The Breath of the Gods Part 34

"Do you think that the soul of a woman who shirks would be less cowardly if put into the body of a man? Even your Christians could tell you better."

"Lord! Lord!" cried the girl to him in great stress, "am I indeed of the coward's heart? Is this thing I call fidelity but a shirking?"

"A j.a.panese has no fidelity but to his Emperor!" thundered Onda.

"Be quiet, Tetsujo! Listen, poor wavering little heart; I will try to make you understand. You cannot be allowed to marry this man, not because we wish to thwart you, but--"

"I said I would not marry him, now,--not now!"

"Then what will you do?" asked Hagane. "All are striving to their utmost. What will be your part? Do you intend to sit sullen and inactive here, at home?"

"The wench shall remain no longer under my roof!" raged Tetsujo.

"She will remain under your roof, good Tetsujo, and be treated with courtesy," corrected the prince.

"Let me go as a nurse! Oh, I could never stay with them! Their harsh eyes would flay me! I feel even now their hatred!"

"Not mine, my baby, my only child!" wailed Iriya. "Think not so of your mother's imperishable love!"

Yuki at last hid her face. The note of anguish in her mother's voice overcame her pathetic defiance.

"My official residence is cold and lonely," remarked Hagane, sipping slowly at some tea. "It sorely needs a mistress well acquainted with foreign etiquette. Foreigners are to be met and conciliated. The Emperor himself, and his shining spouse, would receive one who so served her land, and hear from her own lips impressions of America, and the sentiments of the people there toward us. A woman's intuition is keen, and penetrates farther than a man's weightier judgment,--just as the tendrils of a vine creep into lattices which a tree would only darken.

It is in such a capacity, Yuki-ko, that you could do immediate good. My disorganized servants would again be set into grooves of usefulness.

Another reason, which must not be spoken openly, as yet,--I may soon be called to the front, and the several residences should not be closed."

"Lord! You would trust with such responsibilities a weak, untutored girl like me?"

"Yes, little one, I would trust you."

"And I would be in all respects--your--wife?" asked Yuki, in a very low tone.

"Yes. Why not? What is the human body but a petal drifting in the wind?

If, for a moment, the bright tint or the fleeting perfume please, is it not best to grasp the trivial pleasure? Yet it is to great things that I call you, Onda Yuki. Things of service, of the spirit, heroism perhaps, perhaps self-sacrifice,--for the flesh is stubborn. This shall be your proof of loyalty to your Emperor and to this land!"

"I would gladly die for them!" she cried.

Hagane emptied the few dregs of his teacup into the hot ashes of the hibachi, ignoring the ceremonial little bowl put near for the purpose.

"It was in Washington, I believe, that once before you made that foolish remark. What use would death be, especially if you seek it as an escape from conditions that do not please you? Cowardice is a crime of the spirit! I see no chance for you to serve but this."

"But to be your wife, your wife--while yet he--that other--holds my pledge!" murmured the girl, piteously, under her breath. "I prayed for freedom, but he would not send it--!" Gwendolen's telegraphic words, "I would accept H." came to her like a little gust of refreshing wind. She looked again squarely into Hagane's n.o.ble face. For the first time Pierre's rose before her, a little weak, a little over-delicate, with incipient lines of self-indulgence.

"My child," said Hagane, almost in a pleading tone, "j.a.pan must not lose you. Put your life into my hands, and let me wield it for our country's need. I believe my motives to be selfless. If indeed your young beauty blurs my vision, then will punishment rightly follow. But I take that hazard. Had I a son, you should be, more fitly, his wife."

"If your father's everlasting curse--" Tetsujo began; but Hagane stopped him.

"We need no curses, Tetsujo! You are showing yourself unworthy of this brave child. Be quiet, I say; and let her own soul speak to her!"

Iriya gasped, and Onda bit his thick lip to the blood. Yuki's lifted face had the pathos of dying music. "Will my soul speak, Lord?" she breathed. The sound of her voice was cold and thin, and touched with a mystic fear.

Almost as if gathered in to answer, from the far distance a m.u.f.fled chorus of a thousand whispering voices quivered in the air,--drawing nearer, nearer,--until the sound seemed to press upon their very hearts.

Now over the garden a soft, pale light began to dawn. It grew to a concourse of a thousand spirit-lamps, crossing, recrossing, flickering, then pa.s.sing on. Feet moving softly, though by the hundred, went by in ghostly rhythm.

"Lord! Lord!" panted Yuki, wild-eyed. "What is it? Do you hear also? or is it only I?"

Hagane did not answer at once. He watched the girl's face as one watches a changing chemical. When the sound had grown unmistakably human, though of voices kept low and tense with unusual awe, he said quietly, "You have all heard of the brave young Commander Hirose, who died rescuing his friend, in the second attempt to block Port Arthur. This is a band of Koishikawa students pa.s.sing down to the railway station to meet him."

He stopped, wondering how much the girl could endure. The glare of the white lanterns, borne aloft, ploughed a great soundless trench of light through the trees and houses that line the steep slope of Kobinata's hill. Light surged over the thorn and bamboo hedges of Onda's home, br.i.m.m.i.n.g the garden with a tender radiance, and revealing hillock, shrub, and tree as in a faint unearthly dream. It threw a deeper glow into the face of Hagane, and over the battle-flag above him.

As for Tetsujo, he listened to the pa.s.sing of countless feet in sullen gloom. He hated the students that they were young. He envied the death of Hirose. It would be a clear personal joy to die that way, and have one's name blazoned as a new G.o.d. A n.o.bler soul might have cared little for such posthumous recognition; but old Onda's generosity did not reach that height. To him, heaven was a place where spirits swaggered, and bore the two swords of the samurai.

Hagane, looking only at Yuki, continued softly: "A hundred thousand lanterns of the dead will be carried this night, for the brave boy. It is but a fragment of his flesh, that was found with a bit of uniform clinging to it; but the precious relic will have--friends, to bear it to the temple. There his young widow, smiling like a statue of Kwannon, awaits it; and his little son, calmly proud that his father has become a great spirit. No heart in Nippon, to-night--but worships--Hirose!"

Hagane's voice had been even enough, and calm; but something in it loosened Yuki's soul from the flesh. Again she stared at him, as if mesmerized. Then suddenly she half rose, leaning toward him, and hurled herself face down on the mats, within reach of his hand.

"All that I have to give is dust! The body is nothing! The G.o.ds have released me! Take me, great-hearted man, and use me to my country's need!"

The shifting footsteps all had pa.s.sed. The faint reflected glamour of the lanterns spread far below along the level stone road by the a.r.s.enal.

The garden was plunged again into blackness. Onda stared, as if dazed, after the lights, then brought his eyes to Yuki's prostrate body. His slow wits could not seize, at once, the realization of so ineffable a hope. Iriya m.u.f.fled her sobs in her sleeve.

Hagane, to rea.s.sure Yuki, had put a hand lightly upon her thick hair. No one but the spirits--if they were near--saw a dull red tide of pa.s.sion surge up to his broad face, swelling his neck into purple veins, and twitching at the sinews of the powerful hands. But his voice, when he answered, was that of a high-priest. "In our Emperor's name, my child, I accept the gift. May the G.o.ds a.s.sist me to use it worthily!"

Tetsujo, half crawling, reached the tea-tray, and drained a stale cup to the dregs. Yuki lay so still that Iriya took fond alarm. The joy and triumph faded from her face. She met Hagane's look with a slight appealing gesture toward her child. Hagane nodded. She crept to Yuki, tugging at her sleeve, and trying to push her up from the floor. Hagane leaned forward, and picked the girl up like a toy. She put out a faltering hand and touched her mother.

"Come, come, my treasure!" whispered Iriya. "Let us go together to your little room, where quiet will best restore you!"

"One moment, dame!" said Hagane. "I must speak with Tetsujo, in your presence." The old kerai was on his knees, bowing, his exultation only exaggerating his humility.

From the impersonal ring of Hagane's orders, he might have been outlining a Manchurian campaign. "Let there be no delay! Since at any hour I may be ordered to the front, I wish the ceremony over, that I may instruct Yuki in certain official duties before I leave. And remember, this is no time for expenditure or display."

"Your will is mine, Augustness."

"This is Friday. Next Wednesday, then, at my Tabata villa! All shall be in readiness. Is this as you wish, Yuki-ko?"

"Your will is mine, Lord," whispered Yuki, echoing unconsciously her father's words.

"The child trembles. May I not conduct her to her chamber?" asked Iriya of the prince.

"Yes, dame," replied he, kindly. "And, brave little one, farewell! I am overcharged with duties, and may not see you again till Wednesday, at noon. One instant!" The two women paused, Iriya facing him expectantly, Yuki with head hung low. "I want to say, here, in the presence of my too-zealous Tetsujo, that Yuki is to be treated, from this moment, with the respect and dignity that becomes a Princess Hagane. There is to be no espionage; no opposition; no suggestion of restraint of any kind! My entire confidence is with my future wife. Do you understand that, Onda Tetsujo?"

"Yes, Lord," growled Tetsujo, crimson with mortification; but he did not forget to bow.

In her own room Yuki stood staring, dazed, ignoring her mother's frequent suggestion to be seated. "No! Let me breathe! Let me learn to breathe again!" muttered she at last, and caught her mother's arm as she stepped to the tiny veranda. From the guest-room beyond, where the two men talked, a soft light gleamed, throwing the pebbled paths of the garden into little Milky Ways of light. The shrubs lay round and dark, like a flock of little clouds. Beyond all rose the tall black hedge of bamboo and of thorn.

"My child," said the mother, "you have brought to us great happiness and pride. Surely reward will come to you, even in this incarnation. I will pray ceaselessly to Kwannon in your behalf."

Yuki leaned closer to her mother. The cool wet smell of the garden already stole away some of the hot bewilderment from her brain. The angry waves of indecision, girlish longing, and patriotism, which had raged so furiously together, now began to recede, leaving bare at last a small white strip of thought. She was safe now, pledged, not to personal joy, but to heroic service. The greatest of all men was to be her teacher, her helper, her--husband! Well, what of it? Nothing was too great a sacrifice for Nippon. And if Pierre would only not misjudge too cruelly! Even in this first vicarious shudder of Pierre's grief, she could not feel that he would suffer long. His agony might at first be intense and uncontrolled, but, through its very exaggeration, would the more swiftly pa.s.s. For her sake, now, he must leave j.a.pan. This was the last boon that love should ask of him.

From the street, from the other side of that inky bamboo wall, came the low notes of a foreign song,--a strain from Carmen. The girl shivered once, and was still.