EARLY in the morning the inhabitants of the little Eta village were
startled by the unusual sound in the streets of the “clip-clop” of
palanquin runners’ sandals. The Eta were not used to being carried in
gilded norimons, or of travelling in any other fashion than on foot.
Consequently, the spectacle of an exquisitely finished norimon, carried
on the shoulders of liveried attendants, created as much stir as it is
possible for the placid Japanese to manifest. The bamboo curtains of the
norimon were closely drawn. The runners sped swiftly along, paying no
heed to the raised shutters or the curious eyes at the wall holes. On
either side of the palanquin two couriers or personal samurai walked.
The runners stopped before the house of Shimadzu, and, having thrown
aside the curtains, bowed low as they backed before a veiled lady, who
stepped from the norimon. The lady, however, unmindful of her bending
servitors, hurried up the gravelled pathway to beat upon the door with
her delicate fists.
The early morning visitor entered the house before the Lady Wistaria had
descended from her chamber. When she threw back the covering from her
head, the proud face of the Lady Evening Glory appeared with all its
cold beauty and strange pallor. Her lips trembled so that she could not
keep them together.
She had travelled all night in the utmost haste to throw herself at the
feet of her brother, praying his mercy for the young Prince of Mori. She
did not wait for her brother to question her, but began at once a
pitiful, disjointed tale concerning her son Toro.
The young man had involved himself in great trouble in the Choshui
province, and was now held a prisoner by the Prince of Mori. Toro, the
foolhardy, imitating the actions of the young courtier of the Mori clan,
had fared badly. Caught scaling the walls surrounding the palace of the
father of the Lady Hollyhock, he had been arrested and brought before
the Prince of Mori. This nobleman had at first intended to return the
young fellow to his neighbor courteously, with some satirical rebuke
which would scorch the vanity of the boy’s father, but just at this
juncture had come the fearful intelligence of the arrest, secret trial
for treason, and sentence to death of the young heir of Mori. The old
Prince, rendered frantic with fear and anguish, despatched word
immediately to Catzu that unless the Prince Keiki were spared, the same
fate should be meted out to the young Catzu Toro.
So the Lady Evening Glory had come now to her brother to demand, to beg
the pardon of their enemy, this young Prince of Mori, while her husband
had hastened to Yedo to seek the aid of the Shogun. Nevertheless, both
father and mother knew that the fate of their son depended not upon the
august Shogun, but upon their brother, the samurai Shimadzu, for the
Shogun would scarcely have time to send forces to compel Mori to release
Toro before the execution of Keiki took place, which would be
undoubtedly the signal for the immediate despatch of Toro.
The unexpected answer the lady received from her brother stunned her so
completely that she was robbed of all hope. Now she suffered in turn all
the pangs of frantic despair and agony that her niece had so lately
undergone through her agency.
“What!” cried the samurai, with stern derision, “permit the consummation
of the work of a lifetime of misery and torture to slip through my
aching fingers now? Not for a thousand nephews!”
Yet he endeavored in his rough and stern way to comfort his sister with
these strange words:
“Catzu Toro is of samurai blood. It behooves him, therefore, to give up
fearlessly his life for the honor of his family. He ought to bless the
gods for the opportunity.”
The mother wept, prayed, threatened. All in vain. Shimadzu was
inflexible. Meanwhile the hour which had been set for the execution of
the young Prince of Mori approached with more than the natural speed of
time, and the Lady Evening Glory’s couriers, the samurai Genji and
Matsue, waited in agonized impatience for word of truce to carry to the
old Prince of Mori.
Finding all her efforts to move her brother unavailing, the Lady of
Catzu sought desperately though impotently to bar his egress from the
room. She clutched the dividing shoji which opened into the corridor,
then placed her back against them. When Shimadzu turned to the doors on
the opposite side she rushed before him, and again sought to prevent his
departure. Firmly, but not ungently, Shimadzu put her aside, whereupon
she fell down at his feet, clasping her arms about his legs, while her
lips emitted strange and piteous outcries.
Yet what could the utmost strength of a delicate lady do against that of
a samurai man? With one quick movement he freed himself from her
clinging hands. The next moment the Lady Evening Glory was quite alone.
She suddenly realized that the gods had denied her all succor, and
crawled across the room until she stood in front of the small shrine in
the place of the tokonona. There she prostrated herself, but her lips
could not frame themselves in petition to the gods.
How long she lay thus she could not have told. Gradually she became
conscious that some one was kneeling beside her, and that a soft and
tender hand was smoothing back the wild hair that escaped about her
face. A gentle voice whispered:
“The gods are good—good! Take heart! They will not desert us! The gods
are good!”
Then the proud Lady of Catzu, raising herself to a kneeling posture,
gazing up into the bending, pitying face above her, saw her niece, whom
she had so vindictively persecuted. Before she could speak one word,
Wistaria drew her hand to her breast. Then the bereaved mother gave way
to a passion of tears of weakness and despair.
“You are calmer now, dear aunt,” said the Lady Wistaria after a while.
“Weep no more, I pray you. But try rather to bring your mind to think
clearly with mine. We must conceive some way by which we can outwit my
honorable parent. We have yet two hours before the time when my father
will depart for—for his prisoner.”
But the after-effects of weeping, great sighs, rendered the Lady Evening
Glory speechless. She could only shake her head hopelessly, helplessly.
“All night long,” said Wistaria, “I have kept a vigil. I have thought
and thought and thought, until my brain has seemed ready to burst. I,
too, my lady, have yielded myself to such despair as you now feel. I
suffer more than the pain of one who loses a beloved, for I am tortured
with the knowledge that I am guilty. Oh, lady, was it not I who betrayed
this prince, and would I not be the indirect cause of dear Toro’s death
also? Therefore it is my task to save the life of this prince, if that
can be done.”
“But it cannot—cannot,” moaned the Lady Evening Glory. “Thou knowest not
thy father!”
“And yet,” said Wistaria, slowly, “I have thought of one way.”
“Anata!”
“Tell me first, my lady, is it not so—that one who marries an Eta is
forever after disgraced—branded?”
“Yes, yes, that is true—but—”
“It is of importance that I know all this. Now is it not also true that
my father’s chief ambition is to break the pride and spirit of the old
Lord Mori?”
“Yes, it is so, it is so.”
“Then, my lady, be comforted. Mayhap I shall find a solution to all our
troubles.”
Arising, gently she took her arms from about her aunt to hasten into the
adjoining chamber. Her voice addressing the Madame Mume came to the Lady
Evening Glory.
“Tell my honorable father,” she said, “that I beg for just one minute of
his honorable time.”
When she returned to her aunt her face had a wan little smile of hope on
it. The samurai Shimadzu followed her into the room. Wistaria prostrated
herself before him with the utmost humility.
“You have asked for an audience, my lady. Speak quickly, for I have work
to do ere long.”
“Honored parent,” said Wistaria, with her eyes upon his, “I have thought
much upon what thou wert pleased to tell me last night.”
“Indeed.”
“And, my father, the more I have thought of the matter the greater have
the wrongs of my father and mine, those of our house, appeared to me to
be.”
“Thou speakest now,” said the samurai, quietly, “as becomes an honorable
daughter.”
“Oh, my father, so deeply do I feel the wrongs of our house that I have
felt that even the very death of this young prince would not be a
sufficient vengeance.”
She was speaking slowly and distinctly, so that each sentence should
take effect upon her father.
“Having broken the heart and spirit of my enemy,” said Shimadzu, “I
shall have accomplished all. It will be sufficient, and my work, my
duty, will then be consummated.”
“But think you, my father, that by the killing of this prince you will
indeed have broken the heart and spirit of your enemy?”
“Ay! For I shall have robbed him of that thing which he prizes above all
else on earth—his son!”
“But has he not seven other sons who would quickly fill the place of
this one?”
“That is so. Were it possible for me to have seven instead of one Mori
prince for execution this day, I would be seven times the happier.”
“August father, you have taught me, and I have learned, that death is
not the greatest of sorrows that can befall us. Execute this prince and
he will quickly pass into another world, where the fates may befriend
him. He will be beyond our reach. In the eyes of his parent he will have
died an heroic and exalted death, since he gives up his life for what he
deems a noble cause. Oh, my father, in all the empire of Japan, what
Imperialist would not envy him such a death? No, the death of this
prince would be inadequate revenge for the wrongs we have suffered. Far
better if he could be forced to live so that he might suffer the devils
of pain to gnaw at his heart all the rest of his life.”
“Thou wouldst have him spared for purposes of torture?”
“Yes, honored father.”
“Thou art indeed a woman,” said the samurai. “Yet a samurai’s sword has
never been turned to such a purpose.”
“That is right, for your honorable sword is not sufficiently sharp, my
father.”
“Thou speakest darkly, my daughter.”
“I have thought darkly of our wrongs, my father. I have found a more
refined revenge to inflict upon this prince, one which would wound him
more deeply than the death of one of his eight sons.”
“Well, and what is your revenge?”
“First answer me this: What would be the feelings of this proud and
arrogant prince if his idolized heir were to be guilty of that very
fault for which he exiled his samurai?”
“What fault?”
“The fault of marrying into a degraded and outcast class.”
The samurai started. Then a strange smile flitted across his thin face.
“His pride would fall. Such a calamity would crush—bend—kill him!”
“True. Then if his pride is such, let us strike at it before his heart.
I think I see a way by which this can be accomplished.”
“How?”
“Bring this young prince hither. Leave him to me!”
“To you!”
She went very close to her father and raised her face upward so that he
might see it perfectly.
“Look upon me, honorable parent. Am I not fair? Bring hither this son of
an evil prince, and in twenty-four hours he will be ready to wed an Eta
maiden.”
“An Eta maiden!” suddenly shrieked her aunt. “Who? Not—” She made an
indescribable gesture towards the girl.
“I,” said Wistaria, throwing back her head—“I am an Eta maiden, my
lady.” She bowed very low, then moved towards the door. Before passing
out she turned.
“I go,” she said, “to garb myself in the dress of an Eta maiden. But do
not believe, my lady aunt, that I shall have lost that beauty with which
the gods have blessed me, and with which I shall win and wed this Mori
prince to the disaster of his household and the triumph of my father’s.”
With that she was gone from the room. They heard her light feet flying
up to her chamber above.
“It will crush—bend—kill the father!” muttered the samurai, softly. “It
is well!”
“It is well!” repeated his sister, but in a different tone.
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[Illustration: Decoration]