"If I have sinned against the honorable hospitality, remember that a lie loosens fealty!"

And when they were in the way, one said to the other:--

"He knows!"

After some thought he who was addressed answered:--

"I think it very well. I have no regret. Our brother will now be released from the Meido. He will die for the emperor."

"However, we shall be unwelcome in his presence, so that I shall come less often."

To this his brother agreed with melancholy.

"Our work is now done."

Thus, Shijiro was much more alone than before, and had many more thoughts. But all were of war and the great red death, and none of Yone.

And then, presently, he came to join the haughty Imperial Guards, who had never dreamed of being a soldier, but only of poetry, and cherry-blossoms, and his samisen, and the soft satin hand of the little Yone. For it was true, as Nijin said, and as they all agreed, Arisuga among them, that he was not the stuff out of which the empire made its Imperial Guards--quite.

It was in this time, in the presence of the obscured picture, that he wrote his song of "The Great Death."

And his years grew faster than his inches.

YAMATO DAMASHII

V

YAMATO DAMASHII

And, slowly, that fantasy of a great death which infects every j.a.panese crept into the life and thought of Shijiro Arisuga. Though it came to him, in whom it had lain latent, hardly. But, perhaps for that reason, as is the case with certain diseases, it came with greater certainty and severity than if it had been always with him.

Yet the Yamato Damashii outstripped them both: the spirit of war--the ghost of j.a.pan!

He still went with little Yone to Mukojima sometimes, though less frequently. And the small heart of the small girl wondered and grew hurt at this. So that she asked him one day:--

"Little lord, why is it that we so seldom come here and that you no more sing, no more carry your samisen, and are grown too suddenly for your years a man with a face as serious as the unlaughing barbarians of the West--why is it?"

They were at Shiba. And Shijiro laughed again, as he had used to laugh, while he answered:--

"Sing no more! Listen!"

"Reign on for a thousand years of peace!

Reign on for a myriad years of ease!

Till the pebbles are boulders, Moss grows to our shoulders, O heaven-born lord of Nippon!"

"The Kimi Gayo!" said the little girl. "You sing the Imperial Hymn with that light in your face who never sang it before--whose face was never before so lighted? You answer my fear with fears."

"I sing a war-song, little moon-maid, because I am now a soldier," cried Arisuga, with a certain fanatical ecstasy in spite of his gayety. "I am going to die for the emperor the great death! I am going to set my father free to pursue his way to the heavens or another reincarnation!

Think! The G.o.ds will love me for such a holy thing! Why do not you?"

"Oh, yes," whispered the little girl, "the G.o.ds will love you. And I.

But who, then, will come with me here? And who will hold my hand?"

"My spirit, I promise you that!"

A little chill crept over the girl.

"Yes," she answered doubtfully, "if I cannot have your body."

Shijiro still laughed.

"After all, a spirit is a safer comrade than a body. The custodians cannot drive it away from the tombs. And will you wait here for my spirit, as you do for my body?"

"Yes," she whispered, in her awe, once more.

But he gayly touched her.

"I will come like that--that--that!"

"I would rather have you so," said the little girl, touching him, as flesh touches flesh, not as spirit touches flesh in the East.

Though she suspected that he was laughing at her, it was in a land where both the spirits which loved one and hated one were believed to be always at one's elbow.

Now that it had all been decided--his career fixed, the way made clear, and he well in it--much of his absorption had pa.s.sed away, and he was both gayer and gentler with her. But it was not as before.

"There will be others, with bodies," laughed Shijiro.

The small maiden shook her head.

"No, there will not be others. I know. Oh, how differently you speak to me now! You are suddenly grown a man with great thoughts. But you still think of me as a little girl with small thoughts. Well, perhaps I am.

Yet I shall wait for you here. I can do that. The G.o.ds may not accept your sacrifice for a time. They may not accept it at all. And there may be no war for you to fight and die in. You may have to come back. No one can know the purposes of the G.o.ds. And when you do, I, with my small body and small thought, will be here only to make you happy."

"And, suppose," laughed Shijiro, treating her indeed as if he were suddenly become a man and she were still a little girl, "suppose I go away and forget--that often happens--and never come back?"

And Arisuga laughed again.

"I will wait," said the girl.

"What, after I have forgotten?"

"Do not tell me. Let no one tell me. Let me wait. Then your spirit may come. It is cruel to wait, always wait. But it is not so cruel as to be forgotten."