IT became common knowledge in Fukui that the fox-woman had taken up her
residence on the Matsuhaira estate. The palace grounds covered nearly
twenty acres, and were surrounded like a veritable wall on all sides of
the estate by smaller buildings, which had once housed the retainers of
the Daimio, but which had not been occupied for years and were in a
dishevelled and forlorn condition of ruin and decay. Two of these
dwellings had been put in order, and these were occupied by the samourai
guard, the aged gateman who guarded the road leading to the mansion and
the family of the Tojin-san’s interpreter, who, himself, however, had an
apartment in the Shiro.
It was, therefore, quite possible for the fox-woman to find lodging in
almost any of the remaining structures, and she could, if she desired,
move from one to the other, and when unduly pressed, return to her old
refuge of the woods and foot-hills of the mountains that bounded them on
two sides of the estate.
More than one of the household had thought they had seen and recognized
her. On a still, hazy night, when the golden moon barely showed an
inquiring face in promise of the summer nights to come, Genji Negato had
shown her to the samourai guard. Just a white, fleeting face glimmering
out like that of some hunted thing between the slender, towering trunks
of a grove of bamboo. A moment only under the streak of moonbeam, and
then it had vanished like a mist at twilight.
Was it a dream, they asked themselves, or indeed a manifestation of the
just anger of the Buddha for sins committed in a former state. Were they
henceforth to be harassed, goblin-haunted?
And in the dawn, before the sun had barely shown its first glimmer of
light across the eastern sky—in the misty, dewy, clammy dawn—the maid
Obun had again come face to face with her.
Obun was bent upon her usual task of the morning, the bringing of water
from the pond to the house. Her eyes were swollen with sleep, she yawned
cavernously, and as she stooped to dip the first of the pails into the
water, something stirred the other side the pond, and she looked across
to gaze, with fascinated eyes, at the fox-woman, whose long, sunlit hair
dripped in and out among the lotus and the water-lilies, as if she
bathed it in their perfumed purity. Through this dripping veil of hair
her face gleamed whitely. Her lips fell apart as though she listened,
her eyes were startled, wild, and looked not at but through and beyond
the dumbstruck serving-maid as though she saw her not at all. Slowly,
stealthily, the fox-woman came to her feet, still with that weird,
seeking, listening look upon her face, and thus with backward, shivering
glances, she retreated to the bamboo grove.
To his own amused dismay, the Tojin-san found himself constantly on the
watch for her. He had never seen the witch, but he had heard and felt
her. She crept upon him in the evenings when he strolled about his
garden, and she seemed to follow his footsteps with the stealthiness of
a wildcat, disappearing as fleetly as the wind at his mere turning.
He was aware of her constant nearness if he merely stepped out of his
house. Once when something brushed his cheek he was startled to find
himself believing at once that it was she who had touched him. He
plunged into the brush at his side, and, in the dark, thrust back the
branches of the low-growing trees and bushes only to find himself up to
his knees in water where he had stepped unawares into an overgrown
rookery and fish-pond. As he floundered helplessly about he heard her
softly laughing in a weird, mocking voice, which nevertheless seemed to
overrun with tears.
Holding his breath unconsciously he found himself straining his ears to
listen to the sound, which indeed was so faint a whisper of a laugh he
could have believed he dreamed it.
Sometimes as he drove abroad through the country she called to him from
behind sheltering hillocks, and sometimes it seemed her voice floated
down to him from some height—some giant tree-top, heavy laden with
foliage; for it was the time of “Little Plenty” (May) and all the land
was green and warm.
He found himself listening for her call—stopping, waiting for it, and
returning with a sense of bitter disappointment when he heard it not.
The servants gossiped, the samourai whispered among themselves. They
said the fox-woman had put a spell upon him. Genji Negato repeated this
to him, and was rewarded by a look of startled contempt and anger.
“Spell!” The man of science repelled the very thought; but he began to
avoid the mountain-sides of his estate, and turned in preference to the
river-road, whither she could not follow unless she revealed herself.
Late that month, with no advance warning of its coming, whatever, a
typhoon swept venomously across the province, leaving in its wake a
shattering storm that shook and beat upon the aged Shiro for a day and
night; and, in the night, one encountered the shadow of the fox-woman in
the great deserted halls of the Matsuhaira mansion.
A wildly shrieking housemaid, calling “Hotogoroshi!” (murder) at the top
of her voice, gave the alarm, and from all parts of the palace the
menials scuttled like frightened rats, taking refuge in the great
kitchen in the rear.
Even Genji Negato, with blanched face and shaking knees, followed the
last agitated obi into this dubious shelter. Here fortifying himself
with heavier, if not trustier, implements than his swords he recovered
his wits sufficiently to attempt to rally the panic-stricken army of
servitors. Each in turn was ordered, urged, besought to go to the
Tojin-san’s apartment. It was dastardly, so he averred, to leave the
foreigner alone to face the unknown peril menacing him. For plain it was
to be seen that she who had hitherto confined her malign activities to
the large outdoors, had stepped at last across the threshold of the
doomed palace. Undoubtedly, the typhoon which had crushed half the city
so cruelly had been summoned by the witch in token of her power over
them. Something horrible, sinister, was about to happen. Who could tell
exactly what; but the signs were evil, evil!
He forgot the difference in his state and rank to these creatures of the
kitchen, and found himself confiding to them his worst fears.
The Tojin-san slept from north to south, the position proper for a
corpse alone! Genji Negato had pleaded with him to change, but the
foreigner had laughed and insisted it was the true, scientific position,
from pole to pole, in harmony with the electric currents of the
atmosphere.
The night before all four of the samourai guard had heard the plaintive
howling of a dog; an owl was seen black athwart the moon; a tail-less
cat fled under the Uki (goblin-tree). The samourai had dutifully
reported all these happenings to the Tojin-san, and now, when the blow
seemed about to fall upon him, this stalwart guard, provided by their
prince, were sleeping comfortably in their yashiki on the very edge of
the estate. It was the workings of the gods!
Goto, the cook, found his fluttering tongue.
“This very morning,” said he, “I trod thrice upon an egg-shell.”
“I miserably entangled my obi when dressing,” said another.
“And I, alas! bit my tongue when eating. My mistress said it was a sign
some one begrudged me my food. Who indeed but this spiteful fiend of the
mountains?”
“Twice this week,” wailed the cook’s wife, “little Taro broke his
chopsticks when eating.”
She fell to sobbing violently into her sleeve.
“Condescend to hush!” said Genji Negato. “Remaining silent is good.” The
interpreter’s yellow face had turned ashen, his hair appeared to stand
almost on end, as he listened with suspended breathing.
Outside the wild rain beat against the wind-swept trees, and dashed
peltingly against the ancient Shiro. Jagged flashes of lightning
zigzagged across the skies showing clearly through the walls, though the
amado were in place. It was not, however, to the sound of the tempest
that the interpreter was giving ear. Somewhere within the Shiro itself
new sounds were heard. It was as if a wind passed along the great halls
and corridors and close upon its soft-footed flight there dashed
something heavy, pursuing.
Suddenly the main sliding screen or door, which led into the halls, fell
inward with a crash. Over it something bounded like a ball of fiery
light, passed through the kitchen swift as a lightning flash and shot
out into the storm, letting in a gust of rain and wind and thunder
through the shaking doors.
A moment later only, and panting like an animal in the chase, the great
Tojin burst into the chamber. He stopped short, staring as if confounded
at the group shuddering against the farthermost wall. Slowly his gray
face relaxed its tension. He tried to speak normally, but in spite of
himself his voice shook, though his words were terse, commanding.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “Translate that, if you
please, to the servants,” he sternly ordered his interpreter.
The latter’s teeth were chattering. He could barely speak.
“Your excellency—you yourself have seen—”
“I saw nothing,” said the Tojin-san, doggedly, “save the figure of
a—woman!”
“A woman!” cried the interpreter, almost in tears at the evident
stubbornness of this fool-white-man. “Ah, most high-up sir, would you
have condescended pursuit of a mere female creature?”
The Tojin-san looked care-worn, haggard, as if he struggled within
himself. His deep, stern voice quivered in spite of himself.
“She was pressed against my wall, and fled fleetly as a wild thing when
I threw the doors open. The halls were unlighted. I could barely see
her. My eyes were dazzled at the sudden darkness. I may have been
mistaken. And yet—and yet—it seemed to me—her hair was—_gold_!”
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