The Breath of the Gods Part 50

Hagane looked down upon her silently. He could not move for the coils around his feet. He saw clearly that she had reasons for detaining him, and his mind went naturally to the one solution. "This was a lover she protected." Yet he was calm, his grave dignity una.s.sailable. His lips, his chin, his down-bent lids were of metal; only at the temples, veins sprang and stood like branches of dull red coral.

"I shall not ask again, Yuki; will you tell me the name of the man who has gone?"

Yuki stared up at him through flickering lids. The air snapped into little particles of jet and tinsel. Things were getting the queer look.

She feared that she was going to laugh. "Was there a man, Lord?" she questioned.

"G.o.ds!" said Hagane. His nostrils blew in and out, and still his voice was even and kind, "Yuki-ko, your country, the life of our Emperor, may be menaced by this theft. Can any bodily pa.s.sion exonerate this ultimate crime?"

A great spasm seized the crouching woman. "Lord, have mercy on my weak heart; but I can get the paper--I alone can get it; I will buy it for you with my life!"

"Bah--your life! We do not offer carrion to the G.o.ds. Unloose my feet,--poor soiled thing. Do not touch me!"

Yuki hid her face against his feet. Her arms coiled like steel bands.

Slowly and deliberately he knelt and untwined, as he might the tendrils of a vine he did not wish to bruise, her clinging arms, the long gray sleeves. There was no roughness in any movement except at the instant when he snapped the obi-dome, intending to use it to bind her wrists.

She felt his intention, and waited craftily until he had almost drawn the first noose, then slipping her arms away, encircled again his patient feet, babbling, "Let me get it. He was ill; he did not know.

Harm him not. I will get the paper." In her distracted thought some other self, anterior to this, seemed to be at a great distance, running side by side with Pierre, and jerking out to him through failing breath: "I hold Hagane back, but it cannot last very long. Do not harm him,--I will do what you wish, Pierre, I will be what you wish; already Hagane casts me off, but do not harm him. Quick, quick, poor mad boy, my strength fails! Hagane is coming--coming--"

His first failure brought no impatience to the statesman. With more elaborate care he again knotted the obi-dome and drew it. He succeeded now in securing the fluttering hands. His one sign of agitation was deep, heavy breathing. As he raised his head from the task, on the white b.a.l.l.s of his eyes tiny crimson threads broke through. Yuki stared upward, dazed, into his face. "Look not on me," he said, as he prepared to rise. "Put your false face to the earth. If I thought a s.h.i.+ver of obedience, of loyalty were left in your cringing soul, I would command you to stay here quietly--and seek not to follow, and so make more open this disgrace. Hide your eyes, I say! Sooner would I caress a grave-worm than thee!" He pushed her down with some violence, rose, and hurried to the rear of the house. Yuki turned her face sidewise to follow him. "A kuruma," she heard him call, "and three swift runners! Ten yen each to the men if they start within the moment!"

He stood bareheaded in the suns.h.i.+ne, his watch opened in his hands. As if by invocation, the kuruma and the grinning coolies appeared. Yuki crawled a few inches, and strained her dry throat outward, listening for the address he was to give. No effort had been needed for hearing. His voice had the ring, the resonance of a deep bell, as he said aloud, "To the French Legation!"

Yuki, when she was sure that the whole place had fallen quiet, slowly lifted herself to a sitting posture on the foreign carpet, in the very centre of a huge bunch of vermilion cabbage roses. She gazed with intense scrutiny at one of these unearthly blossoms. It reminded her of something, a very terrible something, which had happened to her long ago. She tried to put a hand out and trace the irregular circle, but something held her hands together. She stared now at the hands, at the twisted obi-dome. Its golden clasps, now broken, hung down and clinked together like the toys on a lady's chatelaine. The sight recalled her to the present, and solved the suggested mystery of the harsh red rose. It was of sealing-wax the flowers had reminded her,--of a great crimson seal, of enamelled paper.

"But I kept him back quite a little while," she said aloud, and nodded in satisfaction. "Less danger will come to both because I held Hagane back. How could he know it was Pierre? How could he think so quickly to go to the French Legation? Will Pierre be really there? Oh, he is a terrible man, that great Hagane! Even the voices of the air speak to him! He called me 'carrion,' rather would he fondle a grave-worm than little Yuki! Ah, his eyes said not so this morning, no, not this morning, my great Lord Hagane."

She moved her hands restlessly in their bonds. "Poor little hands," she murmured. "He tried to bind you. Shall I set you free?" She put her ear down against them. "Oh, yes, indeed I can release you," she smiled as if the hands had answered. "The obi-dome is soft and insecurely tied. Even a great prince like Hagane cannot tie a knot that a woman's fingers cannot unfasten!" With a few deft turns of the wrist she loosed the cord, letting it slip to the floor.

For an instant she stared at the bright red marks on her wrists, then put both hands upward to smooth the loops of her hair. She seemed a little surprised to encounter such disarray, and began thoughtfully to coil up, foreign fas.h.i.+on, the blue-black hair which fell in streams along her shoulders. With a little s.h.i.+ver she drew her kimono together at the throat. "Why did Pierre wake so soon?" she whimpered. "He came and took something from Hagane. He did not understand his own crime, being so very ill. No, he could not have willingly slain Yuki, had he understood. Hagane said that my country, my Emperor, may be harmed through Pierre. I must get the paper back at once, at once! Why am I waiting? Oh, I must go swiftly, as they went!"

With spasmodic motions she lifted her trembling body upward. The gorgeous obi, stiff with silver pine-boughs and robbed now of the indispensable obi-dome, slipped down about her in coils, as of a huge wooden shaving. She grasped instinctively at the folds. Her eyes continued to search restlessly the corners of s.p.a.ce.

"Oh, Pierre, naughty, naughty Pierre!" she went on whispering. "You promised to lie still. You gave your word to Yuki when she helped you.

Now they may both need to die,--poor Pierre and little Yuki, too. They may die with the cherry-blossoms all dressed up for them to see! If only my poor head would stop moving, and I could think what I must do!"

She put one icy hand against her temple. With the other she tried to keep the falling robes from catching on her feet. Tottering and stumbling, she reached the hall-way. A frightened servant-woman knelt near the door. "Mistress, Mistress, in Amida's name, tell me what terrible thing is here!"

Yuki half closed her lids and peered forward, trying to recognize the speaker. "Oh, Ine, is that you? Yes, a terrible thing, two terrible things! My hair has fallen and my obi slips away. Arrange me quickly, Ine, quickly, and call a swift kuruma like Prince Hagane's. I must go somewhere now."

"Kas.h.i.+komarimasu" (I hear and will obey), faltered the woman, but instead of advancing, crouched backward. She was afraid of the strange light in her mistress's eyes.

"Quick, I say! Did you not hear me?" cried Yuki, angrily, and clapped both hands together with a sharp sound. The obi fell, surrounding her in one great s.h.i.+mmering wheel. The terror in Ine's face brought the young wife to her senses. "It really is nothing, Ine," she said, trying hard to smile. "I had a little fall there in the drawing-room, and am dazed.

Do not concern yourself or speak to the other servants. Go now at once and bring my long black adzuma-coat, another obi-dome and some foreign hair-pins. I have not the time to be entirely redressed. I will await your coming here."

Yuki stood at the foot of the steps. The servant sped upward. From the far end of the hall came Tora. The prearranged impa.s.sivity of his face was noticeable even to one in Yuki's excited state. "Well, Tora!" she said haughtily.

"Did you not wish me, your Ladys.h.i.+p?" asked the man, bowing in exaggerated deference. Yuki felt a hot wave pa.s.s along her neck and vanish against the pallor of her cheeks.

"I did not," she answered steadily. "But since you are here, I wish you to order my kuruma with two swift runners."

"Yes, your Ladys.h.i.+p." He did not move.

"You heard my order?"

"Your Highness," said the man, turning pale as he spoke, "I am only a servant, but I once lost by death a daughter of your age. There is something I would like to say."

Yuki bit her lip; a struggle went on within her. The dip of the scales came through Ine, who now hurried down the stairs.

"When I return, Tora," said the young princess; "I am sure you mean to be kind and not presuming. I will speak to you when I return."

Tora shook his head as he turned away. As Yuki's kuruma rattled from the gate, he went back musingly alone toward the Cha no yu rooms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mrs. Todd and her daughter, in driving away from the Haganes' official home, had given the order, "Suruga Dai." To be truthful and more accurate, this euphonious, topographical t.i.tle, spoken in j.a.panese with a delicious softening of continental "u's," and blurred Italian "g's,"

was, under Mrs. Todd's crisp American tongue, transformed to the alert and inharmonious "Sew-roo-gar Da-eye." The driver, fortunately inured to these attacks upon national enunciation, drove as straight to the desired spot as if Yuki herself had named it.

Suruga Dai, so called because from its elevation can be seen the distant plain of Suruga with its glittering single treasure, Fujiyama, is a curious little welt of land, rising in a small loaf through the very heart of modern Tokio. Official residences climb the slopes, foreign homes perch at the top, j.a.panese villas and gardens crown it. A fas.h.i.+onable hospital, endowed by the Empress, has risen there within a decade; but, on Suruga Dai, the dominating presence is a huge Greek Church, built and utilized for her own purposes, by Russia. From far down the bay of Yedo, from car windows on the busy, curved track that leads from Yokohama, this edifice stands as a sort of saturnine beacon.

Staring, treeless, defiant, with square white walls that hurt the eyes with their blank brilliancy, and a squat blue-tiled roof fas.h.i.+oned to a Byzantine dome, it rises above the verdure-hidden eaves of the Imperial palace, checks the vista to many a narrow street, and hangs, a menace and a humiliation, above the wide plain of alien interests. Boatmen on the Sumida River, poling down rice, and wood, and charcoal from distant villages, glance up toward it with a scowl and a prayer. If they were Romanists they would cross themselves and ask protection of the Virgin.

Being heathen, they merely invoke the great living national spirit of their race, bow reverent heads to the thought of their Emperor, and stop at the next police-station to register their names as volunteers for the army. Russia has claimed to believe that the commanding position of this church is indicative of future rulers.h.i.+p. They have boasted openly, in the Far East, of this coming thraldom. What the j.a.panese will do with the inimical temple and its priesthood in case of their ultimate victory over Russia is an interesting problem. With their tolerance for all religious belief, their innate delicacy and dignity, the foreigners who best understand them would certainly predict an unchanged policy of forbearance.

Mrs. Todd did not take a great deal of interest in Tokio street scenes.

Her mind generally streamed back like vapor to the exalted personage she had recently left, or blew on before to an antic.i.p.ated welcome. This was the case to-day. Rudely torn from her Prince, she was thinking of the little Countess K----, now in the Suruga Hospital after an attack of appendicitis, to whom she had promised a visit. Count K----, one of the rising statesmen of the country, was a particular friend of Dodge; Minister Todd also believed great things of his future. Gwendolen, beside her mother in the open carriage, answered intelligently, but with obvious lack of interest, the commonplace remarks addressed to her. A foretaste, a prescience of tragedy, lurked like a fog in the air.

Companioning Yuki's dilemma came her own,--recognized even in this moment of irritation as incomparably less important, though still maddening with the sting of nettles,--Dodge's foolish devotion to Carmen, his continued coolness to herself. She was not old yet, or experienced enough, to put herself in another's place. Dodge was trying to hurt and humiliate her. Worse still, he was succeeding. She needed to ponder no further. One does not write a geologic treatise on the pebble in one's shoe. Dodge wished to injure her. It was cowardly, unmanly.

Dodge prided himself on his Southern blood. Gwendolen, with a sneer, thought him--or tried to believe she thought him--a degenerate specimen of chivalry. If at last he should attempt another overture to her friends.h.i.+p, she would know well how to scorn him!

A great jerk of the wheels, and renewed vociferation from the coachman, started the horses in a nervous scamper up the slope. Gwendolen's head went back, the hatpins tugged at her yellow hair. She clutched at the velvet brim of her hat, and at the same moment her lifted eyes fell on the white walls and sagging dome of the Greek Church. The scowl she gave it might have been borrowed from a rice-seller on his barge. "Detestable barbarians!" she muttered. "If they ever _should_ dominate this land!"

"Gwendolen," said her mother, also jerked and unnerved by the speed, "you are far too exaggerated in your expression of hatred to Russia.

Even Cy says so. You are going to get the Legation into trouble yet!"

Gwendolen threw herself back into a corner and sulked--if a thing the color of light and flowers can be said to sulk. She went at least into partial eclipse, and retained her penumbric mood to the hospital and within it. The pleasure of receiving guests seemed, in the case of this little invalid countess, to be entirely cancelled by her distress at remaining rudely on her back, without a single bow. Mrs. Todd tried to put her at her ease, speaking very loudly, as she often did in talking to the j.a.panese, as if their ignorance of civilized languages lurked in the ears as well as the tongue. Everything in the room was foreign,--the white and bra.s.s bed, tables, chairs, spoons and medicine bottles, vases, even the lithograph framed portraits of the Emperor and Empress hanging on the opposite wall. The nurses wore gingham dresses, ap.r.o.ns, and white caps. The cloven hoof showed literally (and with opprobrious connotation deleted) in the thick-soled white, digitated socks on which they sped with the lightness and swiftness of a breeze in a meadow. Relatives of the countess came in presently, greeting and thanking the ill.u.s.trious visitors in her behalf. In spite of efforts to be at ease, the whole visit crackled and creaked with starched formality. Gwendolen was glad when her mother rose to go.

In the short drive home they pa.s.sed directly by the gate of the French Legation, and skirted the brick and plaster wall which hides a fair garden. "It is a shame for a bachelor to keep this lovely place to himself," observed Mrs. Todd, pensively.

"It would be a much worse shame for him to try to marry any decent woman," said the girl, darkly.

"Gwendolen! Gwendolen! What on earth has come to you lately? You are not like yourself, these days! You seem to hate the French as much as the Russians. Neither nation is troubling you, just now, nor Yuki either!"

The parent put up her lorgnette to study her daughter's fair, dissatisfied face.

Gwendolen went back to her corner and the sulks.

At the American Legation Mrs. Stunt awaited them. Mrs. Todd went with more than usual willingness to her friend. Gwendolen had not been an inspiring companion. The friends.h.i.+p between the two elder ladies, threatened as we have seen by certain events at Yuki's first reception, had received some skilful soldering, and, being new-painted by Mrs.