Patience is not always an enduring virtue. That of Richard Verley had
long since evaporated. Waiting, with a faith excelled only by that of
the one in Japan, for word from his wife, his stay in America had become
unbearable.
At first he had thought her failure to answer his letters due to
mistakes she might make in addressing him. He recalled how, when
teaching her to write his address, she had continually forgotten to put
the name of the city or State. She was quite sure that everyone in the
United States must know him. But as time passed, he knew this could not
be the reason. His letters urging her to answer at once, and giving
explicit instructions as to address, received no response. He thought of
her condition and became alarmed.
When finally, refusing to wait longer, and leaving his duties
unfinished, he took ship for Japan, he was in an agony of bewilderment
and apprehension. If anything had happened to her! Illness, the possible
premature birth of the child, when she would be too helpless and ill to
write. How foolish he had been not to have arranged communication with
her through a third party. And yet, who could he have called upon for
such a service? He thought of her outcast position since becoming his
wife; of the eccentric and stubborn fears that had impelled her to
remain in Japan. And then an overwhelming sense of regret overpowered
him, that he had left her at all. His place was by her side. His first
duty belonged to her! There had been a flaw in his former reasoning. His
service to the Master could have been better subserved than the way he
had chosen.
So, with his mind sick with gloomy forebodings, his conscience and heart
aching, Richard Verley returned to Japan. He hurried from Tokyo in a
fever of impatience to the little town of Sanyo. The journey was
interminable—intolerable! For the first time in his life the
gentle-natured Richard Verley fretted and upbraided those who served
him. The runners crept! Their vehicles were ancient and broken down. The
conductors of the miserable trains were responsible for the creeping of
the train. Some one was responsible! Everything was wrong! Most of his
journey, besides, was made by the slow method of kurumma. Sometimes,
unable to bear it, he would get out from the kurumma and plunge ahead
himself on foot. Every step, every moment that brought him nearer to
her, but added to his sick premonitions. All was not well with her!
Something dire had overtaken her. He dared not imagine what that might
be.
When he touched the town at last, he did not wait a minute, but without
noticing the townspeople, who regarded him curiously, he hastened on
toward where had stood his home.
The sight that met him when he reached the place staggered him. He
looked about him dazed, as one who sees with unseeing eyes. He could not
understand. Something was wrong with his sight—his head, he told
himself. Where once had stood the little flower-embowered home, there
was nothing but a heap of broken planks and debris, the melancholy
debris of a fallen house.
Snow was falling slowly and turning to water as it fell. The trees were
leafless. Where the sunny, flowering bushes had stood about the tiny
cottage, there were only the black stalks standing up in barren
nakedness. Desolation and tragedy seemed heavy everywhere. He blundered
forward a few steps, his hand to his eyes.
“A mistake somewhere,” he muttered, “I have lost my way. This is not the
place—this is not—and yet!”
He uncovered his eyes and again cast them about, slowly. The
surroundings were as familiar to him as the face of a mother, and over
there, the length of an iris field away, there was the church—his
church! He turned in its direction.
At the church door he fumbled with key to the lock. It turned easily
enough, but when he pushed the door inward it did not move. Then he
discovered the reason. The door was nailed to. Panic and frenzy swept
over him in a flood. He began frantically pounding upon the door,
shaking it by the handle, pushing against it with his shoulder, beating
upon its panelling with his fists, and tearing at the hinges with his
fingers. The blood was in his head. He could neither see nor hear. Only
that sensation of horrible foreboding and certainty of disaster pervaded
his whole being.
A temple bell began to tinkle, lazily, insistently. Small black birds,
cawing as they flew, swept close over his head, hastening toward their
night home in the woods. The rain descended heavily, noiselessly. The
shadows darkened dully.
“What am I doing?” the minister suddenly asked himself, and paused in
his efforts to break the church door. “She is not here! My fears are
driving me mad. How do I know that harm has come to her? I must not
trust to the phantoms of my imagination. God is good, good!” He walked
out a few paces, thinking dazedly. Then with a sudden resolution to seek
her in the village, he began to descend the hill. His step was more
hopeful. He tried to keep up his courage, but as he made his way along
his lips moved ceaselessly in prayer.
He went first of all to her step-mother’s house. Here in the miserable,
drizzling rain he stood outside the house, none bidding him enter in
response to his knock. Yet all through the house he could hear the
sounds of his coming announced.
A woman shrieked his name. Some one called back in a loud whisper which
penetrated through the paper shoji walls:
“The Kirishitan!”
Then he heard the pattering of hurried steps and the jabbering of
voices. Soon he was conscious of the fact that eyes were regarding him
from a dozen of wall holes. He knocked again, louder, and one within,
unseen, called in insolent tone:
“Begone! The curses of Shaka upon you!”
He told himself his ears deceived him. His knowledge of Japanese
confused the language surely. He knocked again, and again, each time
louder. Again the voice within:
“Who is it knocks?”
He spoke distinctly in pure Japanese.
“I am Verley-sama, your daughter’s husband. I have come to seek my
wife.”
There was silence, and then:
“We do not understand your language.”
He repeated his words slowly, patiently, enunciating each Japanese
syllable distinctly. But again came the reply:
“We do not understand.”
He recognized now the voice. It was that of the step-mother of his wife,
Madame Yamada. She had some reason for her lies. He was positive she
understood his Japanese.
“My words are plain,” he said. “I have come to seek my wife.”
“She is not here.” The voice was raised angrily now. “Seek elsewhere,
foreign devil!”
He ignored the insult and persisted doggedly.
“Where shall I seek?”
Some one laughed jeeringly within, and then the taunting words floated
out:
“Ask of the gods, priest of the evil one.”
“I ask of you,” he said hoarsely. “I shall not leave your house till you
reply.”
He heard the sound as of one moving with angry and impetuous haste
within, pushing whatever stood in her path aside. Madame Yamada thrust
aside the sliding shoji doors and stood in the opening.
Her words were mockingly sarcastic, and she bowed with extravagance.
“In what way can the humblest one serve the mightiest?”
“My wife?” he demanded. “Speak, woman, where is she!”
She smiled inscrutably, but as he went nearer to her the sneering lines
about her face deepened, revealing all her bitter detestation of the
Kirishitan.
“You will be punished if you have injured her,” he said.
“What will the wise and mighty Excellency do?”
“I will have you arrested. You will be forced to answer.”
“So!”
She drew in her breath with the hissing sound peculiar to the Japanese.
Then she drew the skirt of her kimona closely about her, and turned to
re-enter the house. He caught and held her by the sleeve and then she
stood still, her eyes half closed.
“Answer me!” he cried.
“It is not I who am the keeper of the outcast. You come to the wrong
house, sei-yo-gin. Seek elsewhere.”
Still he held her, and she could not free herself, though she made
effort to do so. Thus held, in angry durance she stood.
“You are her mother-in-law. You know where she is. I will not release
you till you speak.”
“Go to Okido-sama, the Nakoda,” she said sullenly.
“Okido-sama?”
“He knows!” said she.
He let her arm go and she, free, pushed the shoji viciously closed,
attempting to crush his hand in the opening.
“Okido-sama!” he repeated thoughtfully, “Okido-sama, the Nakoda!”
[Illustration]
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