The Dragon Painter Part 2

"The mountain deities were angered at your presumption," nodded Kano, well pleased.

"It may be," admitted the other. "At any rate, the winds now hurried in from the sea. Round cloud vapors split sidewise on the wedges of the rocks. Voices screamed in the fissures. We clung to the scrub-pines and the sa-sa gra.s.s for safety."

"I can see it all. I can feel it," whispered old Kano.

"We wished to descend, but knew no way. I shouted for aid. The others shouted many times. Then from the very midst of tumult came a youth,--half G.o.d, half beast, with wild eyes peering at us, and hair that tossed like the angry clouds."

"Yes, yes," urged Kano, straining forward.

"We scrambled toward him, and he shrank back into the mist. We called, beseeching help. The workmen thought him a young sennin, and falling on their knees, began to pray. Then the youth approached us more deliberately, and, when we asked for guidance, led us by a secluded path down into a mountain village."

"And you think,--you think that this marvellous youth," began Kano, eagerly; then broke off with a gesture of despair. "I must not believe, I must not believe," he muttered.

Ando's hand was once more on the roll of papers. He went on smoothly.

"We questioned of him in the village. He is a foundling. None knows his parentage. From childhood he has made pictures upon rocks, and sand beds, and the inner bark of trees. He wanders for days together among the peaks, and declares that he is searching for his mate, a Dragon Princess, withheld from him by enchantment. Naturally the village people think him mad. But they are kind to him. They give him food and clothing, and sometimes sheets of paper, like these here."

With affected unconcern he raised the long roll. "Yes, they give him paper, with real ink and brushes. Then he leaps up the mountain side and paints and paints for hours, like a demon. But as soon as he has eased his soul of a sketch he lets the first gust of wind blow it away."

Kano was now s.h.i.+vering in his place. On his wrinkled face a light dawned. "Shall I believe? Oh, Ando, indeed I could not bear it now!

Unroll those drawings before I go mad!"

Uchida deliberately spread out the first. It was a scene of mountain storm, painted as in an elemental fury. Inky pine branches slashed and hurled upward, downward, and across a tortured gray sky. A cloud-rack tore the void like a Valkyrie's cry made visible. One huge talon of lightning clutched at the flying scud.

Kano gave a glance, covered his face, and began to sob. Uchida blew his nose on the pink-bordered foreign handkerchief. After a long while the old man whispered, "What name shall I use in my prayer?"

"He is called," said Ando, "by the name of 'Tatsu.' 'Tatsu, the Dragon Painter.'"

II

The sounds and sights of the great capital were dear to Ando Uchida.

In five years of busy exile among remote mountains he felt that he had earned, as it were, indulgence for an interval of leisurely enjoyment.

His initial visit to old Kano had been made not so much to renew an ill.u.s.trious acquaintance, as to relieve his own mind of its exciting news, and his hands of a parcel which, at every stage of the journey, had been an incubus. Ando knew the paintings to be unusual. He had hoped for and received from Kano the highest confirmation of this belief.

At that time, now a week ago, he had been pleased, and Kano irradiated.

Already he was cursing himself for his pains, and crying aloud that, had he dreamed the consequences, never had the name of Tatsu crossed his lips! Ando's antic.i.p.ated joys in Yeddo lay, as yet, before him.

Hourly was he tormented by visits from the impatient Kano. Neither midnight nor dawn were safe from intrusion. Always the same questions were asked, the same fears spoken, the same glorious future prophesied; until finally, in despair, one night Ando arose between the hours of two and three, betaking himself to a small suburban hotel. Here he lived, for a time, in peace, under the protection of an a.s.sumed name.

A letter had been dispatched that first day, to Tatsu of Kiu s.h.i.+u, with a sum of money for the defraying of travelling expenses, and the pet.i.tion that the youth should come as quickly as possible for a visit to Kano Indara, since the old man could not, of himself, attempt so long a journey. After what seemed to the impatient writer (and in equal degree to the hara.s.sed Uchida) an endless cycle of existence, an answer came, not, indeed from Tatsu, but from the "Mura osa," or head of the village, saying that the Mad Painter had started at once upon his journey, taking not even a change of clothes. By what route he would travel or on what date arrive, only the G.o.ds could tell.

Kano's rapture in these tidings was a.s.sailed, at once, by a swarm of black conjectures. Might the boy not lose himself by the way? If he attempted to ride upon the hideous foreign trains he was certain to be injured; if on the other hand, he did not come by train, weeks, even months, might be consumed in the journey. Again, should he essay to come by boat! Then there were dangers of wind and storm. Visions of Tatsu drowned; of Tatsu heaped under a wreck of burning cars; starved to death in a solitary forest; set upon, robbed, and slain by footpads, all spun--black silhouettes in a revolving lantern--through Kano's frenzied imagination. It was at this point that Uchida had hid himself, and a.s.sumed a false name.

In another week the gentle Ume began to grow pale and silent under the small tyrannies of her father. Mata openly declared her belief that it was a demon now on the way to them, since he had power to change the place into a cave of torment even before arrival. After Uchida's defection old Kano remained constantly at home. Many hours at a time he stood upon the moon-viewing hillock of his garden, staring up, then down the street, up and down, up and down, until it was weariness to watch him. Within the rooms he was merely one curved ear, bent in the direction of the entrance gate. His nervousness communicated itself to the women of the house. They, too, were listening. More than one innocent visitor had been thrown into panic by the sight of three strained faces at the gate, and three pairs of s.h.i.+ning eyes set instantly upon them.

One twilight hour, late in August, Tatsu came. After an eager day of watching, old Kano had just begun to tell himself that hope was over.

Tatsu had certainly been killed. The ihai might as well be set up, and prayers offered for the dead man's soul. Ume-ko, wearied by the heat, and the incessant strain, lay p.r.o.ne upon her matted floor, listening to the chirp of a bell cricket that hung in a tiny bamboo cage near by.

The clear notes of the refrain, struck regularly with the sound of a fairy bell, had begun to help and soothe her. Mata sat dozing on the kitchen step.

A loud, sudden knock shattered in an instant this precarious calm.

Kano went through the house like a storm. Mata, being nearest, flung the panel of the gate aside. There stood a creature with tattered blue robe just to the knees, bare feet, bare head, with wild, tossing locks of hair, and eyes that gleamed with a panther's light.

"Is it--is it--Tatsu?" screamed the old man, hurling his voice before him.

"It is a madman," declared the servant, and flattened herself against the hedge.

Ume said nothing at all. After one look into the stranger's face she had withdrawn, herself unseen, into the shadowy rooms.

"I am Tatsu of Kiu s.h.i.+u," announced the apparition, in a voice of strange depth and sweetness. "Is this the home of Kano Indara?"

"Yes, yes, I am Kano Indara," said the artist, almost grovelling on the stones. "Enter, dear sir, I beseech. You must be weary. Accompany me in this direction, august youth. Mata, bring tea to the guest-room."

Tatsu followed his tempestuous host in silence. As they gained the room Kano motioned him to a cus.h.i.+on, and prepared to take a seat opposite. Tatsu suddenly sank to his knees, bowing again and again, stiffly, in a manner long forgotten in fas.h.i.+onable Yeddo.

"Discard the ceremony of bowing, I entreat," said Kano.

"Why? Is it not a custom here?"

"Yes,--to a lesser extent. But between us, dear youth, it is unnecessary."

"Why should it be unnecessary between us?" persisted the unsmiling guest.

"Because we are artists, therefore brothers," explained Kano, in an encouraging voice.

Tatsu frowned. "Who are you, and why have you sent for me?"

"Do you inquire who I am?" said Kano, scarcely believing his ears.

"It is what I asked."

"I am Kano Indara." The old man folded his arms proudly, waiting for the effect.

Tatsu moved impatiently upon his velvet cus.h.i.+on. "Of course I knew that. It was the name on the sc.r.a.p of paper that guided me here."

"Is it possible that you do not yet know the meaning of the name of Kano?" asked the artist, incredulously. A thin red tingled to his cheek,--the hurt of childish vanity.

"There is one of that name in my village," said Tatsu. "He is a scavenger, and often gives me fine large sheets of paper."

Old Kano's lip trembled. "I am not of his sort. Men call me an artist."

"Oh, an artist! Does that mean a painter of dragons, like me?"

"Among other things of earth and air I have attempted to paint dragons," said Kano.

"I paint nothing else," declared Tatsu, and seemed to lose interest in the conversation.

Kano looked hard into his face. "You say that you paint nothing else?"

he challenged. "Are not these--all of them--your work, the creations of your fancy?" He reached out for the roll that Uchida had brought.