WHEN the tender veil of the first hours of the morning was raised from
the face of the sun, the early light revealed a small, still, white face
at a window where the morningglory, rising from the midst of spring
roses, mingled with the wild ivy of Japan, clambered up and encircled
the casement, and nodded until the blossoms touched and caressed the
small, dark head. The eyes, darkly overcast with ceaseless watching,
stared out through the mist of the morning, across the musk-laden
gardens and over the silent moat, trying to pierce with the vision of
love the distance beyond the lines of the province.
Thus all night long had the delicate Lady Wistaria crouched at her
casement. Did the night winds stir the long grasses or rattle the boughs
of the trees and bushes, the young girl started and trembled with
unspeakable fear. Did the steady beat, beat of the wooden sandals of the
guards at the palace gates for a moment cease or increase their
rhythmic, orderly tramp, her heart bounded up, then almost stopped its
beating. The slightest sound or stir made her tremble and quiver. Only
the nightingale, softly, piercingly, ceaselessly singing throughout the
night, comforted and soothed her like the song of an angel. Under its
soothing influence she had fallen asleep, with her little, tired head
upon her arms. But even while she slept, she sighed and trembled.
Awaking before daybreak, she heeded not the shivering breezes of the
passing night, but waited for the sunlight.
An alert guard of the palace gates, after the night watch, was wending
his way through one of the paths which led out of the grounds, when he
thought he heard some one calling his name. It was very early. But for
the chirping of a few waking birds, the gardens were very silent and
still. He stopped short in his walk and listened. There it was again—a
woman’s or a child’s voice, calling his name, softly, almost
appealingly. Turning sharply, the guard retraced his steps down the
path, looking about him anxiously as he neared the palace.
“O—Yone! Yone-yara!”
He turned in the direction of the voice.
“O—Yone! This way! It is I—your lady!”
Then the guard saw the Lady Wistaria leaning far out from her casement.
He ran forward and dropped on his knees, touching the earth with his
head.
“Closer! Still closer!” she called, in a whisper.
“Yes, my lady!”
He knelt close under her casement, his head bent, and respectfully
attentive.
She whispered.
“I wish you to do me a service; will you not, Yone?”
“Oh, my lady!” was all the young man could stammer, out of his eagerness
to serve her.
“I know you are tired after your watch, and it was long—so long!” She
sighed, as though she, too, had kept the watch with him.
“No, no!” cried the young guard, hastily. “Indeed I am honorably fresh,
my lady. Do not spare me any service.”
“Then do you please run as swiftly as your honorable feet will carry you
to the home of Sir Takemoto Genji, and bid him hasten to me here at
once, without one moment’s delay. Now hasten—do not wait!”
Like a flash of wind the young soldier had sprung to his feet, had
leaped across the small division to the bridge spanning the moat, and
was speeding through the wooded park beyond.
In less than fifteen minutes the samurai Genji was bending the knee to
the Lady Wistaria.
“Thy service, my lady!”
“Oh, Sir Genji,” she cried out, throwing all caution to the winds, “I am
in such dire trouble—such fearful, cruel trouble!”
“Why, my little lady?” The big samurai was on his feet, regarding her
with amazed eyes.
“Yes, yes—I know it seems incredible to you that I should have trouble
of any sort, but indeed it is so, and—”
“Aré moshi, moshi!” soothed the samurai, patting her hand reassuringly.
“You will be my very good friend, will you not, Sir Gen?”
“Friend! Command me to cut myself in half and I will do so at once!”
“Last night,” she whispered, “he—”
He nodded comprehendingly, certain that only one “he” could exist in my
lady’s mind.
“—he escaped!” she gasped.
“Escaped?”
“Oh, you know—you know of whom I speak.”
“Yes, yes—certainly; but how do you mean—escaped? He was our honored
guest, was he not?”
“His prince is my father’s mortal enemy. My father has been my jailer
for many days now, and I—I have been forced to cause him to betray his
prince. Oh, will you not understand!”
“Hah! It is all quite plain! But why did you not inform me sooner?”
“Because until yesterday my father kept so constant a watch over me that
I could make no movement he would not have perceived. But do not ask
useless questions now, Gen. Help me. Tell me what to do—what to do.”
“You say he has escaped? When and how did he go?”
“Last night, Gen. I climbed down the vine of the casement here. See, it
is strong. My father for the first time had not been near me all day,
and I thought I was safe from observation, though indeed I could not be
sure. But I went to him and warned him of the danger, and he has gone to
Choshui.”
“That is very well, then.”
“But my father may know the truth and will track him through the woods.
I cannot live for the fear, the august dread, of what may befall him.”
“Do not tremble so, my lady. Things are not so dark as they seem. It is
quite impossible for your father to have overheard you; he left Catzu at
noon yesterday.”
“Ah! Then if that is so, it will be too late to warn the young Prince
Mori,” she cried.
“But do not think of this prince, my lady. Be happy that your august
lover is safe.”
“Oh,” she cried, despairingly, “but I cannot have the death of this
innocent prince upon my hands. I should die if anything happened to
him.”
“Well, do take some comfort, my lady. You say your lover departed last
night. Very good. The samurai Shimadzu left yesterday at noon. Yet the
young man, I am ready to swear by my sword, will be the first to reach
Choshui.”
“Oh, but vengeance and hatred will lend wings to my parent’s feet.”
“And the wings of vengeance and hatred, my lady, are not so fleet as
those of the wings of love. Be assured.”
“Sir Gen, you do not know, you would not believe all I have suffered.”
Sir Genji’s brows contracted. Ever since he had followed her to the old
Catzu palace, when she was a tiny, bewitching little creature of five,
with laughing lips and shining eyes, a flower ornament tumbling down the
side of her hair and a miniature kimono tied about with a purple obi,
she had been his favorite. He could scarcely believe it possible that
any one could be cruel to this beautiful young girl. His looks just then
bode ill for any one who should cause her pain. Nevertheless, for many
days now the young girl’s chamber had been not unlike that of an
inquisitorial prison. It was true there were no thumb-screws or
neck-halters or burning-irons within, but there were instruments of
torture more refined and excruciating in their torture, because they
pierced the mind rather than the body.
If the girl awoke screaming in the night, one could be sure that some
creeping, spying presence had entered her chamber and had grown upon the
consciousness of her dreams, rudely awakening her to the fearful
nightmare of an unseen presence. In the early morning she was awakened
from her sleep and forced to carry on those nerve-shocking,
heart-breaking interviews with her lover. She fell asleep at night with
the intuitive knowledge that one watched unceasingly in her chamber. She
might make no stir or movement unobserved.
This Sir Genji heard for the first time.
“And I may rely on you for the future?” she asked, in conclusion.
The samurai raised his sword.
“With this, gentle lady, I’ll serve thee and him,” he said.
Then with a quick movement he flung the sword to the ground.
Three days passed away. She seemed like one in a dream, under a spell,
as she hung over her flowers. Under the fruit-trees she wandered. Their
petals, odorous and dewy-laden, fell around and upon her like a cloud of
summer snow-flakes. They made her quiver with memories that caused her
pain. She ran through the grasses away from them, her little feet
scattering the petals before her, seeking the banks of the moat far away
from where he had been wont to stand at the dawning, pleading for her
love.
But the lotus with the dew in its cups smiled but to weep. She threw
herself down by the water’s edge, and swept with her hand the lotus back
from the surface of the water. The flowers at her touch left one little
oval spot, out of which her small face shone up at her with its startled
eyes of tragedy. She fancied it a magic mirror wherein the face of the
divine goddess of mercy was reflected. So she prayed to the goddess very
softly, and quite as one whose mind has been over-weighted with trouble,
for peace and mercy for that wilful and foolish Lady Wistaria, whose
lover had passed out of her life and gone the gods knew whither. And the
lips of the goddess in the water moved in soundless response, but, “He
is gone—gone!” said the hapless Lady Wistaria.
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[Illustration: Decoration]