It was nearly midnight when Komazawa passed along the shore of
Matsushima and began to climb towards the tombs. He knew every inch of
the land. Unlike poor, wandering Hyacinth, he passed steadily ahead
without the slightest hesitation. He had reached the small cliff path
which led to the great Date-rock cavern. Now he was before the rock
itself.
Without pausing an instant, holding the lighted lantern he carried above
his head, he entered the cavern beneath the rock. Every inch of the
ground within he examined, feeling about with his hands in the darkened
corners where his lantern could not penetrate. Over and over the same
ground he went, fear urging him forward. When the certainty that she was
not within the cavern forced itself upon him his shaking frame testified
to his agitation.
He had been so certain that the girl would come here. This was the great
secret cave he himself had shown to her, where they had spent their
childhood together in defiance of the mild remonstrance of the temple
priests.
Very slowly now Koma crawled from out the cavern. The lantern he set
upon the ground at the mouth of the cave. Then he stood still, uncertain
what to do, a great despair coming upon him.
Only a few paces away, he knew, were other tombs and caverns, but these
were built in the slanting cliffs, down which no maiden could have gone
in safety. Of them he would not think. He dared not look at them, lest
he become dizzy with horror. And so Komazawa raised his face upward to
the sky, just as Hyacinth had done.
[Illustration:
“HE KNELT IN A RAPT SILENCE BESIDE HER”]
Then he saw, far up above his head, something dark and still
outstretched upon the surface of the rock. He caught his breath, then
covered his mouth with his hands lest a cry escape him. Slowly and
carefully he climbed up to the surface of the rock. A moment, on its
edge, he paused irresolute, then crept on his knees towards the sleeping
girl.
For a long time he knelt in a rapt silence beside her, his eyes fixed,
entranced, upon her face.
She was slumbering as calmly as a child, and her upturned face, with the
moon-rays upon it, was wondrously, ethereally beautiful. Awed,
reverential, Koma gazed upon the picture, then soundlessly he crept back
to the edge of the rock and clambered down. Once more he stood on the
ground below. His face had a strange, strained expression, and in his
eyes gleamed a new light.
“I cannot awaken her,” he said to himself, “and oh, ye gods! how
beautiful she has grown!”
For a time he stood there without moving, plunged in reverie. Then his
eyes, wandering mechanically towards the bay, fell on a series of lights
on the shore below. They were one behind the other, and swung back and
forth. In an instant he recognized them. The next moment he had thrust
his own light into the cavern.
“They will not come this way,” he assured himself. “This ancient path is
little known save to the priests. Yet—if they should!”
He clinched his hands tensely at his side and stood off a few paces,
looking up at the top of the rock.
“It is very high up, and—they might not see. As I did—they might pass
by.”
He leaned far over, straining his eyes to pierce through the shadows
beneath. The lights below flashed a moment from out some foliage,
disappeared behind some rocks, reappeared again, and then plunged into a
forest path which led, Koma knew, far from his present position.
He heaved a great sigh of relief.
“Ah, it is well—well,” he said; “yet, nevertheless, I must watch—I must
guard her.”
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