Night in Japan, when the day has been all or partly clear, is a
deepening mystery, a revelation of purple tones and velvet shadows. In
the French Legation garden (designed originally for the delight of a
feudal daimyo and afterward given as part of the French concession for
official buildings) the soft blurred dusk concealed all but the vaguest
suggestions of copse and path and hillock. A wanderer on the
dew-drenched gravel might perceive about him, as by instinct, the beauty
of line and mass. The smell of daphne and azalea flowers rose with
pungent sweetness. Higher trees and mounds, set with rolling shrubs,
rose against the sky-line and the stars like great crouching
earth-clouds.
Pierre moved up and down the driveway just below the steps that led down
from a balcony on the quiet west side of the house. Ignoring the
doctor's orders, he had come a full hour before the appointed time.
Ronsard, seeing his intention, had expostulated vehemently, using both
language and gesticulation, but soon shrugged off the obligation with
the reviving thought, "Only an hour more, and it will be over!"
So Pierre had walked at will. He drew in heavy breaths of the scented,
humid air. He believed himself impervious now to further illness. He
would not have listened or believed if one had told him that his present
interlude of fictitious strength was like the shade of a upas-tree in a
scorching desert. One cigarette after another was smoked and thrown at
random among the shrubs, where each in turn lay like a malicious
glow-worm, hissing and winking away an acrid spite. In the west a faint
shining stirred the advent of the moon.
At ten minutes to eight o'clock Mr. Todd arrived. He was ushered at
once, by order, into the small drawing-room where Ronsard sat. His face
had new lines of struggle, and was very pale, but self-possession was
evident in every gesture. His first act on reaching Ronsard was to draw
out the paper, saying, "This, sir, has not left my body, or been touched
by any hand but mine, or been referred to by any speech, since the
moment, a few hours since, when I left you."
In his long, earnest explanation to Gwendolen and Dodge, Todd had,
indeed, carefully refrained from letting them know that he was personal
guardian of the document. It might have opened for them another blind
trail of argument. During that agonizing interview he had thanked fate
a hundred times for the part that Dodge had so opportunely been
qualified to play. The clear judgment, intense sympathy, and clever
resourcefulness of the young diplomat delighted him even in the midst of
tragic exercise. It had taken the utmost skill of both men to overpower
Gwendolen's first keen desire to go to her friend, to make the girl see
that interference on her part had become impossible. He had left her
half-fainting, though still insistent in her belief that God could not
allow such a crime!
Ronsard rose as the guest entered. He, too, had gained a certain
fatalistic calm. In reply to Todd's elaborate explanation, he had said
simply, "Return the paper to its place, your Excellency. The farce will
soon be over. Shall we not join our young imbecile in the garden?"
They paced together wide dimly lighted rooms, and emerged upon the
uncovered western balcony. Pierre looked up and, wordless, continued his
rapid, nervous strides.
"He'll kill himself, the fool," muttered Todd. "The mist piles in like
thin cotton."
"It is too late even for his death to be of assistance," said Ronsard,
with bitter animosity. His small eyes darted loathing after his young
compatriot. He thrust pudgy hands deep into pockets below the equator of
his belt, and rocked to and fro on his heels. Suddenly the pent-up
discomfort, the apprehension, the strain of the situation clutched him
anew. "God!" he cried aloud, and shook himself until the fat trembled.
"As you say, Monsieur, no man is worth all this, nor woman either, least
of all that puling hind yonder! Only a great cause is worth it,--the
service for one's native land. I have tried to think of France--of
France only. My country is to be cheated. I can do nothing; yet still I
wallow in this tepid slime! How has it come about? You will give Hagané
the paper, if he brings the woman with him!" He broke off, and after a
keen look into Todd's unresponsive face began to walk in short, broken
steps up and down the stone flooring.
His words had rung out clearly. Pierre must have heard each one; but if
so, he made no sign. Pierre had now but one thing to think of,--his
price, the woman that would soon be here.
Todd leaned against a corner pedestal, and Ronsard, after a moment,
paused in his meaningless exercise, and stood again before his
colleague. The two pairs of eyes met and fenced. Todd might have been
made of wood. After a long glance Ronsard freed his right hand from its
pocket and began pulling at the moist, red underlip. "You will of
course, in any case, give up the paper at first appearance of Hagané and
Madame?" His voice slid querulously upward with interrogation in the
pause.
"Yes," said Todd, distinctly. "I conceive it to be my part to return the
paper at that moment."
"Er--had we not better pause to see whether Madame tends to prove after
all--recalcitrant?"
"The bargain said nothing of that. Pierre gets his price,--the person of
Yuki, so they always worded it; Hagané gets the paper. It is simple
enough. We don't need a lightning-calculator."
"Hark!" said Pierre, pausing, stricken, just beneath them. "Is it not
the sound of--wheels?"
All became silent, alert, intent. The faint, low crackle and clatter of
a kuruma on gravel, a vehicle slowly drawn, came apparently from the far
end of the garden, just under the spot where the moon rose.
From the battlements of the white house beside them, the great pale
house standing upright like an opened volume in the night, a queer
flutter came, swart wings went beating against the stars, and a crow
laughed aloud with raucous joy.
"A crow at night! It means, among these people, death!" said Ronsard.
Pierre started violently, and dropped his last cigarette. "Damn the
flying fiend!" he cursed aloud.
The crunching of wheels drew near. They moved with increasing
sluggishness. Each click had a sound of protest. To Pierre's tortured
hearing, all noises crawled backward.
By this the moon was in the tops of enoki, camphor, and tall camellia
trees. Where its light touched curves of shelled and smoothly gravelled
paths, the spaces were of snow.
Out from the great red pagoda of Shiba temple, not half a mile away,
came the first stir, the throb, the murmur of a great bell struck
tentatively by its swinging cedar beam, before receiving in full
strength the initial stroke of eight. "One!" the great bronze pendant
boomed. "Two!" came more slowly and on a higher note, sending swifter
ripples to overtake the first scurrying elves of sound. "Three!" "Four!"
It swung majestically until the last stroke, piling echoes deep, filled
the whole shell of night with discontent, and sank, a dew of sound, on
listening leaves.
With the first tone, the jinrikisha wheels had stopped. The great crow,
shaken from his height, had fled. Pursued far off by melodious echoes,
he flapped his wings and screamed. A cricket near the steps awoke,
jarred from his winter sleep by vibrant summons. The needle of his
shrill, incongruous song pierced to the listeners' hearts.
"Mother of God!" cried Pierre, smiting his clammy forehead, "how is it
that I live at all?"
Around a curved hillock directly bordering a path, straight into
unhindered light, came the white hat and stooping shoulders of a coolie.
Behind him dragged the dark bulk of a covered vehicle. Pierre half
fainted against the steps. "She has come alone--alone--" he cried in
exultation. Regaining his feet he wheeled to the two men watching from
the balcony. "Gentlemen," he cried with a gesture, "may I entreat you to
leave,--for these first moments?"
The coolie came on like a heavy machine.
Ronsard, at Pierre's question, transferred his weight from one foot to
the other, and then looked at Todd. The latter deliberately walked down
the shallow steps and stood on the gravel beside Pierre. The white hat
of the coolie fronted them like a silver shield. Pierre scowled upon the
American, and gave a sound of anger.
"I'm sorry," said Todd, calmly. "But I promised to be present during
just these first moments. Prince Hagané has my word."
"Prince Hagané!" echoed Pierre, with a hoarse laugh that was kin to the
crow's. "Where is Prince Hagané? Backed out at the last, as I thought he
would--like the coward and bully that he is! There has no Hagané come,
don't you see? Only Yuki--my darling--my poor little love. I see her
white dress yonder!"
The coolie straightened himself, flung the wide hat sideways with a
single fierce sweep of arm, and turned to the wondering observers the
set, livid face and burning eyes of Hagané.
"Prince Hagané is here," he said quietly, and tried to smile.
His peasant hat, skimming along the gravel, touched now and again with a
hissing sound the surface of small stones. At length in a small patch of
moonlight it came to rest, and lay rocking slightly, and gaping upward
like a mendicant's bowl.
Pierre cowered. Ronsard nearly fell. "Prince Hagané in coolie's garb!
What new horror is this?"
"Suppose we call it--delicacy," suggested Hagané. "Could any secrecy be
too great for such a meeting?"
Todd narrowed his lids. Hagané kept a hand close upon one shaft of the
little vehicle, conserving the upright posture. The black hood, bent far
over to the front, completely concealed the occupant; but the dazzling
white of a gown with pale embroideries, and the faint odor of flowers
and of sandalwood now stealing upon the night air, should, in any case,
have betrayed her sex.
"Yuki--Yuki, you have really come!" cried Pierre, and would have rushed
to her but for the obstruction of Hagané's arm.
"First, the paper," said Hagané.
Todd jerked out the document. Ronsard held him.
"Wait; there is something damnable in that still white thing there in
the rickshaw. Wait and see whether it is really Madame la Princesse, or
a substitute."
Hagané stared one moment upon the speaker with lips that writhed
backward, showing teeth like a baited boar. "His Excellency is always
prudent. See, gentlemen, for yourselves, that I have brought my wife.
Mr. Todd, have the document ready!"
With an almost imperceptible motion Hagané slipped from its nail the
black, taut twine that held the lowered hood. It rattled back with the
noise of the spokes of a giant fan. Yuki sat upright,--the full moon
just behind her,--smiling. The little hands were clasped tightly in her
lap. The coils of her orchid hair had the glint and sheen of the crow's
wing.
"It is Yuki,--certainement!" screamed Pierre, in ecstasy.
"Hold back that paper!" roared Ronsard.
Todd stood on tiptoe. One long thin arm went up like the derrick of a
dredging-machine. His hand held something square and white with a black
blotch on it. The arm lowered. Hagané reached up, took the paper, and
thrust it deep into the breast of his coolie robe.
"The paper--" groaned Ronsard; "it is gone forever!"
"But Yuki," cried Pierre, "has come to be mine forever!"
"One moment, gentlemen," said Hagané, again restraining Pierre. "You
were all present at the agreement between Monsieur Le Beau and me. The
paper is now regained, and here is its price; here is Onda Yuki-ko." He
placed the shafts of the little vehicle on the lowest stair, and stepped
out sheer upon the walk. Pierre, like an animal released, sprang to
Yuki, knelt by her, caught her hands, and began whispering words of
love.
Now for the first time Todd groaned aloud, and walked to a little
distance. Ronsard followed him. But the Japanese stood immovable, his
eyes on Yuki's face.
"My beloved, my beloved,--I know now that I have not believed in this
ecstasy! But you are here! Come, dear one, you must be chilled in the
night air. How quiet you are and pale! It must be the moonlight. And
your little hands are cold! Why do you not speak, love! Are you trying
to frighten me? This is not the time for dainty trickery! Speak, for
God's sake! I have been so long on the rack my very soul is sore! Why do
you smile so, and never change? Your cheek is colder than your hands.--O
God, a thought is coming that will turn me, too, into ice! Yuki, Yuki,
what strange thing is this rooted in your heart,--what grim hilt with
twisted dragons? I see the crest of the Hagané clan! Yuki--Yuki--"
"She wishes the dagger not removed, Monsieur. It keeps her sacrificial
robes--immaculate." Hagané spoke like a machine.
Pierre, the other side of Yuki, rose to his feet. His eyeballs swelled
and rolled in the moonlight, giving him a look of frenzy. "Who is that
that speaks to me? Has night a voice? What spirit hides behind that
mask?"
"Death," said Hagané, calmly.
Pierre writhed beside the vehicle, and then became very still. The other
listeners turned, expecting an outburst of maniacal grief,--perhaps a
murderous assault on Hagané. Pierre's composure was more terrible than
any speech. He smoothed one of Yuki's hands, and, after a pause, began
speaking directly to her.
"So this has been his plan, dear? I might have guessed. He knew he was
to kill you. Oh, the deed suited him! He called me a thief; but what has
he not stolen? Wait for me somewhere, darling,--I cannot say just where
it will be; but after--I will meet you. If sickness does not free me, I
myself will loose this tortured soul and find you."
"She died by her own hand. That dagger was already in her heart as you,
with the stolen paper, left my room."
"Oh, he is trying to hide,--to shield himself behind you, poor little
one!" said Pierre to the dead woman.
A shadow on the nearest hillock moved. Todd went nearer to examine it,
but could see no living thing.
"Time presses," said Hagané, speaking always in the same dull, hopeless
way. "Our bargain was clearly stated. Shall I now leave with you the
body, Monsieur Le Beau, or shall I retrace my steps as I came, giving
honorable burial to the Princess Hagané?"
"Le Beau, you cannot hesitate at such a question," cried Todd.
"Pierre, Pierre, in the name of France, compromise us no further! You
have done harm enough. Let the poor sacrifice go in peace!"
Pierre caught Yuki to him, his arm about her shoulder, her glossy hair,
with the white flowers, strained against his heart. Like a trapped beast
he defied them all.
"No, I'll not give her up. You are all false,--all have betrayed me. If
I am to have nothing else, I keep at least the frail shell of what she
was! Oh, I shall kiss--kiss--kiss--her into life, or myself into her
cold, white death. Yes, go, you toad of Hell!" he screamed toward
Hagané. "Leave my price with me."
"Though dead, she still has reputation--family honor," Hagané said.
Pierre threw back his head for a derisive laugh. Just then a strange
thing happened. From the hillock nearby a crouching shrub seemed to
detach itself and spring. It was a man,--the old samurai Onda. Hagané
had told him to be there. Before interposition could be made, he had
thrown himself on Pierre, taken Yuki from his arms, thrown her back in
the kuruma, and stood in an attitude of menace between them. "Keep your
hands from my daughter! Keep your devil's hands from the Princess
Hagané!"
"Shall we interfere?" whispered Todd to Hagané.
"No, I can do all," he said. Then to Onda, "Keep back, old friend. It is
his right,--the price that we have paid."
"Master, Master," cried the kerai, almost sobbing in his excitement,
"let me slay him--let me slay all three! I will die the self-death, or
be hanged, with equal satisfaction. Only let me slay!"
"These others are just men, and my friends," said Hagané gravely. "The
young madman yonder is protected by my word. We must think, too, of
Nippon."
Old Onda's breathing rasped the silence.
"Monsieur Le Beau," said Hagané again, "you are fully determined to
retain the body--and give her name to public defamation?"
"What else is there for me, devil?"
"That you have been her lover,--that you have so deeply injured me,--is
that not enough to gloat over?"
For an instant Pierre stared. The meaning of the words came to him with
a relish. Hagané really believed this thing; then of course he suffered!
Very good! A look of malignant triumph grew in Pierre's face. Hagané
drank the bitterness with his eyes. Here, at last, thought Pierre, was
the undipped heel, the pervious crown. Yuki's body sagged an inch.
Pierre stooped to it. Again she was in his arms, and he devoured, with
despairing looks, the small, dead face.
Hagané, by a fierce gesture, commanded Onda to be still. Todd felt his
heart stop, then rise slowly to his throat, and Ronsard, shivering,
gripped the American's arm. The moon sailed full into a cloudless sky.
Beneath it the great tragedy lay bare.
The trend of Pierre's thoughts at this moment he could never afterward
recall. His flesh felt as though it melted from him. His brain stirred
and pulled at possibilities before unfelt. Voices not of earth said
strange things which he almost understood. Yuki's dead smile changed. He
saw her lips quiver. Her white face grew to one still prayer. Something
like a cooling fluid went into his hot and empty veins. He felt strong
again and noble. He regarded Yuki's accuser with a new look.
"You lie in saying that thing, Hagané. Is it not enough that you have
used, and then slain her, that you now traduce her name? No, you dare
not resent my words, coward, liar, slanderer! What is the theft of a
paper compared to this? For Yuki's sake, I tell you that no flower
hidden in green leaves, no girl-child at its mother's breast, no flake
of snow, new-fallen, is purer than this woman. Yes, grin now and
tremble!"
He went swiftly to the stricken man, and dealt him a blow upon the lips.
With gasps of horror the others rushed in. Hagané caught Pierre to his
side, and fought off the frenzied Onda. "Back, all of you, stand off, I
say!" he thundered. "The man gives me life. Let him strike. Yes, yes,"
he cried to Pierre, all the hauteur and the terrible bronze composure
melted in this new fierce joy; "tear my eyes from their sockets, my
tongue from its base,--only repeat that she is pure! How could I know?
She let me think it,--your boasts, the broken hairpin! Did she not give
you the pledge of the hairpin?"
"I took it myself," said Pierre, "and would not give it back, though she
pleaded. How could I guess the gross sentiment that is attached to the
silly business by such minds as yours? She was pure, I say; give me her
body and let me go!"
Hagané followed him to the kuruma. He stretched out both hands, now as
one entreating mercy. "Poor boy, bound with me on the wheel of fate,
listen just a little, if you can command your strength. She shielded
you. Then, with her life, she rebought the paper. When you had offered
to give it back, if I would consent to the restitution of her wifehood,
I asked her if she was worthy to return, and in her conscious innocence,
she gave the answer, 'No.' She thought only of the unworthiness of
weakness--she whose soul, diluted into eternity, might stock a Christian
heaven. In her self-death, she deliberately let me believe her evil,
that her atonement might have this added bitterness. Also she may have
feared that, being undeceived, I might falter in my promise not to
restrain her from expiation. She knew of my love, and we have pledged
ourselves to reunion and joint service after death. You cannot
understand these things, Monsieur."
"No!" said Pierre, in bewilderment, putting his hand to his forehead, "I
cannot understand, of course; she was always saying that. I cannot
understand, but something whispers--"
"Monsieur," cried Hagané, "I am an older, graver man. I have suffered as
I think you cannot suffer. Give me back the boon of her body!"
Pierre blinked and wavered in the path. These sudden shifting currents
of purpose dazed him. The strain was tightening again, and he felt the
premonitory breath of fever. He grasped outward into the air. He looked
at Yuki, as if for the first time, and moved dumb lips.
"You believed this of your wife, yet forgave--helped--loved her--You
look forward to having her as your wife in a coming re-birth?" asked
Todd, wondering.
"Had it been true, it was but sin of the flesh. By death and expiation,
she would have cleansed it. The soul would have risen, free."
"Mon Dieu, what people!" gasped Ronsard. "There stands the man Onda,
scowling at us all,--and not even resenting, from Hagané, his only
daughter's death."
"Onda will sacrifice to the Gods in gratitude when he knows the whole,"
said Hagané.
Pierre was trying to speak. He vacillated, soul and body, between the
dead woman and her husband. "Do not refuse me," murmured Hagané,
stepping nearer.
Pierre did not shrink. Instead, he, too, went near, as if fascinated. He
cleared his throat, pushed back the damp hair from his girlish forehead,
and smiled up at the dark, eager face. "Hagané is a great man," he said,
tapping the other's arm. "Oh, he is a terrible man! I can refuse him
nothing. Yuki says that the Gods of this land speak with him. I believe
it. One is standing just behind him now; that is a terrible God, too. He
looks like Hagané. He sits like a white flint in a ball of fire. On his
arms are the coils of rope that bind the passions; in his right hand is
the wheel of fate. No, I will not refuse. Old God must have flowers on
his altar. Take white flower, old War God. There she is,--my love--my
darling. If only she would not smile!"
Hagané caught the boy as he fell, transferring the burden quickly to
Ronsard's outstretched arms. He gazed then anew at the face of his wife.
"Yuki," he said, as if to her listening spirit, "you are soul of my soul
through ten thousand lives. I let you die. It was karma. A flower! A
flower! Alas, that a flower should be stung by immortality!"
"Get her away, your Highness, before we call the servants and a doctor
for Le Beau," whispered Todd, after an agonizing interval. Hagané rose
from his knees.
"Yes, little Yuki must go with me," he muttered; "I will take her at
once, your Excellency." He went toward the coolie hat and stooped. Onda
was before him.
"It is not seemly, Lord, for you to bear so foul a burden. I will wear
the hat, and I pray you take these shoes of mine, giving me the straw
sandals."
Hagané obeyed passively, his eyes fixed always on Yuki's moonlit face.
Now and again he felt in the bosom of his robe for the paper.
"Loosen the robe from your girdle, Master," pleaded the kerai.
Hagané did so, releasing the caught-up ends. The long, dark garment,
though of cotton, restored to him the height and dignity of his usual
presence.
"Shall I draw the hood of the kuruma?" asked Onda.
"Yes, cover her face,--her small white face; the very night may weep and
falter at that smile."
Onda tucked up his robe, put on the wide hat and the straw sandals,
placed himself between the shafts, and started along the driveway.
Hagané, moving always slowly, abstractedly, folded his arms, bowed his
head, and followed in the attitude of a mourner immediately behind the
covered vehicle.
"Take my burden for a moment," pleaded Ronsard, when the sound of wheels
had quite died away. "I can support--no longer. Let me summon aid. Mon
Dieu! this night has made of me an old man."
"It has made of me a prophet," said Todd, "for I have met Immortals face
to face."