It was that day when he was ten. All his relatives were present and they flew a tremendous number of paper carp. For you are to know that this is the way the G.o.ds have of telling one on one's birthday in j.a.pan, whether one is to be as strong and virile as the open-mouthed carp in a swift wind, or as flaccid as they when there is no wind. The G.o.ds were kind and sent a propitious day. The carp stood out, straining upon their poles so that some of them broke loose and whirled cloud-ward--whereat the mult.i.tude of Arisuga's relatives shouted with joy. For this was an august omen of great good. Arisuga cared nothing for the omen. But the carp eddying upward, and those straining on their poles, were very fine.

The tired, happy little boy had been put early to bed, while his uncles remained to smoke and gossip. For one was from Kobe and the other was from Osaka, and they did not meet as often as they could have wished.

For a long time there was no sound save the tapping of their pipes against the metal rim of the hibachi as they were emptied of their ashes to be filled again. This is still much the way of ceremonious old men in j.a.pan. They have learned the comradeship of silence.

Presently this sound of the tapping pipes woke the little boy from his dreaming; and hearing whisperings in the room beyond he crept from his futons to the fusuma, which he silently parted to look and listen.

His small eyes grew greater as he saw that his two uncles were still there, and greater yet as he observed that they gesticulated in the direction of the picture of "The Great Death" while they whispered.

Now this was a thing which had always troubled him: that they whispered together about that picture, and that, somehow, he was included in the mystery. It had hung there at the tokonoma since he could remember. He had been taught to reverence it; for nowhere have pictures more influence than in j.a.pan.

It was divided in the horizontal middle into two panels. In that below was carnage amazing. On the one side were the hosts of the emperor under the brocade banner (the most ancient j.a.panese flag of war), yet armed with guns and using cannon. On the other side were the rebel hosts of Saigo with ancient halberds and spears and in bamboo armor, depending upon the G.o.ds alone. Dying upon one of the cannon, with a shout upon his lips and ecstasy upon every feature, was a soldier in the uniform of the ancient Imperial Guards. The panel above showed one of the heavens far toward nirvana. There this same soldier appeared glorified and on the way to his reward in Shaka's bosom. Of course! He had died for the emperor! The artist had not spared the glory when he came to write the picture. And yet he had preserved a certain family likeness, so that little Arisuga presently came to know, by the subtle presence and teaching of his uncles, that this was Jokoji, the graveyard-battlefield in Satsuma, and that the figure informed with the ecstasy of the great red death for the emperor, was his father!

That no part of the lesson might be lost, the artist had also shown, in that lower panel, the obverse of the reward of fealty. Those who had fought against the emperor were being tossed like dogs into a trench.

Their heads were off. And the little boy had been taught to have no pity upon them. Of course! He had none. They had impiously rebelled against that G.o.d whose other name is Mutsuhito, Mikado!

Moreover, in the lower corner of this panel, in an amazing opening among clouds with blazing edges, was that part of the h.e.l.ls reserved for the souls of traitors; and there the enemies of the emperor, who had died at Jokoji, were being variously tortured, in the intervals of their reincarnations.

A GOOD LIE

III

A GOOD LIE

Said Namishima, Arisuga's uncle from Kobe, to Kiomidzu, his uncle from Osaka:--

"The flying of the august carp has been honorably auspicious and doubtless the G.o.ds now design to make him, in spirit, unlike his regretted father."

"It was the G.o.ds' punishment upon him for fighting against his emperor--that his son should miserably be an onna-jin," whispered Kiomidzu.

"Nevertheless the honorable picture has aided greatly in making him adore the emperor," protested Namishima.

"Yes, the money for its painting was augustly well spent," agreed Kiomidzu, wisely shaking his head.

"Some day he will know, notwithstanding, that his father was a rebel.

Others know. It cannot unhappily be kept from him always."

"No."

"Perhaps then we shall be augustly dead--"

Both bowed and murmured again.

"And beyond his most excellent vengeance."

"Nevertheless," said Namishima, finally, "the august conscience within informs me that we have brought him up honorably well!"

"There is excellently no doubt of it!" agreed Kiomidzu.

They bowed to each other.

For a while there was silence and the tapping of the pipes. Then they spoke of a new and weightier matter.

Said Namishima--and here the little boy's eyes bulged:--

"If the soul of our brother continues to wander in the Meido, it will not be chargeable, now, in the heavens, to us, but to him. We have kept the lamps alight. We have taught him honor."

"We are too aged, also," agreed Kiomidzu, "to redeem him forth unto the way to the heavens by dying in his stead the great death. It is for his son!"

"In us, besides," Namishima went on, "the G.o.ds could not be augustly deceived. But the child has his name."

"Therefore, should he die the great death, the merciful G.o.ds may be deceived by the name into thinking it he who died at Jokoji. In that case he would not only be redeemed to the way to the heavens, but on this earth his name would be graciously added to honor."

So said he from Kobe. And he from Osaka:--

"For the G.o.ds are merciful!"

"So merciful, I sometimes abjectly think, that they desire to be deceived, for our peace of mind."

"Or, at least," mended Kiomidzu, to whom this was a trifle too much, "they will close their eyes while we augustly do it."

Namishima disliked a trifle the correction of his brother:--

"Do not the G.o.ds so act upon the minds of their creatures that they remember or forget? Well, then! It is true that now others know that our brother died on the rebel side at Jokoji. But do we not know that, in the course of much time, the G.o.ds can make this to be forgotten, and make to be remembered that he died on the emperor's side?"

"Yea, if his son should die for the emperor."

"Yea! For the name is the same!"

"And I have had a sign in a dream," said Kiomidzu, lowering his voice a little more. "Before me stood a tall G.o.d--"

They both bowed and rubbed their hands.

"--I knew neither his august name nor his presence. But his face shone as the sun, so that it is certain he was a G.o.d who can see the end from the beginning, and all between. And thus he spake: 'Rise and light the lamps and burn the sweet and bitter incense. For Shijiro Arisuga, he who died at Jokoji, shall have a crimson death-name.'"

"How shall that come to pa.s.s, augustness?" I asked upon my face.

"'Through his son,'" said the G.o.d. "'The names are the same. Arise and light the lamps and burn the bitter incense.'"

"And the augustness only vanished with the light of the new lamps I lighted before Shijiro's tablet."

"Yet," doubted Namishima, though a deity had spoken, "the vengeance of the G.o.ds must also first be accomplished--yea, satisfied full! And until he is redeemed by this unhappy onna-jin, must our brother wander in the dark Meido--so think I! The new lamps will be sacrilege."