THE WOMAN OF SOREK
"And as to the foreigner named Philip Ware, that is all you know?"
"That is all, Ishida-_San_," Haru answered.
They stood in the cryptomeria shadows of Reinanzaka Hill, from which he
had stepped to her side as she came from the Embassy gate. It was dark,
for the moon was not yet risen, and the evening was very still. One
sleepy _semi_ bubbled in the foliage and in the narrow street at the
foot of the hill, with its glimmering _shoji_, she could hear the fairy
tinkle of wind bells in the eaves.
Such an ambush by her lover, unjustified, would have been a dire affront
to the girl's rigid Japanese code of decorum. That he had seen Phil
greet her at Mukojima the evening before had shamed her pride, and in
speaking of it to-night he had seemed at first to lay a rude finger on
her maiden dignity. But she had seen in an instant that his errand was
inspired by neither anger nor jealousy. He had touched at once her
instinct of the momentous.
Her quick, clever brain and finely attuned perception read what lay
beneath his questions. The great European expert whom Japan herself
employed, and the young foreigner who had pursued her--were they, then,
objects of question to that wonderful, many-sided governmental machine
which was lifting Japan into the front rank of modern nations? Although
she had never shared the disfavor with which her father viewed her
lover's duties, she had wondered at his present apparently menial
position. To-night she was gaining a quick glimpse beneath the surface.
He told her nothing of the details which, though he could not himself
have built a tangible indictment from them, had one by one clung
together into a sharp suspicion that embraced the two men. But the
agitation she felt in his words had sent a quick thrill through her, had
tapped that deep racial well of feeling, the _Yamato Damashii_, which is
the Japanese birthright. She felt a sudden passionate wish that she,
though a woman, might pour herself into the mighty stream of
effort--though she be but a whirling cherry-petal in the great wind of
her nation's destiny. He had come to her for any shred of information
that might add to his knowledge of the youth who was now Bersonin's
satellite. But she had been able to tell him nothing. She had often seen
the huge expert--his automobile had clanged past her that morning--but
till to-night she had not even known the other's name or where he lived.
"That is all, Ishida-_San_." It hurt her to say these words.
She bowed to his ceremonious farewell, a slim, misty figure that stood
listening to his rapid footsteps till they died in the darkness. She
walked up the dim slope with lagging pace. The steep road, always
deserted at night, had no sound of grating cart or whirring _rick'sha_,
but her paper lantern was unlighted and no song greeted the crow that
flapped his grating way above her head. She was thinking deeply.
At the top of the hill, opposite the huge, rivet-studded gate of the
Princess' compound, lay the lane on which the Chapel stood. An evening
service was in progress and the faint sound of the organ was borne to
her. As she turned into the darker shade she was aware of two
pedestrians coming toward her,--of a voice which she recognized with a
shiver of apprehension. The sentry-box by the great gate stood close at
hand. It was empty, and she stepped into it.
Doctor Bersonin and Phil paused at the turning, while the latter lit a
cigar from a match which he struck on the sentry-box. Haru's heart was
in her throat, but her dark _kimono_ blent with the wood and the flash
that showed her both faces blinded his eyes.
"See!" said the doctor. A mile away, from the low-lying darkness of
Hibiya Park, a stream of fireworks shot to the zenith, to explode
silently in clusters of colored balls. "The first rocket in honor of the
Squadron!"
"To-morrow the Admiral has an Imperial audience," said Phil, "and the
superior officers are to be decorated."
"So!" said the other in a low, malignant voice. "And I--who have
designed Japan's turrets and cheapened her arsenal processes--I may not
wear the Cordon and Star of the Rising-Sun!" In the darkness a smile of
malice crossed his face. "We shall see if she will hold her head so
high--_then_! Whether war follow or not, it will damn her in the eyes of
the nations! She will not recover her prestige in twenty years!"
They passed on down the dark slope, out of sight and hearing of the girl
crouched in a corner of the sentry-box. At the foot of the hill,
Bersonin said:
"It will take some days longer to finish my work, but the ships will
stay for a fortnight. To-morrow night I will mark the triangle on the
roof of the bungalow, so that the angle of the tripod will be exact.
There must be no bungling. You can go by an earlier train, so we shall
not be seen together, and I shall return here in time for the ball."
There was a fire in Haru's bosom as she went on along the thorn-hedges.
She had heard every word, and she said the English sentences over and
over to herself to fix them in her mind. What they had been talking of
was the secret that lay beneath Ishida's questions--for an instant she
had almost touched it. A feeling of deep pride rose in her. Japan was
not sleeping--it watched! And in the path of the plotting danger stood
her lover.
These two men hated Japan! War? They had used the word. Japan did not
fear war! Had not that been proven? Her heart swelled. But the thing
they were planning was her country's enduring humiliation, "whether war
follow or not!" She felt a sudden deep horror. Could such plots be and
their God--_her_ God now--not blast them with His thunder? And one of
these men had spoken with her, touched her, _kissed_ her! She struck
herself repeatedly and hard on the lips.
All at once she shivered. Might it be that in spite of all, such a black
design could succeed?
The Chapel was brilliantly lighted and the rose-window threw beautiful
tints, like shawls of many-colored gauze, over the shrubbery. She
entered and slipped into a seat near the door, burning with her
thoughts. The first evening service had brought a curious crowd and the
place was nearly filled. She rose for the singing and knelt for the
prayer mechanically, her delicate fingers twisting the little
white-enamel cross hanging from its thin gold chain on the bosom of her
_kimono_. Painful imaginings were running through her mind. The lesson
was being read: it was from the Old Testament, the modern, somewhat
colloquial translation.
This-after, Samson a Sorek Valley woman called Delilah did love.
Then the Princes of the Philistines the woman-to up-came,
saying:
As for you, by sweet discourse prevail that where his great
power is or by what means overcoming, to bind and torture him we
may be able ...
It seemed to her suddenly that a great wind filled all the Chapel and
that the words sat on it. Slowly her face whitened till it was the hue
of death.
_She_ might find out the secret!
And Delilah to Samson said: where your great power is or by what
means overcoming to bind and torture you one may be able, this
me tell.
She began to tremble in every limb. She, a _samurai's_ daughter? She
thought of her father, aged and broken, grieving that he had had no son
in the war. She had been but a useless girl-child, left to plant paper
prayers at the cross-roads for the brave men who longed to achieve a
glorious death. If she did this thing--would it not be for Japan?
And he at last-to his mind completely opened.
The woman's knees-upon Samson did sleep and she called a man who
of his head the seven locks cut off ... and the power of him was
lost.
If she did, would it avail? She remembered Phil's eyes on her face the
day on the sands at Kamakura--their smouldering, reckless glow. She
remembered the bamboo lane! In those daredevil kisses her woman's
instinct had divined the force of the attraction she exercised over
him--had felt it with contempt and a self-humiliation that burned her
like an acid. To use that for her purpose? But she was a Christian! From
the Christian God's "_Thou shalt not_" there was no appeal.
She remembered suddenly her last service at the Buddhist temple across
the lane, and how the old priest had bade her a gentle farewell, wishing
her peace and joy in her new religion, and saying smilingly that all
religions were augustly good, since they pointed the same way. She saw
the nunnery, with its tall clumps of yellow dahlias and wild hydrangeas;
above which hung gauzy robes that waved like gray ghosts escaping from
the mold into the sunshine. She saw the cherry-trees touched by the
golden summer light, the mossy monuments in the burying-ground, the
pigeons fluttering about the lichened pavement.
The audience was singing now--the Japanese version of _Jesus, Lover of
My Soul_:
_Waga tamashii wo
Ai suru Yesu yo,
Nami wa sakamaki,
Kaze fuki-arete._
She could no longer be a Christian!
But the old gods of her people shining from their golden altars--the
ancient divinities who looked for ever down above the sound of
prayer--they would smile upon her!