The Breath of the Gods Part 14

"A mighty noise, young lady!" volunteered Yuki's jinrikisha man, in a hoa.r.s.e shout. He nodded his head toward the clamor, and then looked backward to bestow on her a confidential grin. In the river, just in front of the a.r.s.enal, great muddy barges were poled in and beached,--with loads of coal and copper, iron and wood.

"Yes, indeed, it is a terrible noise," answered Yuki politely. "They must be very busy behind those walls." She sighed heavily, but her sigh was lost in the roar of flame. The fact that her country was at that very moment on the verge of war with Russia, perhaps with France also,--with France, Pierre's country!--was one of those thoughts she was trying to keep away.

"They work with double force by lamp and by sun," boasted the jinrikisha man, when they had pa.s.sed the most deafening uproar. "Oh, but the Russians think us children to be cheated and lied to! But we are preparing a lesson for the cowardly bears,--we do not fear them! Look, O Jo San!" He chuckled loudly, and without relaxing his wonderful mechanical trot or falling an inch behind the pace of the two preceding kuruma, unwrapped from his wrist the inevitable twisted tenugui, or hand towel. Keeping one end under his palm, he let the rest stream backward, like a flag. Instead of the usual bird, flower, or landscape etching in indigo blue, the pattern represented a fleet of j.a.panese war-ships in full engagement with the Russian navy. Under the water-level great communities of deep-sea fish looked expectantly upward, chop-sticks and rice-bowls in their fins. A few Russian sailors, the first of a gorging repast, had commenced to sink downward. The eyes of the fish were admirable in their expression of calm certainty. Thus, before the firing of Togo's first challenge, did the Tokio populace enjoy prophetic visions.

Beyond the a.r.s.enal, and its huddled concourse of working-men's houses waiting just without the walls, the Koishikawa took a more definite turn to the north. The Onda party, following it, came soon to a region of green lanes and pleasant gardens. The clamor of metal-workers died away.

One knew that birds lived in the groves. Before them the highland of the district loomed in great dark ma.s.ses, and splendid trees of camphor and of pine soared clear against the blue. At foot of the hill "Kobinata"

(Little Sunshine) the three jinrikishas halted in unison, and the three runners looked with bovine yet inquiring faces, each upon his living burden. The hillside road, now to be taken, rose steep and white between bamboo hedges. Onda motioned his coolie to lower the shafts. "I am a heavy man, and with my own feet will take the slope," he said.

"No, no, honorable master. Indeed I say no!" protested the coolie, while making the greatest haste to obey. "It is not fitting that so exalted a person as your divine lordship should walk. Though I break my worthless bones, I will draw you up that precipice!"

Onda, smiling slightly, stepped into the road. Iriya would have followed his example, but he motioned, bidding her, and likewise Yuki, to remain seated. He paused to tuck his blue robe a few inches higher, catching the pointed end-fold in his belt. Iriya and her grunting bearer went by him. He remained standing, waiting for Yuki. Their eyes met, and both smiled. He put one powerful hand to the back of the girl's vehicle, his face being then about on a level with hers, and, ascending the hill beside her, used his supplementary strength at the very steep or stony places.

The girl sat very slim and straight, looking eagerly about her. "Father, what is it about this land of ours that makes all things so honorably different,--so strangely beautiful?"

"My daughter, it is not well to speak boastfully, even of one's land,"

answered Tetsujo; but his fine, strong face did not bear out the reproof of his words.

"There will be a gate now, soon to the left,--a little gate of straw thatching, tied with loops of black hemp twine! A pine-tree sends one stiff arm across it. On a clear day one sees, in that green frame, the snows of Fuji-san! Oh, can I bear it, father? I _must_ speak. My heart aches already with the loveliness. See, even the trees know that they are beautiful; each has a soul! The trees of America have no souls."

"No, from what I have heard and seen of the Americans, their trees have only hardwood centres. It is what the Americans would prefer."

"Not all, not all," protested Yuki. "I have a friend, that blonde girl on the hatoba (wharf),--I have other friends who understand us strangely. I think in a previous life they must have been j.a.panese."

"Bah! It is but poor respect you pay our country," answered Tetsujo, half-teasingly. "Ah," he cried, catching her arm, "the little gate, my child,--the pine-tree." Yuki's coolie had stopped without bidding. His face, too, wore the smile of one who loves and understands. The little gate rose straight and square in its deep gold color of old straw, the black knots made fantastic decoration along the ridge, the pine-tree stretched an arm of everlasting green, and over the straight line of the leaves, far, far out to the West, hung the frail cone of Fuji, like a silver bowl inverted. Yuki did not try to speak. Her father and the coolie feasted also in silence. In a few moments the little procession, still wordless, began again the steep ascent.

Now Tetsujo's eyes went to the pebbled ground. His next remark seemed at first incongruous. "Did you see the belching of black smoke, my Yuki, and did you hear the clashing of scourged steel?"

"Yes, father, and the smoke creeps after us like an evil spirit, even to the foot of Little Sunshine Hill."

"Nippon is soon to enter upon mortal struggle with a great and merciless foe. All arts of war and treachery will be used against us. We may not survive."

"Father, it must not come,--the G.o.ds must divert it!"

"Every samurai will give his life. Every child and woman of his race will lie, self-slain, in blood, before the yielding. And yet defeat may be decreed. To be blind is to be weak. We must face unflinchingly the ultimate horror."

"The old G.o.ds must protect us!" cried the girl.

"You are a Christian. The Christian G.o.ds will be invoked to aid our enemies."

"Oh, father, you hurt me! When I wished to become a Christian, like the other girls, I wrote you many letters,--you did not oppose it then."

"Neither do I oppose it now," said Tetsujo. "In things of religious faith each soul should seek an individual path. Because of your intelligence I allowed you to decide. But in patriotism,--in loyalty to your native land,--I still have responsibility. Ah, you are my one child, and most dearly beloved; but if ever I should see in you one taint of selfish swerving,--if I should suspect that through the foreign education the sinews of your love were weak--"

Yuki stopped him by a gesture. Her head was proudly lifted. Her eyes gleamed, and her thin nostrils shook,--"Such thoughts as these are not to be spoken between a samurai and his child. My very heart is knit of the fibres of that word 'Nippon.'"

"You are certain, Yuki?" Tetsujo's question and his eyes dug deep.

Yuki hesitated less than a fraction of thought. "I am certain," she said.

A silence rose between them. Yuki's bright joyousness felt a drifting cloud. What did her father mean? Had Prince Hagane spoken ill of her?

The promise to Pierre gnawed like a hungry worm. She fought anew the phantoms of love and approaching war. The two laden jinrikisha coolies tugged on with ostentatious groans. The hand towels now came into requisition for the mopping of streaming brows. The road began to curve into a level s.p.a.ce, from which hedge-bordered lanes radiated. Again Tetsujo spoke.

"That new American envoy,--he with the nose of a sick vulture and the fine yellow eye,--is he favorable to us? Is he one that at all understands us?"

"Indeed, my father, he is of wonderful understanding. He and Baron Kanrio are as brothers in thought. Did not Prince Hagane speak of him?"

Ignoring the question, Tetsujo went on. "The younger of the two women,--that straw-colored maiden who seems standing on the edge of a small typhoon,--she, I suppose, is the school friend, the Miss Todd, you referred to."

"Yes," answered Yuki, a little resentfully. "And she is considered beautiful. I think her augustly beautiful, even as Amaterasu, our Sun G.o.ddess."

"Not ours. It may be that other nations have also sun G.o.ddesses," said Tetsujo, significantly. "To me all foreign females are of hideous aspect. They look and strut like fowls. And the two young males,--sons of Mr. Todd, I take it,--they are as the painted toys sold in temple booths. Yet, if the foreigners have been kind, it is well to express grat.i.tude, and to send gifts as costly as my purse will allow."

"The Todds are rich,--very, very rich,--even as our great silk merchants," cried Yuki, in indignation. "They do not want gifts, or expect them. It is not an American custom. Gwendolen, my friend, my sister, wishes only to be with me, freely, as we have been for four years past."

Tetsujo considered. "I could not refuse you a continuance of friendship, my child, though I confess it will irk me greatly to see those strange creatures on my mats. After the first few days of your home-coming,--in a week, perhaps,--you can speak again of this desire."

Yuki's heart sank. A week,--and she had promised to see them to-morrow, perhaps this afternoon! She opened her lips to remonstrate, and then thought better of it. If he felt it a concession to admit Gwendolen, daughter of the new American minister, what would he say to Pierre?

Deliberately she fought down the rising host of apprehensions. "No," she whispered, "I shall not dwell upon it. I must not spoil my home-coming with uncertain fears. I shall try to be untroubled until I can tell my father all."

Well along the top of the hill, Onda re-entered his kuruma, and with the word "hidari" (left), started the little string of vehicles down a path that ran in wavering lines between hedges of various growths. Many were of dwarf bamboo or sa-sa, other of a higher bamboo, springing from resilient stems twenty feet in air. A few were of the small-leafed d[=o]dan, a bush which turns to wet vermilion with the frost. Several were of intertwisted thorn, a cruel and relentless guardian. One showed a flat green wall like that of a three-story city house jutting upon a pavement; but the masonry was all of growth, rafters of thick stems, and facing of the close-clipped evergreen mochi-tree. The small tiled gate jutting from the centre of the lower edge seemed the entrance of a cave.

Doubtless behind this imposing and misleading front nestled an unpretentious cot, a well-sweep, a small vegetable and flower garden, and a handful of old trees.

Onda's gate, some hundreds of yards further to the north, emerged in wooden simplicity from a sa-sa hedge. Along the street the bamboo only showed. Within it ran a line of well-trained thorn. This fence was characteristic of the race which had planned it; Onda's father and grandfather, and many generations before, had owned this spot of ground in Yedo.

Tetsujo, although the first to arrive, remained in his kuruma, while Iriya and Yuki made haste to descend. The former went at once to the gate, pulling aside a thin wooden panel. A little gate-bell jangled, and at the musical summons wooden-shod feet were heard, running down the pathway from the house. Old Suzume, shrivelled, yellow, her black eyes darting excitement everywhere, fell on her knees in the gateway. She began immediately to mutter a jumble of ceremonious phrases, in the pauses drawing her breath with ferocious energy. Behind her showed a moon-faced maiden, who stared first, as if bewildered, and then suddenly fell to the earth beside Suzume.

"That is sufficient," said Tetsujo, now descending and pushing between them as he entered the gate. "Here, Suzume, take my purse, and let these good rascals rob us as little as possible. Go within, Maru, and prepare to remove the foreign shoes from the feet of your young mistress."

Maru, quaking like a jelly, as she always did when addressed directly by the "august master," obeyed instantly, and knelt at the stone house-step to receive the shoes. Suzume unwillingly remained at the gate to haggle with the three jinrikisha men.

When the shoes were reverently drawn off, dusted on Maru's blue striped ap.r.o.n, and set side by side on the stone step, the little handmaid disappeared around the corner of the house. A moment later was heard the scurrying of soft stockinged feet within.

Yuki stretched a hand toward the closed shoji.

"No, dear, wait an instant," said Iriya, hurriedly interposing. "Let Maru San open the shoji. She has been rehearsing this for a year."

Yuki drew back. "I have forgotten so many things," she murmured, flushing.

"They are not lost; they will spring quickly in the warm rain of home love," said Tetsujo, behind them.

The shoji were sliding apart, both at once, with noiseless precision. In the opening Maru's globe-like countenance beamed. Now, for the first time, Iriya performed the equivalent of an introduction. "Maru San," she said, in her pleasant voice, "this is our o jo san (honorable young lady of the house), Onda Yuki-ko, for whom we have been longing."

"Hai, o jo san! Go kigen y[=o]! Ira.s.shai!" palpitated the little servant, asking her to enter.

"I have written you often of Maru," Iriya went on, turning to her daughter.

Tetsujo brushed unceremoniously through the group, and strode alone to the big corner guest-room at the rear.