The Breath of the Gods Part 62

Hagane stared one moment upon the speaker with lips that writhed backward, showing teeth like a baited boar. "His Excellency is always prudent. See, gentlemen, for yourselves, that I have brought my wife.

Mr. Todd, have the doc.u.ment ready!"

With an almost imperceptible motion Hagane slipped from its nail the black, taut twine that held the lowered hood. It rattled back with the noise of the spokes of a giant fan. Yuki sat upright,--the full moon just behind her,--smiling. The little hands were clasped tightly in her lap. The coils of her orchid hair had the glint and sheen of the crow's wing.

"It is Yuki,--certainement!" screamed Pierre, in ecstasy.

"Hold back that paper!" roared Ronsard.

Todd stood on tiptoe. One long thin arm went up like the derrick of a dredging-machine. His hand held something square and white with a black blotch on it. The arm lowered. Hagane reached up, took the paper, and thrust it deep into the breast of his coolie robe.

"The paper--" groaned Ronsard; "it is gone forever!"

"But Yuki," cried Pierre, "has come to be mine forever!"

"One moment, gentlemen," said Hagane, again restraining Pierre. "You were all present at the agreement between Monsieur Le Beau and me. The paper is now regained, and here is its price; here is Onda Yuki-ko." He placed the shafts of the little vehicle on the lowest stair, and stepped out sheer upon the walk. Pierre, like an animal released, sprang to Yuki, knelt by her, caught her hands, and began whispering words of love.

Now for the first time Todd groaned aloud, and walked to a little distance. Ronsard followed him. But the j.a.panese stood immovable, his eyes on Yuki's face.

"My beloved, my beloved,--I know now that I have not believed in this ecstasy! But you are here! Come, dear one, you must be chilled in the night air. How quiet you are and pale! It must be the moonlight. And your little hands are cold! Why do you not speak, love! Are you trying to frighten me? This is not the time for dainty trickery! Speak, for G.o.d's sake! I have been so long on the rack my very soul is sore! Why do you smile so, and never change? Your cheek is colder than your hands.--O G.o.d, a thought is coming that will turn me, too, into ice! Yuki, Yuki, what strange thing is this rooted in your heart,--what grim hilt with twisted dragons? I see the crest of the Hagane clan! Yuki--Yuki--"

"She wishes the dagger not removed, Monsieur. It keeps her sacrificial robes--immaculate." Hagane spoke like a machine.

Pierre, the other side of Yuki, rose to his feet. His eyeb.a.l.l.s swelled and rolled in the moonlight, giving him a look of frenzy. "Who is that that speaks to me? Has night a voice? What spirit hides behind that mask?"

"Death," said Hagane, calmly.

Pierre writhed beside the vehicle, and then became very still. The other listeners turned, expecting an outburst of maniacal grief,--perhaps a murderous a.s.sault on Hagane. Pierre's composure was more terrible than any speech. He smoothed one of Yuki's hands, and, after a pause, began speaking directly to her.

"So this has been his plan, dear? I might have guessed. He knew he was to kill you. Oh, the deed suited him! He called me a thief; but what has he not stolen? Wait for me somewhere, darling,--I cannot say just where it will be; but after--I will meet you. If sickness does not free me, I myself will loose this tortured soul and find you."

"She died by her own hand. That dagger was already in her heart as you, with the stolen paper, left my room."

"Oh, he is trying to hide,--to shield himself behind you, poor little one!" said Pierre to the dead woman.

A shadow on the nearest hillock moved. Todd went nearer to examine it, but could see no living thing.

"Time presses," said Hagane, speaking always in the same dull, hopeless way. "Our bargain was clearly stated. Shall I now leave with you the body, Monsieur Le Beau, or shall I retrace my steps as I came, giving honorable burial to the Princess Hagane?"

"Le Beau, you cannot hesitate at such a question," cried Todd.

"Pierre, Pierre, in the name of France, compromise us no further! You have done harm enough. Let the poor sacrifice go in peace!"

Pierre caught Yuki to him, his arm about her shoulder, her glossy hair, with the white flowers, strained against his heart. Like a trapped beast he defied them all.

"No, I'll not give her up. You are all false,--all have betrayed me. If I am to have nothing else, I keep at least the frail sh.e.l.l of what she was! Oh, I shall kiss--kiss--kiss--her into life, or myself into her cold, white death. Yes, go, you toad of h.e.l.l!" he screamed toward Hagane. "Leave my price with me."

"Though dead, she still has reputation--family honor," Hagane said.

Pierre threw back his head for a derisive laugh. Just then a strange thing happened. From the hillock nearby a crouching shrub seemed to detach itself and spring. It was a man,--the old samurai Onda. Hagane had told him to be there. Before interposition could be made, he had thrown himself on Pierre, taken Yuki from his arms, thrown her back in the kuruma, and stood in an att.i.tude of menace between them. "Keep your hands from my daughter! Keep your devil's hands from the Princess Hagane!"

"Shall we interfere?" whispered Todd to Hagane.

"No, I can do all," he said. Then to Onda, "Keep back, old friend. It is his right,--the price that we have paid."

"Master, Master," cried the kerai, almost sobbing in his excitement, "let me slay him--let me slay all three! I will die the self-death, or be hanged, with equal satisfaction. Only let me slay!"

"These others are just men, and my friends," said Hagane gravely. "The young madman yonder is protected by my word. We must think, too, of Nippon."

Old Onda's breathing rasped the silence.

"Monsieur Le Beau," said Hagane again, "you are fully determined to retain the body--and give her name to public defamation?"

"What else is there for me, devil?"

"That you have been her lover,--that you have so deeply injured me,--is that not enough to gloat over?"

For an instant Pierre stared. The meaning of the words came to him with a relish. Hagane really believed this thing; then of course he suffered!

Very good! A look of malignant triumph grew in Pierre's face. Hagane drank the bitterness with his eyes. Here, at last, thought Pierre, was the undipped heel, the pervious crown. Yuki's body sagged an inch.

Pierre stooped to it. Again she was in his arms, and he devoured, with despairing looks, the small, dead face.

Hagane, by a fierce gesture, commanded Onda to be still. Todd felt his heart stop, then rise slowly to his throat, and Ronsard, shivering, gripped the American's arm. The moon sailed full into a cloudless sky.

Beneath it the great tragedy lay bare.

The trend of Pierre's thoughts at this moment he could never afterward recall. His flesh felt as though it melted from him. His brain stirred and pulled at possibilities before unfelt. Voices not of earth said strange things which he almost understood. Yuki's dead smile changed. He saw her lips quiver. Her white face grew to one still prayer. Something like a cooling fluid went into his hot and empty veins. He felt strong again and n.o.ble. He regarded Yuki's accuser with a new look.

"You lie in saying that thing, Hagane. Is it not enough that you have used, and then slain her, that you now traduce her name? No, you dare not resent my words, coward, liar, slanderer! What is the theft of a paper compared to this? For Yuki's sake, I tell you that no flower hidden in green leaves, no girl-child at its mother's breast, no flake of snow, new-fallen, is purer than this woman. Yes, grin now and tremble!"

He went swiftly to the stricken man, and dealt him a blow upon the lips.

With gasps of horror the others rushed in. Hagane caught Pierre to his side, and fought off the frenzied Onda. "Back, all of you, stand off, I say!" he thundered. "The man gives me life. Let him strike. Yes, yes,"

he cried to Pierre, all the hauteur and the terrible bronze composure melted in this new fierce joy; "tear my eyes from their sockets, my tongue from its base,--only repeat that she is pure! How could I know?

She let me think it,--your boasts, the broken hairpin! Did she not give you the pledge of the hairpin?"

"I took it myself," said Pierre, "and would not give it back, though she pleaded. How could I guess the gross sentiment that is attached to the silly business by such minds as yours? She was pure, I say; give me her body and let me go!"

Hagane followed him to the kuruma. He stretched out both hands, now as one entreating mercy. "Poor boy, bound with me on the wheel of fate, listen just a little, if you can command your strength. She shielded you. Then, with her life, she rebought the paper. When you had offered to give it back, if I would consent to the rest.i.tution of her wifehood, I asked her if she was worthy to return, and in her conscious innocence, she gave the answer, 'No.' She thought only of the unworthiness of weakness--she whose soul, diluted into eternity, might stock a Christian heaven. In her self-death, she deliberately let me believe her evil, that her atonement might have this added bitterness. Also she may have feared that, being undeceived, I might falter in my promise not to restrain her from expiation. She knew of my love, and we have pledged ourselves to reunion and joint service after death. You cannot understand these things, Monsieur."

"No!" said Pierre, in bewilderment, putting his hand to his forehead, "I cannot understand, of course; she was always saying that. I cannot understand, but something whispers--"

"Monsieur," cried Hagane, "I am an older, graver man. I have suffered as I think you cannot suffer. Give me back the boon of her body!"

Pierre blinked and wavered in the path. These sudden shifting currents of purpose dazed him. The strain was tightening again, and he felt the premonitory breath of fever. He grasped outward into the air. He looked at Yuki, as if for the first time, and moved dumb lips.

"You believed this of your wife, yet forgave--helped--loved her--You look forward to having her as your wife in a coming re-birth?" asked Todd, wondering.

"Had it been true, it was but sin of the flesh. By death and expiation, she would have cleansed it. The soul would have risen, free."

"Mon Dieu, what people!" gasped Ronsard. "There stands the man Onda, scowling at us all,--and not even resenting, from Hagane, his only daughter's death."