The Way Of The Gods Part 8

He looked through the window, then, at the Forbidden City.

"But there is no fighting here now," ventured the girl.

"Naturally," agreed the soldier.

"The Forbidden City is taken."

"I am glad to hear it. How long have you been here?"

"About thirteen years."

"You couldn't have been more than three or four when you died! I don't understand."

But, now, Hoshiko at last did. And she laughed.

"Excuse my levity," she said. "I am not dead, and you are not. I am not an angel, and this is not a heaven!"

"Oh!" said Arisuga; and then, "All right," as if it were a thing to be endured. He ended by also laughing. "But you must excuse the mistake. It seems a good deal like a heaven, and you more like an angel."

Still, as he looked about, and at the girl, he was not sure. That is what they were likely to tell a sick man.

"Might I touch you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" cried the girl, with a pleasure which challenged his attention. She put herself within his reach.

"It is _not_ a heaven," he agreed, when he had pa.s.sed his hand along an exquisite arm.

"I am honorably glad that you are not dead," breathed the girl, bravely.

"Are not you?"

And every little atom of her showed that she was glad and begged that he might be. Though the mists were still in the brain of Shijiro Arisuga, he could not help knowing both of these things: her innocence had uncovered them so completely. For a moment he studied her. Then he answered a tardy yes to her question.

"For such as you it is good to live--yes--and--" The soldier stopped to sigh. "Good for others to live near you for the little while."

"For a little while, lord?"

She thought it the mere hyperbole of their race.

"Oh, you shall be old, old, old, and beautiful, with long white hair and perhaps a beard, and all the earth shall worship your piety--"

Arisuga laughed and caught a hand to stop her.

"Lord," she went on, "most vast lord, I will make you. Yes! I have thus far made it to be. When they brought you they said you would die. So said my father and mother. But I--"

She turned and summoned her maid with fierce irrelevance.

"Isonna, come here!"

The maid hastened from the next room, where, it is almost certain, she had lain with her ear to the fusuma, and then Hoshiko's mysterious purpose appeared.

"But I--Isonna and me--this is Isonna, my ugly maid--Isonna and me prayed for you--wept for you; you were so beautiful and b.l.o.o.d.y. And Benten--see, I have Benten always near! Benten loves the tears of sympathy, and to her we prayed, so--"

"I owe you and Isonna my life," laughed the soldier.

"No, Benten," whispered the girl, now answering his laugh with a smile.

"And she will grant other prayers of ours--Isonna and me--will she not, Isonna, you little beast? Why do you not speak?"

Isonna corroborated her mistress by a deep prostration.

"And so we have asked for long life for you, very long, until the pebbles grow to boulders and the moss grows to your shoulders--"

Arisuga laughed, in frank joy of her.

"And suppose, you who are so powerful with the G.o.ddess of beauty--for which I do not blame the G.o.ddess--suppose I have sworn to die the great death, to release my father's soul from the Meido so that he can be born again, and for the glory of the emperor?"

"Oh!" gasped the girl.

The soldier went on.

"--what will the other G.o.ds think of me, saving Benten, if I stop here and forget to die because a woman has hands, a voice, and eyes?"

"No, no!" cried Isonna, in sudden strange anguish.

Then she prostrated herself in abjection.

Arisuga rose on his elbow to look at her.

"What have I said to cause such sorrow?" he wondered. "Let me see. It was about your hands and voice and eyes."

"Yes!" cried mistress and maid together.

But it was the maid who went on:--

"And you must not, mighty lord. You must not find any beauty in my mistress's eyes and hands and voice. None anywhere. It is evil for both you and her!"

"Who said I found any beauty there?" smiled Arisuga, languidly.

"There is a secret, lord--" the maid went on in a frenzy.

But Star-Dream, suddenly grasping the place of her heart with both hands, cried out to the maid, as if she were desperately wounded:--

"Go, go, go, little foul beast! What do you do here? Who called you?

Go!"

The maid disappeared like a spirit. Star-Dream found herself upon her feet, still gasping with ecstasy and terror together. Then she at last turned slowly toward the bed and smiled a sick mechanical smile.

"Lord, you said," she prompted. "Say on. Do not listen--do not observe the ugly Isonna. She has a trouble of the head."