image before which she had used to +sit as a child. + +She had no feeling of awakening, but all at once the visions were gone +and she lay open-eyed, swinging to the movement of the sea, feeling the +night to be very long. There came over her a creeping oppression--a +sense of terror of the night, of its hidden mysteries and occult forces. +The darkness seemed to be holding some dreadful, stolid, lethargic thing +that sprawled from horizon to horizon. + +A small, noiseless clock was hung beside the bed. She could see its pale +face in the light of the thick ground-glass bulb that served as +night-lamp. It was nearly four o'clock. + +She twisted back the tawny-brown surge of her hair, rose, and dressed as +hastily as she could in the lurching space. Then she opened the door and +passed into the saloon. A roll of the yacht slammed to the cabin door +and left her in darkness. She felt for the electric switch, but before +she could find it, another movement sent her reeling against a stand. +She threw out her arm to stay her fall and struck something. + +There was a clicking sound, a soft whir, and then the music of _samisen_ +filled the dark room. She realized that she had staggered against the +phonograph in the corner and that the shock had started its mechanism. +Wincing, she groped her way to a chair and sat down trembling. + +The music died away. There was a pause, a sharp click, a curious +confusion of sounds, and then husky and filmy, _a human voice_: + +"Barbara!" + +She caught her hands to her throat, her blood chilling to ice. It was +the voice of Austen Ware, speaking, it seemed to her, from the world +beyond. She crouched back, breathing fast and hard, while the voice went +on, in strange broken periods, threaded by a whir and clamor that seemed +the noise of the wind outside. + +"What is that I knocked over? It's buzzing and wheels are turning in +it--or is it the pain? Can't you stop it, Barbara? No, I know you aren't +here, really. I'm all alone ... I must be light-headed. How stupid!" + +The strange truth came to her in a stab of realization. What she heard +was no supernatural voice. In its fall that night the phonograph's +spring had been released and the _samisen_ record had registered also +the delirious muttering of the dying man. She felt herself shuddering +violently. + +"I can't go any farther.... You--you've done it for me, Phil. It ... was +the second blow. It seemed to crash right through...." + +Barbara's heart was beating to bursting. "Austen, Austen," she whispered +to herself, in an agony. "Tell me! Was it _Phil_? You can't know what +you're saying!" + +"No one must know it. The law would ... no, no! What good would it do +now? He's a bad egg, but I ... I was always proud of the family name. +Barbara! Remember, it _wasn't Phil_! It _wasn't Phil_!" + +She fell on her knees, her hands clasping the arms of the chair, +thrilling to the truth beneath that pitiful denial. Phil, not Daunt! The +man she had loved had no stain of blood on his soul! She sobbed aloud. +With the whir of the machinery there mixed a grating, scratching +discord, as though an automaton had attempted to laugh. + +"How ridiculous it seems to die like this! Only this morning I was so +near ... so near to what I wanted most. It was your losing the locket +that checkmated me. Why couldn't I have found it instead of Phil?... Did +I tell you I was there that day, Barbara--behind the _shikiri_, when you +followed the Japanese girl into the house? I could see just what you +were thinking ... I would never have told you the truth ... never." + +With a faint cry Barbara dragged herself backward. In the illusion, +everything about her for the instant vanished. The yacht's walls had +rolled away. She was on a gloomy hillside, and a stricken man was +speaking--confessing. + +Again the ghastly attempt to laugh. + +"A contemptible thing, wasn't it! I knew that. I've ... I've felt it.... +I never seemed contemptible to myself before. But I should have had you, +and that ... would have repaid. It was all coming my ... way. Then, just +the dropping of a locket, and ... Phil ... and now, it's all over!" + +Barbara felt herself engulfed in a wave of complex emotions. She was +torn with a great repugnance, a greater joy, and a sense of acute pity +that overmastered them both. Then there rolled over all the recollection +that what she now listened to was but a mechanical echo. The hillside +faded, the walls of the yacht came back. + +"I never believed in much, and I'm going without whining. Are you near, +Barbara? Sometimes there are many people around me ... and then only +you. I ... I think I'm beginning to wander!" + +She was weeping now, unrestrained. + +There was a long pause, in which the whir of the wheels rasped on. +Then-- + +"Is it your ... arms I feel, Barbara? Or ... is it...." + +That was all. The wheels whirred on a little longer, a click +and--silence. Only the rush of the wind outside and the passionate +sobbing of the girl who knelt in the dark room, her face buried in her +hand, her heart tossed on the cross-tides of anguish and of joy. + +A long time she knelt there. She was recalled by a confusion on the deck +above her--shouts and a hastening of feet. She lifted her face. The dawn +had come--its pale, faint radiance sifted through the heavy glass ports +and dimly lit the room. The shouts and running multiplied. + +She sprang to her feet, opened the door and hurried up the +companion-way. + + + + + CHAPTER LIII + + A RACE WITH DAWN + + +In that furious pace toward Aoyama, Daunt had been consumed by one +thought: that upon his single effort hung the saving of human lives--the +covering of a shame to his own nation--the turning away of a foul +allegation from the repute of a friendly Empire. He knew that minutes +were valuable. + +On the long, dimly-lighted roadways where the flying hoofs beat their +furious tattoo, few carts were astir, and the trolleys had not yet +appeared on the wider thoroughfares. The rain had washed the air clean, +the wind was dustless and sweet, and the stars were palely bright. Once +a policeman signaled and the driver momentarily slackened speed--then on +as before. The horses were white with foam when they reached the +parade-ground. Here Daunt leaped down and wrenched both lamps from the +carriage. "Go home," he said to the _betto_, and running through a clump +of trees, struck across the waste. + +The Japanese stared after him mystified, then with a philosophic +objurgation, turned and drove the sweating horses home at a walk. + +Daunt ran to a low door in the long garage. The key was on a ring in his +pocket. He went in, locking the door behind him. There were no electric +lights--he had been there heretofore only by day--and the carriage lamps +made only a subdued glimmer that was reflected from the polished metal +of the great winged thing resting on its carrier. He threw off his +evening coat and set feverishly to work. After its single trial the new +fan-propeller had been unshipped for a slight alteration, and the +flanges had not yet been reassembled. There were delicate adjustments to +be made, wire rigging to be tautened, a score of minute tests before all +could be safe and sure. He worked swiftly and with concentration, +feeling his mind answering to the stress with an absolute coolness. + +At length the last attachment was in place, the final bolt sent home and +one of the lamps lashed close in the angle of the wind screen. He took +his place and the engine started its familiar double rhythm: +pst-pst--pst-pst--pst-pst, as the explosive drop fell faster and faster. +He leaned and broke the clutch which held the big double doors of the +building. They swung open and he threw on the gear. + +And suddenly, as the propeller began to spin, in the instant the Glider +started in its rush down the guides, Daunt was aware that some one had +darted through the doors. He had a flashing view of a white, disheveled +face, heard a cry behind him--then the prow of the Glider tilted +abruptly, the air whistled past the screens, the great flat field sank +away, and he was throbbing steeply upward, against the sweep of the +wind. + +Daunt threw himself forward--the bubble in the spirit-level clung to the +top of its tube. Rapidly he warped down the elevation-vanes till slowly, +slowly, the telltale bubble crept to the middle of the level. What was +the matter? The engine was working well, yet there was a sense of +heaviness, of sluggishness that was unaccountable. He looked to either +side, before him, behind him. + +His fingers tightened on the clutches. Just forward of the whirling +propeller he made out the figure of a man, lying flat along the ribs of +the Glider's body, clutching the steel guys of the planes, looking at +him. + +For a moment he stared motionless. It was this extra weight that had +sent the Glider reeling prow-up--had made it unresponsive to control. +The man who clung there had aimed to prevent the flight! Daunt leaned +to let the full beam of the flaring lamp go past him. A quick +intuition had told him whose were the eyes that had glittered across +the throbbing fabric; but the face he saw now was infuriate with a new +look that made him shiver. It was incarnate with the daredevil of +terror. Phil had been a drunkard; he was drunk now with the calculate +madness of overmastering fear. As he gazed, a flitting, irrelevant +memory crossed Daunt's mind, of a day at college, years before, when +by a personal appeal, he had saved Phil from the disgrace of +expulsion. And now it was Phil--_Phil!_--clinging there, with +desperate, hooked fingers, struggling to consummate a crime that must +sink him for ever! + +Pst-pst--pst-pst--pst-pst; on the Glider drove. With a fierce effort, +Daunt crushed down the sense of unreality and swiftly weighed his +position. + +The other was directly in front of the propeller, a perilous place. Only +the guy-wire was in his reach. Between them was a shuddering space. To +land in the darkness to rid the aëroplane of that incubus, was +impossible. He must go on. Could he win with such a terrible handicap? +He set his teeth. Tilting the lateral vanes, he soared in a wide +serpentine, peering into the deep, resounding dark below. + +Tokyo lay a vast network of tiny pin-pricks of fire. He had never been +so high before, had been content to sweep the tree-tops. To the left a +bearded scimitar of light, merged by blackness, marked the bay. Daunt +swung parallel with this. Pst-pst--pst-pst--pst-pst. The wind tore in +gusts through the structure, the planes vibrating, the guys humming like +the strings of a gigantic harp. His clothing dragged at his body. He was +too high; he leaned over the mass of levers and the Glider slid down a +long, steep descent, till in the starlight he could see the blue-gray +blur of roofs, the massed shadows of little parks of trees. Now he was +passing the edge of the city--now below him was the gloom of the +rice-fields. A low sobbing sound came in the wind; it was the bubbling +chorus of the frogs, and across it he heard the bark of a peasant's dog. + +To the right a dark hill loomed without warning, with a dim +congeries of red tea-houses. It was the famous Ikegami, the shrine +of the Buddhist saint Ichiren, famed for its plum-gardens. It fell +away behind, and now, far off, a score of miles ahead, grew up on +the horizon a misty blotch of radiance. Yokohama! He swerved, +heading out across the lagoon, straight as the bee flies for the +shimmering spot. Pst-pst--pst-pst--faster and faster spat the tiny +explosions. The Glider throbbed and sang like a thing alive, and the +hum of the propeller shrilled into a scream. + +Tokyo was far behind now, the pale glow ahead rising and spreading. To +the right he could see the clumped lights of the villages along the +railroad, Kamata--Kawasaki--Tsurumi. He dropped still lower, out of the +lash of the wind. + +Suddenly a flying missile struck the forward plane, which resounded like +a great drum. A drop of something red fell on his bare hand and a +feathered body fell like a stone between his feet. A dark carpet, dotted +with foam, seemed to spring up out of the gulf. Daunt threw himself at +the levers and rammed them back. The Glider had almost touched the +sea--for a heartbreaking instant he thought it could never rise. He +heard the curl of the waves, and a cry from behind him. Then, slowly, +slowly, breasting the blast, it came staggering up the hill of air to +safety. + +The sky was perceptibly lightening now. Daunt realized it with a +tightening of all his muscles. It was the first tentative withdrawal of +the forces of the dark. Should he be in time? With his free hand he +loosened the coil of the grapnel. Suddenly the chances seemed all +against success. A feeling of hopelessness caught him. He thought of the +two men he had left behind, waiting--waiting. What message would come to +them that morning? + +The engine was doing its best, every fiber of tested steel and canvas +ringing and throbbing. But the creeping pallor of the night grew apace. +Kanagawa:--the Glider swooped above it, left it behind. The misty glow +was all around now, lights pricked up through the shadow. Yokohama was +under his feet, and ahead--the darker mass toward which he was +hurtling--was the Bluff. + +Slowly, with painful anxiety, he swung the huge float in to skirt the +cliff's seaward edge. There was the naval hospital with its flag-staff. +There beyond, was the familiar break in the rampart of foliage--and +there, flapping in the wind, was the awning on the flat roof of the +Roost. In the dawning twilight, it seemed a monstrous, leprous lichen, +shuddering at the unholy thing it hid. Daunt threw out the grapnel. + +He curved sharply in, aslant to the wind, flung down his prow and +swooped upon it. There was a tearing, splintering complaint of canvas +and bamboo; the Glider seemed to stop, to tremble, then leaped on. +Turning his head, Daunt saw the awning disappear like a collapsed kite. +He caught a glimpse, on the steep, ascending roadway of a handful of +naked men running staggeringly, one straggler far behind. The thought +flashed through his mind that these were the cadets from the Naval +College. But they would be too late! The sun was coming too swiftly. The +sky was a tide of amethyst--the dawn was very near! He came about in a +wide loop that took him out over the bay, making the turn with the wind. +For a fraction of a second he looked down--on the Squadron of +battle-ships, a geometrical cluster of black blots from which straight +wisps of dark smoke spun like raveled yarn into the formless obscurity. +A shrill, mad laugh came from behind him. + +Daunt was essaying a gigantic figure-of-light whose waist was the flat +bungalow roof. It was a difficult evolution in still sunlight and over a +level ground. He had now the semi-darkness, and the sucking down-drafts +of the wind that made his flight, with its driving falls and recoveries, +seem the careless fury of a suicide. Yet never once did his hand waver, +never did that strange, tense coolness desert him. + +As he swept back, like a stone in the sling of the wind, he saw the +thing he had come to destroy. It had the appearance of a large camera, +set on a spidery tripod near the edge of the flat roof, its lens +pointing out over the anchorage. Landing was out of the question; to +slacken speed meant to fall. He must strike the machine with the body of +the Glider or with the grapnel. To strike the roof instead meant to be +hurled headlong, mangled or dead, his errand unaccomplished, down +somewhere in that medley of roofs and foliage. The chances that he could +do this seemed suddenly to fade to the vanishing point. A wave of +profound hopelessness chilled his heart. + +With Phil's mad, derisive laughter ringing in his ears, he dropped the +Glider's stem and drove it obliquely across. The grapnel bounded and +clanged along the tiling, missing the tripod by three feet. On, in an +upward staggering lunge, then round once more, wearing into the wind. + +There was no peal of laughter now from the man clinging to the steel +rib. With the clarity of the lunatic Phil saw how close the swoop had +been. The scourge of the wind and the rapid flight through the rarefied +air had exalted him to a cunning frenzy. He had no terror of the +moment--all his fear centered in the to-morrow. To his deranged +imagination the black square on the tripod represented his safety. He +had forgotten why. But Bersonin had made him see it clearly. It must not +be touched! Daunt was the devil--he was trying to send him to the +copper-mines, to work underground, with chains on his feet, as long as +he lived! + +The Glider heeled suddenly and slid steeply downward. Daunt gripped the +levers and with all his strength warped up the forward plane. He felt a +pang of sharpened agony. He, too, would fail! The crash was almost upon +him. But the Glider hung a moment and righted. Farther and farther he +twisted the laterals, till she swam up, oscillating. A jerk ran through +her after framework; he turned his head. Clinging with foot and hand, +his hair streaming back from his forehead, his lips wide, Phil was +drawing himself, inch by inch, along the sagging guy-wire toward him. + +For a rigid second Daunt could not move a muscle. Then, caught by the +upper wind, the perilous tilting of the planes awoke him. He swung head +on, wavered, and swooped a last time for the roof. + +Pst-pst--pst-pst--Crash! The curved irons of the grapnel tore away the +coping--slid, screaming. A jolt all but threw him from his seat. There +were running feet somewhere far below him--a battering and shattering of +glass in the piazza. He felt a sudden clearance and the big aëroplane +plunged sidewise out over the bay, with a black, unwieldy weight, that +spun swiftly, hanging on its grapnel. + +A shout tore its way from his lips. Heedless of direction, he wrenched +with his fingers to unship the grapnel chain. At the same instant the +first sunbeam slid across the waves and turned the misty gloom to the +golden-blue glory of morning. + +And with it, as though the voice of the day itself, there went out over +the water, above the sweep of the wind, a single piercing-sweet note of +music, like the cry of a great, splendid bird calling to the sunrise. +Fishermen in tossing _sampan_, and sailors on heaving _junk_ heard it, +and whispered that it was the cry of the _kaminari_, the thunder-animal, +or of the _kappa_ that lures the swimmer to his death. An icy blast +seemed to shoot past the Glider into the zenith. Staring, Daunt realized +that one of the great planes, the propeller, the after-framework, with +the man who had clung to it, were utterly gone--that the Glider, like a +dead bird caught by the thudding twinge of a bullet, was lunging by its +own momentum--to its fall! Had Phil fallen, or was it-- + +Suddenly he felt himself flung backward, then forward on his face. The +spreading vanes, crumpled edgewise, like squares of cardboard, were +sliding down. He saw the shipping of the bay spread beneath him--the +twin lighthouses, one red, one white, on the ends of the breakwater--the +black Dreadnaughts--a steamer with bright red funnels--a fleet of +fishing _sampan_ putting out. All were swelling larger and larger. The +wind, blowing upward around him, stole his breath, and he felt the blood +beating in his temples. He heard ships' bells striking, and across the +sound a temple-bell boomed clearly. A mist was coming before his eyes. +Just below him was a white yacht; it seemed to be rushing up to meet him +like a swan. + +Thoughts darted through his brain like live arrows. The battle-ships +were saved! No shameful suspicion should touch Japan's name in the +highways of the world! What matter that he lost the game? What did +one--any one--count against so much? + +He thought of Barbara. He would never know now what she had been about +to tell him that night at the Nikko shrine! He would never see her +again! But she would know ... she would know! + +The sound of the sea--a great roaring in his ears. + + + + + CHAPTER LIV + + INTO THE SUNLIGHT + + +On the deck of the white yacht the captain rose to his feet. The battle +fought on that huddle of blankets for the life of the man so hardly +snatched from the sea had been a close one, but it had been won. His +smile of satisfaction overran the group of observant faces at one side, +the bishop watching with strained anxiety, and the girl, who pillowed in +her arms that unconscious head with its drenched, brown curls. + +"Don't you be afraid, Miss Fairfax," he said, with bluff heartiness. +"_He'll_ be all right now!" + +The assurance came to Barbara's heart with an infinite relief that he +could not guess. At the first sight of the huge bird-like thing slipping +down the sky she had known the man clinging to its framework was Daunt. +The stricken moments while the wreck of the great vanes lay outspread on +the water--the launch of the yacht's boat, and the lifting of the limp +form over its gunwale--the cruelly kind ministrations that had brought +breath back to the inert body--these had seemed to her to consume +dragging hours of agony. A thunder of guns roared across the water, but +she scarcely heard. Her eyes were fixed on theface to which the tide of +life was returning. + +Again the roar, and now the sound pierced the saturating darkness. It +called the numbed senses back to the sphere of feeling--to a +consciousness of an immense weariness and a gentle motion. It seemed to +Daunt as though his head rested on a pillow which rose and fell to an +irregular rhythm. He stirred. His eyes opened. + +Memory dawned across them. Haru's story--the windy flight on the +Glider--the sick sense of failure--the plunge down, and down, and the +water leaping toward him! Had he failed? A third time the detonation +rang out. He started, made an effort to rise. His gaze swept the sea. +There, flags flying, bands playing, a line of Dreadnaughts was steaming +down the harbor. + +"The battle-ships!" he said, and there was triumph in his eyes. + +He turned his head and saw the bishop, the silent crew, the relieved +countenance of the captain. Realization came to him. Soft arms were +about him; the pillow that rose and fell was a woman's heaving breast! +His gaze lifted, and Barbara's eyes flowed into his. He put out a hand +weakly and whispered her name. + +She did not speak, but in that look a glory enfolded him. It was not +womanly pity in her face--it was far, far more, something wordless, but +eloquent, veiled, yet passionately tender. He knew suddenly that after +the long night had come the morning, after the pain and the +misunderstanding all would be well. + +For an instant he closed his eyes, smiling. The darkness was gone for +ever. His head was on her heart, and it was her dear arms that were +lifting him up, into the sunlight, the sunlight, the sunlight! + + + + + CHAPTER LV + + KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS + + +Long, windless, golden days of spring and falling cherry-petals, with +cloud-piles like fleecy pillars, with fringing palm-plumes and bamboo +foliage turning from yellow cadmium to tawny green. + +Drowsy, lotos-eating days of summer among purple hills wound in a +luminous elfin haze. Days of typhoon and straight-falling rain. Sunsets +of smouldering crimson and nights under a blue-black vault palpitating +with star-swarms or a waste of turquoise, liquid with tropic moonlight. + +Languorous days of autumn by the Inland Sea, when the dying summer's +breath lingers like the perfume of incense, and the mirroring lilac +water deepens to bishop's-purple. + +So the mild Japanese winter comes--slowly, under a high, keen sky, +bringing at last its scourging of dust and wind, its chill, opaque +nights with their spectral fog veiling the trembling flames of the +constellations, and its few, rare days when the evergreen earth is +covered with a blanket of snow. + +There came one such day when Daunt stood with Barbara by the huge stone +_torii_ at the gateway of the _Mon-to_ temple on the Hill-of-the-Spirit. +The air was softly radiant but not cold, the translucent heavens tinted +with a fairy mauve, which on the horizon merged into dying hyacinth. The +camelia hedges stood like blanched rows of crystalled beryl, the +stalwart _mochi_ trees were cased in argent armor, and the curving porch +of the temple, the roof of the near-by nunnery, the forest of bronze +lanterns and the square stone tablets in the graveyard were capped with +soft rounded mounds of snow. It lay thickly over the paved space save +where a wide way had been cleared to the temple steps, for the day was a +_saijits'_, a holy day, when the people gather to worship. + +Across the lane they could see the Chapel lifting its white cross into +the clear blue. From its chancel arch was hung a crucifix of +gold-lacquer, where the declining sun, shining through the stained glass +of the rose-window, each evening touched it to shimmering color. The +altar to-day was fragrant with the first plum-blossoms; two hours ago +the bishop, standing before it, had read the sacred office which had +made them man and wife. The carriage which was to take them to Shimbashi +Station waited now at the end of the lane while Barbara brought a branch +of the early blooms to lay on a Buddhist grave in a tenantless garden. + +In one of the farther groups before the temple steps was a miniature +_rick-sha_ drawn by a servant. It held a child who had not walked since +a night when, with clenched hands and brave little heart, he had run +into the path of a speeding motor-car. On the breast of his wadded +_kimono_ was a knot of ribbon at which the other children gazed in awe +and wonder. It had been pinned one night to a small hospital shirt when +the wandering eyes were hot with fever and the baby face pinched and +white, by a lady whom Ishikichi had thought must be the Sun Goddess at +very least, and before whom the attendants of that room of pain had +bowed to the very mats. He knew that in some dim way, without quite +knowing how, he had helped that great, mysterious something that meant +the Government of Japan, and that he should be very proud of it. But +Ishikichi was far prouder of the fine foreign front that had displaced +the poor little shop in the Street-of-prayer-to-the-Gods. + +Nearer the gateway, on the edge of the gathering, stood an old man, his +face seamed and lined, but with eye clear and young and a smile on his +face. The crest on his sleeve was the _mon_ of an ancient and honored +_samurai_ family. He leaned on the arm of his adopted son--a Commander +of the Imperial Navy whose name had once been Ishida Hetaro. They stood +apart, regarding not the Temple, but the low building across the hedge, +behind whose bamboo lattice dim forms passed and repassed. + +"Look," said Barbara suddenly, and touched Daunt's arm. A woman's figure +had paused at the lattice of the nunnery. She was dressed in slate-color +and her delicate features and close-shaven head gave her a singularly +unearthly appearance, like an ethereal and angelic boy. The little +two-wheeled carriage drew up at the lattice and a slender hand reached +out and patted the round cropped head of its occupant. As the vehicle +was drawn away, the nun looked up and across the yard--toward the old +_samurai_ and the young naval officer. The wraith of a flush crept into +her cheek. She smiled, and they smiled in return, the placid Japanese +smile which is the rainbow of forbidden tears. A second they stood thus, +then the slate-colored figure drew back and was gone, and the old man, +supported by the younger arm, passed slowly out of the yard. + +Barbara's eyes were still on the lattice as Daunt spoke. "What is it?" +he asked. + +"The face of the nun there," she said, with vague wistfulness. "It +reminds me of some one I have known. Who can it be, I wonder!" + +They crossed the yard, and entered the deserted garden. The great ruin +at its side was covered with friendly shrubs and the all-transfiguring +snow. The line of stepping-stones had been swept clean and beside the +frost-fretted lake an irregular segment of rock, closely carved with +ideographs, had been planted upright. It stood in mystic peace, looking +between the snow-buried, birdless trees toward the horizon where +Fuji-San towered into the infinite calm--a magical mountain woven of a +world of gems, on which the sun's heart beat in a tumult. At the base of +the stone slab were Buddhist vases filled with green leaves in fresh +water, and in one of these Barbara placed the branch of plum-blossoms. +Its pink petals lay against the brown rock like the kiss of spring on a +wintry heart. + +As she arranged the sprays, Daunt stood looking down on her bent head, +where, under her fur hat, the sun was etching gold-hued lines on the +soft copper of her hair. He had taken a yellowed envelope from his +pocket. + +"Do you remember, dearest," he said, "that I once told you of an old +envelope in the Chancery safe bearing the name of Aloysius Thorn?" + +"Yes," she answered wonderingly. + +"It was opened, after his death, while you were away. It contained his +will. I turned it into Japanese, as best I could, for the temple +priests. It is carved there on the stone. The Ambassador gave the +original to the bishop, and he handed it to me to-day for you. He +thought you would like to keep it." He drew the paper from the +discolored envelope and handed it to her. + +She sat down on a boulder and unfolding the faded sheets, began to read +aloud, in a voice that became more and more unsteady: + +"KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, that I, Aloysius Thorn, of the city of +Tokyo, in Tokyo-fu, Empire of Japan, being in health and of sound and +disposing mind and memory, do make and publish this my last will and +testament, devising, bequeathing and disposing in the manner following, +to wit: + +"Item: I give, devise and bequeath to Japanese children, inclusively, +for and through the term of their childhood, the woods of cryptomeria, +with their green silences, and the hillsides with the chirpings of +bell-crickets in the _sa-sa_ grass and the fairy quiverings of golden +butterflies. I give them the husky crow and the darting swallow under +the eaves. And I devise to them all lotos-pools on which to sail their +straw _sampan_, the golden carp and the lilac-flashing dragon-fly in and +above them, and the _dodan_ thickets where the _semi_ chime their silver +cymbals. I also give to them all temple yards, wheresoever situate, and +all moats, and the green banks thereunto appertaining, for their +playgrounds, providing, however, that they break no tree or shrub, +remembering that trees, like children, have souls. And I devise to them +the golden fire of the morning and all long, white clouds, to have and +to hold the same, without let or hindrance. These the above I bequeath +to them, possessing no little child of my own with whom to share my +interest in the world. + +"To boys especially I give and bequeath all holidays to be glad in, and +the blue sky for their paper kites. To girls I give and bestow the +rainbow _kimono_, the flower in the hair and the battledore. And I +bequeath them all kinds of dolls, reminding them that these, if loved +enough, may some time come alive. + +"Item: To young men, jointly, I devise and bequeath the rough sports of +_kenjuts'_ and of _ju-jits'_, the _shinai_-play and all manly games. I +give them the knowledge of all brave legends of the _samurai_, and +especially do I leave them the care and respect for the aged. I give +them all far places to travel in and all manner of strange and +delectable adventures therein. And I apportion to them the high noon, +with its appurtenances, to wit: the heat and burden of the day, its +commotions, its absorbing occupations and its fiercer rivalries. I give +to them, moreover, the cherry-blossom, the flower of _bushido_, which, +falling in the April of its bloom, may ever be for them the symbol of a +life smilingly yielded in its prime. + +"To young women, I give and devise the glow of the afternoon, the soft +blue witchery of pine shadows, the delicate traceries of the bamboo and +the thin, low laughter of waterfalls. I devise to them all manner of +perfumes, and tender spring blossoms (save in the one exception provided +hereinbefore), such as the plum-blossom and the wistaria, with the red +maple-leaves and the gorgeous glories of the chrysanthemum. And I give +to them all games of flower-cards, and all divertisements of music, as +the _biwa_, the flute and the _samisen_, and of dances whatsoever they +may choose. + +"Item: To the aged I bequeath snowy hair, the long memories of the past +and the golden _ihai_ on the Buddha-Shelf. I give them the echo of tiny +bare feet on the _tatamé_, and the grave bowing of small shaven heads. I +devise to them the evening's blaze of crimson glory and the amber clouds +above the sunset, the pale _andon_ and the indigo shadows, the dusk +dance of the yellow lanterns, the gathering of friends at the +moon-viewing place and the liquid psalmody of the nightingale. I give to +them also the winter, the benediction of snow-bent boughs and the +waterways gliding with their silver smiles. I give to them sufficient +space to lie down within a temple ground that echoes the play of little +children. And finally I bequeath to them the love and blessing of +succeeding generations for the blossoming of a hundred lives. + +"In testimony whereof, I, the said Aloysius Thorn--" + + * * * * * + +Barbara's voice broke off. Her eyes were wet as she folded the paper. +Daunt drew her to her feet, and with his arm about her, they stood +looking out across the white city lying in all its ghostly glamour--the +many-gabled watch-towers above the castle walls, the glistening plateau +of Aoyama with its dull red barracks, the rolling sea of wan roofs, and +far beyond, the creeping olive of the bay. In the clear distance they +could see the lift of Kudan Hill, and the gray pile of the Russian +Cathedral. Standing in its candle-lighted nave, they had listened to +Japanese choir-boys hymning the Birth in Bethlehem. The next Christmas +they two would be together--but in another land! + +"Minister to Persia!" she said. "I am glad of your appointment, for it +means so much to your career. And yet--and yet--" + +In the temple yard behind them an acolyte, wading knee-deep in the snow, +swung the cedar beam of the bell-tower and the deep-voiced boom rolled +out across the cradling hush. Again and yet again it struck, the waves +of sound throbbing into volume through the still air. It came to them +like a firm and beautiful voice, the articulate echo of the Soul of +Japan. + +The whinny of restive horses stole over the hedges. Silently Daunt held +out his hand to her. She bent and picked a single plum-blossom from the +branch and slipped it into the yellow envelope. For a last time she +looked out across the distance. + +"The beautiful country!" she said. + + + THE END + + +Transcriber Notes: + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. + +Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe". + +Throughout the document, an "o" with a macron the was replaced with +"[=o]", and a "u" with a macron the was replaced with "[=u]". + +Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of +the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. + +The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. + +Errors in punctuation, inconsistent hyphenation, and idiosyncratic +spellings were not corrected unless otherwise noted. + +In the table of contents, "BANZAI NIPPON" was replaced with "BANZAI +NIPPON!" + +On page 1, "Rosicrusian" was replaced with "Rosicrucian". + +On page 12, "tauntness" was replaced with "tautness". + +On page 30, "exhiliration" was replaced with "exhilaration". + +On page 36, "cockaboo" was replaced with "cockatoo". + +On page 40, "pastelles" was replaced with "pastels". + +On page 114, "xilophone" was replaced with "xylophone". + +On page 193, "rich'sha" was replaced with "rick'sha". + +On page 206, "rich'sha" was replaced with "rick'sha". + +On page 213, "oramented" was replaced with "ornamented". + +On page 373, "irony plectrons" was replaced with "ivory plectrums". + +On page 417, "scimetar" was replaced with "scimitar". + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kingdom of Slender Swords, by +Hallie Erminie Rives + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42427 *** |