Don't you remember how your violence frightened me until you explained that it was love? And we laughed. Now we are sad. We used to laugh then. And you could not play the samisen because I was in your arms. And I would not get out of them. So that I sang without the samisen that night. Therefore, all will be quite the same if I sing to-night without it. You have not forgotten the Moon-and-the-Stork song?"

"No"--for Arisuga had often sung it to her.

Then she sang:--

"O moon get out of my way," said the stork, "O stork get out of my light," said the moon.

"I will not," said the stork, "I will not," said the moon: So that is why the stork is in the light of the moon, And that is why the moon is in the way of the stork.

It was a little voice, with no great melody, but well fitted for so frail a theme. Hoshiko joined her, stumbling upon a word, at which Yone chided her for forgetting, laughed happily and crept yet closer. Then she said, after a silence:--

"Now!"

"What?" asked Hoshiko; for that she did not know.

"Oh, have you forgotten--have you forgotten? That also? Alas--alas!

After the song you spoke of--"

Her pretty head was burrowed deeply into the s.p.a.ce beneath Hoshiko's chin.

"What?" Hoshiko had to ask again.

"Of marriage," whispered the girl, in terror. And the terror of Hoshiko was no less than that of Yone.

"You said, you swore by this sacred tomb of a hero, that if the G.o.ds did not send you the red death we should be married one to the other--"

"But, beloved," breathed Hoshiko, in further terror, "I am still a soldier, still bound to the great red death. I am here but this day.

To-morrow, this night yet, I go to battle. Would you wish me to marry you and at once go to the field?"

"Yes," whispered the girl.

"And, perchance, fall and never return?"

"Yes."

"So that you will be a widow with blackened teeth?"

"Yes."

Hoshiko made no other protest. What had been first considered with a certain horror, seemed beautiful and merciful to this love-lorn maiden now. She need never know. She would live and die thinking herself married to Arisuga. At her death she would cut her hair and hang it at a shrine, and always keep the lamps alight, and always pray for the soul of Shijiro Arisuga. It was the way of the G.o.ds; and, as always, the way of the G.o.ds was best, was beautiful!

WHEN THE WATCH Pa.s.sED

x.x.xII

WHEN THE WATCH Pa.s.sED

"Sh! sh!" whispered Yone, suddenly, and crushed her small hand upon Hoshiko's mouth.

It was the watchman with staff and lantern, crying weirdly in the night.

He pa.s.sed near. He paused nearer. Yone drew a bit of shrubbery before them.

"I heard a song, by all the G.o.ds I heard a foolish song in this sacred place of tombs. Come forth," he cried aloud, "he who sings foolishly in a sacred place, come forth and be punished of the G.o.ds so that you may repent! Otherwise your punishment will wait until you are unready for it."

Now he moved on. His voice came muttering back:--

"Come forth, come forth! I heard a song, an unholy song in the sacred place of tombs."

Yone let the bush return and laughed happily in the arms of Hoshiko.

"Oh, is it not all as it was, beloved? It is the same watchman--older.

And they are the same, almost the same, words--more eery. And we are close, close--as we were then. Oh, it is divine to be close with you!

So--so, my beloved, another omen! Everything else is as it was. Shall not we be?"

Hoshiko was silent.

"Be not afraid, beloved," Yone said. "I will be true always until we meet in the heavens. Always I will be your widow with blackened teeth if you fall--my hair blowing at a shrine. Think! But for me there will be no one to keep the lamps alight before you if you die--but for me. And I--they shall never fail. For, if you fall, I will wait as I have done--keeping the lamps, hoping that you will hold out your hand in the black Meido when I pa.s.s to death, and that then we shall, somehow, never part. Oh, beloved, there have been suitors and suitors and always suitors! The nakado has worn bare the mat at the door. But was I not yours? How could I listen to any one else? And the wedding garments are all ready. And there is no one to stay us but the old deaf Hana, who will not even hear. If you must go quickly, to-night, there is the foreign minister--there is the new registry office--"

"And for this," said Hoshiko, "the few words of a foreign priest, nine cups of sake, a line in the registry office, you will give up your dear life to me?"

"I will give up all my souls--all my hope of a rest at last in Buddha's bosom if I must. Oh, Shijiro Arisuga, for this I have waited until it seemed that I could wait no more. Give it to me now--this night--before you go!"

"O love," whispered Hoshiko, "what is like you in all the earths, in all the heavens! There is no other miracle but you alone. Come! My hour is almost here. But were it already past, and though a soldier but obeys the hours, yet you should be a wife before I go."

And even to that moment Hoshiko had not known how Yone yearned for that one word to be added to her. Suddenly she grovelled on the earth and caught the hands and knees of her who had been wife to him they both loved.

"All the G.o.ds bless you--all the G.o.ds--for giving me that one name. For in all the earths and heavens together there is none so sweet as--wife to Shijiro Arisuga."

And there, that night, Hoshiko married little Yone.

"Now go and die," she wept at farewell, "and here I will wait--wait, until I, also, die--wait for that touch of your spirit on my arm, wait for your hand in the dark Meido. But if you do not die? if the G.o.ds are not ready yet for you--you will come?"

"I will come again," said Hoshiko, weeping, too, which was strange for a soldier.

And there they parted, only a moment after they were married, and Hoshiko was ordered to join the Guards and hurry to the Yalu, where their prey was fattening.

TEIKOKU BANZAI