"I desire to say, sir, that I shall not marry," said Arisuga.

"I am glad to hear it. The soldier who marries is a fool."

And therefore the little color-guard set himself to fight again, and to the end, against the invincible thing called love. It makes me smile as I think of it. Who has ever vanquished it? At first he stubbornly thought of other battles he had fought and won. But he was surprised that this brought no courage to the new kind of conflict. She came in the visions of night, like the sappers and miners, when he was least defended against her, smiling, beckoning. He could see her and touch her, and know that she was at his side.

Now all things mightily conspired to make that thing he had once thought of in China--a temporary alliance,--a going away, an easy forgetting, another marriage, many--to be more fully than he could have hoped.

It was only necessary that he should remain in j.a.pan. Time would do the rest. He used to wonder, in the night, under the stars, how long it would take her to understand, then forget, then to take another husband.

He never got over this latter without waking his sleeping comrade by a certain wild violence of pa.s.sion.

He thought of it with a pitying laugh at himself--now mad to go back where he was denied the going--to have her there who must not come--whose coming would be ruin.

One night he spoke wildly to this comrade:--

"I tell you that she will never forget, never take another: if she did, I would kill her! But I am the liar and the scoundrel--I. She chose me." Concerning which interruptions of his repose his sleeping-mate continued to complain to headquarters.

A dozen times he sat down to write to her. But what comfort was that? It was herself he wanted: the bodily presence which could softly touch him, the voice which could gently speak to him, all the beauty which he might see! A dozen times he threw the unfinished letter from him.

And so, finally, this fight against Hoshiko became a rout. Every night, when he should have slept, it came on--like an enemy who knew the time and place of the weakness of his adversary. If there had only been no nights to fight through! At last his bunk-mates so complained of him that the doctor sent him to live out of the barracks, where he would disturb no one. He had a small house to himself.

But in this new solitude she came and stayed and possessed him. She made him again to possess her. She was there always. The night mattered no more. He saw her eyes in the dusk, heard her voice in daylight. He often parted the shoji--sometimes to find vacancy--when his mood was practical and he had slept well; but often when he had not eaten or slept, and the visions came--to have her swiftly in his arms.

Presently a certain infidelity came and lodged in him, and the knowledge of it spread through the army.

"What a spirit must that be of the emperor--the G.o.ds--the augustnesses--even a father waiting in the Meido--which would not permit him to have one small woman!"

That is what he publicly said. And, worse, he had once thought of throwing his medal into the moat near by and of escaping to China. Of deserting the emperor he had doubly sworn to serve. His G.o.ds, his father, the shades. Perhaps there was but one thing in the old days, worse than the eta--the deserter. He thought of this and took terrible pause.

Finally it was known in the army that Arisuga was mad--quite mad. The wound in his head had done it. His talk was of a woman: an houri, if ever there was one, should his talk of her be believed. He had cursed the G.o.ds, reviled the augustnesses, the spirit of his father, the emperor who had pinned the medal on his coat. Certainly Shijiro Arisuga was mad. He himself heard this, and thought to take a cunning advantage of it. If he were mad, he would be invalided, and then he would see China again.

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

XXI

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

But one night there came a gentle tapping on his shoji--like the dream.

He sat up and listened. There was more tapping--still like the dream.

And then a whispered voice--not the dream--which woke him to mutiny:--

"Ani-San! Beloved! Do you no more wish me? Oh, it is so long--so long!

And we have walked--walked--walked. I would rather know and die. At first I thought you dead--you said nothing but that should keep you from me--death! death! And I could not sleep--I never slept! At last I decided to come and get your body, steal it out of the grave, and take it back with me, where I might weep over it and make the offerings--only your dear, dead body I have loved and which has loved me--lain down by my side, held me in its arms! And so I came with Isonna--faithful Isonna is here--and learned that you are not dead, and all the glory. O beloved! My soul swells with joy of you. You, mine, once mine, so glorious in the eyes of our country! For, oh, Ani-San, it is _my_ country, too! They shall not take that from me, though it makes me an outcast. And my feet touch it now. My country! Nippon! Nippon! After all the evil years of exile. My emperor! My G.o.ds! Forgive me, beloved, but it must all come out of my heart, or it will burst. I know you are there. I know you listen! I see--touch--adore--your shadow. I have seen _you_! I have hid in the trees--Isonna and me--for three days, until we are very hungry and have begged rice. Three times--on each day--we have seen you. Three nights we have watched your dear shadow. Once it prayed and then rushed upon the outside and spoke loudly to the heavens--words which we could not hear. Were they of me? Were they hate or love?

To-night I touch your shadow--put my lips upon it on the paper.

For--yes--I know that is all I am ever to have: the shadow of you. You do not wish me! That is what my mother said; and laughed. She struck me and said her words concerning you had all come true. Ah, pardon, lord.

What matter that? It is three days! Three days! We could not die until the moon was dark; for some one, pa.s.sing, might see and find our bodies.

But I am glad for those three days. Now the moon is gone--the moon which sees our deeds and tells them to the G.o.ds of night; and, lord, only to-night, when the moon was gone, could I come to you to say farewell--Ani-San, to-night we die--Isonna and I. Unless you still wish me? No! Pardon that. But--if you should! Ah! if you should! Speak one word though it be Go! Only one word, that I may die in the blessed sound of your voice! Oh, it has been so lonely! For you first taught me how to be happy--to laugh, to love. And then you went, and took it all away--all, all away. Beloved, you do not wish us--No? so, to-night we die. We shall not harm you, even in our death. As long as this little paper wall is between us you are not contaminated even while we live. No one will know us in this far land; and we shall die where no one will ever find us; only the G.o.ds, only the pitying G.o.ds. So we do not harm you in coming here. We would not have come had we known you lived.

Ani-San, it is finished--all quite finished; you wish me no more. I hear no blessed word. Lo! I listen--listen with my soul--but I hear no word!

All the G.o.ds in all the skies bless you. All the G.o.ds in all the skies make you happy. All the G.o.ds in all the skies make you glorious.

Ani-San, beloved, farewell, forever and forever, farewell!"

At first the little color-bearer put his hands madly to his ears; but not for long. Could you? And at the end he heard her sink slowly to the earth, slipping, sighing, down the shoji.

At that moment he would have had her if the empire itself had fallen for it. He did not wait to part the shoji. He plunged through them as he had done once before in China. And there at his feet was the pitiful little heap. Too numb she was to be wakened by his tumult.

He carried her within and laid her in the lamplight. The pretty face was ghastly with starvation. The feet were nearly bare, for walking had worn out her sandals. The kimono was one he knew. But it had been in the rain and had trailed many tired miles in the dust. He did not need the light of the andon to tell him of her sufferings. Nor even her voice. And presently when she woke it was not of that she told. Indeed, of that she never spoke. It was all forgotten in that waking in his arms. And all she said--all she ever said of it--was to ask him, with a breath, if she dreamed.

She slept a little, then woke and said with terror:--

"Isonna!"

"Yes, beloved," answered Arisuga. "Where is she? You have slept sweetly."

"Has the clock struck?"

"The clock has struck."

"Then she is dead," whispered Hoshiko. "She was to die first--when the clock struck. And I was sleeping--sweetly, you said. Oh, G.o.ds! Go to the moat. I will pray."

At the moat there was nothing but some pebbles dislodged where small feet might have tracked. Some fresh soil was uncovered, where two large stones had been taken. One was gone, the other waited at the edge of the waters. And in this he knew how the manner of their death had been planned. Each was to take a great stone in her small arms and wade into the moat until--At the piteous picture he who had seen death by thousands choked in his throat and followed Isonna into the water.

But it was too late--much too late. And so he left her there, where she had chosen to be, for him and for Hoshiko, quite at rest, with her burden still clasped strongly in her arms, and only a little prayer to Buddha--nembutsu--Isonna!

TADAIMA--TADAIMA!

XXII

TADAIMA--TADAIMA!

It was three days before she could smile. Then she said wanly:--

"What will you do with _me_, Ani-San? Must I die, too? You cannot go back to China with me."

"By all the G.o.ds in all the skies we shall part no more! We can die--yes--together--but part never!"

"Alas! that is all we can do now, beloved, for I have harmed you in coming here."