Part 6

For the first time Taro Burton paused, and looked with dreadful eyes at its dull surface, which even the darkness of the night and the miserable rain could not obliterate entirely. What were the memories that crowded back on him, suffocating him? Here it was that he and Yuki had grown up together. The little boat was the same, the island as small and neat, the house seemed as ever; nothing had changed. Yes, there was Yuki! A deep groan slipped from his lips.

There was a difference of seven years in their ages, but a stronger bond of sympathy and comradeship had existed between these two than is usual between brother and sister. Their nationality had to a large extent isolated them from other children, for the Japanese children had laughed at their hair and eyes, and called them "Kirishitans" (Christians). Until he was seven years of age, Taro had manfully, though bitterly, fought his battles alone. He had been a queer, brooding little lad, of passionate and violent temper, and, apparently, scorning any overtures of friendship from any one outside his own household.

When the little sister had come, the boy had gone suddenly wild with joy, and had proceeded to bestow upon her the same worshipful love his mother gave exclusively to him, for Snowflake had been born when their English father lay at the gates of death, her tiny soul fluttering into life just as that of her father drifted outward into eternity, so that to Omatsu, the mother, who was passionately absorbed in her grief, her arrival had been a source of irritation. But Taro had carried her to the family temple, and had, himself, named her "Snowflake" (Yuki), for she had come at a time when all the land was covered with whiteness. There had been a frost and even a snowfall, which is rare in that part of the country. Moreover, she resembled a snowflake, so soft and white and pure.

How was it possible for him, after all these years, to come, as he now had come, once more to this place of which she had always been a part, and with which she had always been lovingly associated in his mind, and not be filled with emotions that rent his heart. She had been his inspiration and all the world to him.

He remembered how they would drift around in their tiny boat, and she, little autocrat, would perch before him, her eyes dancing and shining, while he told her the story of the fisher-boy Urashima and his bride, the daughter of the dragon king. And when he would finish, for the hundredth time, perhaps, she would say, "See, Taro-sama, I am the princess, and you the fisher-boy. We are sailing, sailing, sailing on the sea 'where Summer never dies,'" and he, to please her fancy, drifted on and on with her, around and around the little pond, until the sun began to sink in the west and the little mother would call them in-doors.

Now the monotonous drip, drip, drip of the rain-drops as they plashed from the weeping willow-trees that surrounded the tiny lake, fell upon its dull surface with mournful sound. Taro groaned again.

When he had knocked loudly a man came shuffling round from the rear of the house, and, in reply to his inquiry for Madam Omatsu, informed him gruffly that she had retired.

It did not matter; he must awaken her, Taro, who had found voice, told him with such insistence that the servant fled ignominiously to obey him. They waited for some time, out in the melancholy night. There was no sound from within the house. Taro hammered on the door once more. Then a faint light appeared from a window close by the door, and the man's head showed again. He begged their honorable patience. He would open in a fraction of a second. He was very humble and servile now, and, as he admitted them, backed before them, bowing and bobbing at every step, for his mistress's entire household had been taught to treat foreigners with the greatest deference and respect.

"Go to your mistress," said Taro, briefly, "and tell her that her son desires to see her at once."

There was immediately a fluttering at the other side of the shoji. Taro saw an eye withdraw from a hole. There were a few minutes of silence, and then the shoji parted and a woman entered the room. Her mother-love must have prompted her to rush into the arms of her son, for she had not seen him in five years, but, whatever her emotions, she skilfully concealed them, for the paltry reason that her son was accompanied by a stranger, an honorable foreign friend; and it behooved her to affect the finest manners. Consequently she prostrated herself gracefully, bowing and bowing, until Taro strode rapidly over to her and lifted her to her feet.

She was quite pretty and very gentle and graceful. Her face, oval in contour, was smooth and unwrinkled as a girl's, for Japanese women age slowly. It was hard to believe she was the mother of the tall man now holding her at arm's length and looking down at her with such deep, questioning eyes.

"Where is my sister, Yuki?" he demanded, hoarsely.

"Yuki?" Madam Omatsu smiled with saintly confidence. She had retired. Would they pray wait till morning? Ah, how was her honorable son, her august offspring? She began fondling her boy now, stroking his face, standing on tiptoe to kiss it, ecstatically smoothing and caressing his hands, feeling his strange clothes, and laughing joyously at their likeness to those of her dead husband's. But the dark shadow on Taro's face was deepening, nor would he return or submit to his mother's caresses till his fears regarding his sister were stilled.

"Send for her," he said, briefly, and she knew he would not be gainsaid.

Send for her! Ah, Madam Omatsu begged her noble son's pardon ten million times, but she had made a great mistake. His sister had, of course, retired, but it was not within their augustly miserable and honorably unworthy domicile. She had gone out on a visit to some friends.

Taro undid the clinging hands and pushed her from him, his brooding eyes glaring.

"Where?"

Where? Why, it was only a short distance--perhaps two rice-fields' lengths from their house.

"The house?--the people's name?"

Madam Omatsu whitened a trifle. Her eyes narrowed, her lips quivered. She tried once more frantically to prevaricate.

The people's name? She could not quite recall, but the next day--the next day surely--

"Ah-h," said her son, with delirious brutality, "you are deceiving me, lying to me. I demand to know where she is. I am her rightful guardian. I must see her at once."

Madam Omatsu protested with faint vehemence, but she did not weep. She even essayed a little laugh, that reminded Jack eerily of Yuki. In the dimly lighted room she looked strangely like her daughter, save that she was much smaller and quite thin and frail, whereas Yuki was rosy and healthy.

Taro was speaking to her in Japanese, in a sharp, cruel voice, and she was answering gently, meekly, humbly, consolingly. Jack felt sorry for her. Suddenly Taro threw her hands from him, with a gesture of sheer despair and exhausted patience.

"I can learn nothing from her, nothing," he said in English. Then he turned on her again. "Listen," he said: "You are my mother, and as such I honor you, but you must not deceive me. I know all; know that my sister was married to an American; know how she was married, if you call such marriage. They do not consider it so, as you must know. What do you know of this, my mother? It could not have happened without your knowledge?"

The mother broke down at last. All was indeed lost if he knew that much. She sank in a heap at his feet, and again the other man was reminded of her daughter.

Taro raised her, not ungently, curbing his emotions.

"Pray speak to me the truth," he implored.

"It was for you," she said, faintly, in Japanese. "I desired it, I, your mother; and, afterwards, she also, she, your sister. It was a small sacrifice, my son."

"Sacrifice! What do you mean?" he cried.

"Alas, we had not the money to keep you at the American school, and later, when you desired to return, it was still harder."

"Oh, my God!"

She went on, speaking brokenly in Japanese. After he had gone to America their little fortune had been swept away, but of this they had kept him in ignorance, fearing that he would not remain in the university did he know how poor they had become. The house belonged to him; they could not sell it. There had been but poor crops in their few remaining acres of rice-fields; their income became smaller and smaller. One by one their servants and coolies had to be sacrificed, till there were only a very few left, and these refused to be paid for their services. They had secured money in what manner they could, and sent it to him. It was hard, but they loved him.

Then Yuki, unknown to her mother, had gone up to Tokyo each day and learned the arts of the geisha; later she invented dances and songs of her own, and soon she was able to command a good price at one of the chief tea-gardens in Tokyo.

This for a season had brought them in a fair income, and for a time they were enabled to send him even more than the usual allowance. Then came his request for his passage money. Alas! they were but weak and silly women. They had forgotten to save against this event in their desire to keep him in comfort. Nakodas had approached Yuki, and tempting offers were made to her. She had resisted all of them, for she was then below the age when girls usually marry, but sixteen years of age. Only when it became imperative to raise the passage money would she even listen to the pursuasion of her mother and of the nakoda. They had pointed out to her the great advantage, and finally, as the brother's letters grew more insistent, she had broken down and given in. After that time she had assisted them in their efforts to secure her a suitable husband. They had been exceptionally successful, for she had married a foreigner who would likely leave her soon, which was fortunate in Omatsu's mind, one whose excellent virtues and whose wealth were above question. This was all there was to tell. She prayed and besought her honorable son's pardon.

During her recital Taro had leaned towards her, listening with bated breath to every word that escaped her lips. His thin, nervous face was horribly drawn, his hands were clinched tightly at his side, his whole form was quivering. He tried to regain his scattered senses, and his hand vaguely wandered to his brow, pushing back the thick black hair that had fallen over it.

"You cannot understand," he said to the other man, his voice scarcely recognizable for its labor. "It was for me, me, my little sister sold herself. To keep me in comfort and ease! Snowflake for me! And they kept me in ignorance. I did not even dream they were in straitened circumstances. Oh, had I not willing hands and an eager heart to work, to slave for them? Why should the whole burden have fallen on her, my little, frail sister? But it has always been so. There is no such thing as justice in this land for the woman."

Jack heard him raving, understood, and bowed his head in impotent sorrow.

"Has your mother given you any information of her whereabouts?" he suddenly broke in.

Taro had forgotten that they were seeking her. His mother's story had held all his attention. The horror aroused by that recital of devotion, the thought of the months of her sweet life which she had sacrificed for him, and then how he had repulsed her, pressed on his poor numbed senses. But Jack's inquiry recalled him. A thousand dark surmises regarding her overwhelmed him.

"Yes, yes--where is she?" he asked, huskily.

She had been with her husband some days now. Madam Omatsu expected her home soon, and this time she would never again return to him.

Taro's eyes were inflamed. "And she has not returned? She should be here now! Ah, it is plain to be seen what has happened. She may be taking her life at this moment. It is what a Japanese girl would do. She had the blood of heroes in her veins; she would not falter."

All of a sudden he turned upon his friend. Then the full agony caused by his sister's disappearance and her great sacrifice descended upon him, and he tottered. Before Jack could stay him, he swayed forward and, as he fell, struck his forehead upon the corner of a heavy chair that had been his father's. When Jack raised the head of the unconscious man he found blood flowing from a wide cut over the left eye.

There were hurrying feet throughout the house, terrified whispers, and sobs, and, above all, a mother's voice raised in terrible anguish.

XIV

A STRUGGLE IN THE NIGHT

By day and night they kept their unrelaxing watch by the bedside of the sick man. Ever he tossed and turned and muttered and cried aloud, one word alone on his lips--his sister's name.

Tenderly the mother smoothed the fevered brow, softly she stroked the restless hands, and tried to still their fever between her own cool, soothing ones. Thin lines had traced their shadows on her worn face; gray threads had come to mingle with the glossy black of her hair. But she never permitted herself, after that first night of anguish, to betray her emotions, for, if she did, well she knew she would be refused the precious labor of nursing her boy. And she kept her sleepless, tireless watch night and day. Her maid begged her to lie down herself and rest, but she shook her head with bright, dry eyes. Rest for her? While he lay tossing thus? Nay! perhaps when he should find the rest, the gods would permit her also a respite; till then she must keep her watch.

She smiled pathetically when the white-faced American boy tried to insist that she should sleep, with the little air of authority he had assumed in the household. But with the gentle smile she also shook her head in negation.

"Let me take your place," he pleaded. "He is dear to me also."

Still she smiled, such a shadowy, heart-aching smile, and turned back to the sick-bed.

Jack Bigelow went back to Tokyo, and began his vigilant search for the missing girl. The services of the entire metropolitan police board were called forth, and money was not spared. The nakoda who had brought about their marriage was put through a vigorous catechism, but he could tell them nothing. The proprietor of the tea-garden swore she had not returned to him, and when he bewailed the misfortune which was filling his house and gardens with officers, Jack consoled him by paying liberally for the loss he claimed he was suffering.

On the fifth day the mystery of the girl's disappearance still remained unsolved. Large rewards were offered for a clew to her whereabouts. The police were sure that she was somewhere in Tokyo, and Jack urged them to continue unremitting search in the city, but each night dawned upon their fruitless efforts. Now some one had seen a girl of her description entering a tea-house on the eve of her disappearance; another had seen her selling flowers in the market-place; and yet another swore she had gone on board a German vessel with a dried-up foreigner. This last person could not be mistaken--a Japanese girl with blue eyes and red hair. But each clew was found wanting and proved false.

Then back to Yuki's home, sick-hearted, disappointed, weary, went Jack Bigelow. A servant met him with the blessed news that the man down with brain fever was improving; that a merciful calm had at last come to him, and that now he slept. Wearied from his fruitless endeavors to find some clew to Yuki's whereabouts, the first good news in days unnerved the young man. He sat down, covering his eyes with his hands. He was badly in need of rest himself, but his mind was full of the mother in the sick-room overhead.

Madam Omatsu, was she resting?

No, she still kept her watch, but she was very weak, and they feared she would break down if they could not prevail on her to rest.

Jack went slowly up the stairs, tapped softly on the shoji, and then entered the sick-room.

Taro lay on the heavy English bed, with its white coverlets and curtains, his face upturned.

"You must rest," Jack whispered to the woman with the wan face and wasted form, kneeling by the bedside.

She shook her head, resisting.

"I beg you to," pleaded Jack, and, though she could not understand him, she knew what he was saying, and still resisted.

"Come," he said, gently, and put his hands upon her shoulders. "See, he sleeps now. It is well, and you will be too weak and faint to minister to him when he awakes, otherwise."

But she protested that her health was excellent; that she would not leave her son. He stooped down, and attempted to raise her gently to her feet, but she would not permit him.

He saw the tired droop of the eyes. "She will fall asleep soon," he said to himself, and so sat down beside her, putting his arm about her and pillowing her head on his shoulder. She did not restrain him. She looked gratefully into the frank, inviting eyes. She sighed, her head wavered and dropped. The room was very still and silent. Gradually the woman fell asleep, and as she slept she sighed from ineffable weariness.

Jack looked towards the silent figure on the bed. The grayness of the approaching night gave the face an expression that was sinister in the extreme. He shuddered and averted his face. The little form in his arms grew heavier.

"She will rest better lying down," he thought, and carried her into the adjoining room and laid her softly down. Then he took the lighted andon, and, carrying it into the sick-room, set it in a corner near the bed, and drew down the shutters. After this, he went back to the bed, and stood for a minute looking down on the sleeping man, an expression of infinite sadness on his face. Taro stirred, the hand lying outside the coverlet contracted, then closed spasmodically; the expression of the face became terrifying. He moaned. It seemed to Jack as if the sleeping man was haunted by a terrible nightmare which robbed him of the rest that should have found him.

And it was with Taro as Jack had thought. He was in the midst of a fever dream--a nightmare. He thought his little sister, Snowflake, knelt by his bedside and soothed and ministered to his wants. He felt rested and at peace at last; but, alas! just as he was slipping into happy oblivion a dark form loomed up beside his sister, bent over, and clutched at her. She struggled wildly at first, then weakly; finally her struggles ceased, and she lay very still and white. The man lifted her up and carried her away. After a time he came back, and now Taro felt his breath on his own face. He was bending over him. In a dim haze he saw the face, and recognized it as that of his friend, Jack Bigelow! He tried to reach out and grasp him, to strike and kill him, but he was at the mercy of some invisible power which benumbed him and held him down. His limbs refused to move, he was unable to lift so much as a finger, stir an eyelash, and all the time the man's breath was on his face, stealing into his nostrils and suffocating him.

Jack noted the gasping of his friend with alarm, and stooped over for the purpose of removing the pillow to give him relief. But at the touch of his hand, as he attempted to raise the head on the pillow, the life blood started vividly, madly, through the man on the bed, and suddenly he had sprung into wild life. Jack saw the terrible gleam of two delirious eyes, and stood magnetized. With lightning fury the raving man had thrown aside the bedclothes, sprung from the bed, and thrown himself on the other with such force that the two came to the ground together, the madman on top.

"I have you now!--traitor! betrayer!" he said, as his hands felt Jack's warm throat.

Jack had been taken so by surprise that he was dazed in the first moment, and in the next realized that he was powerless to defend himself. He was in the grasp of one temporarily insane, one whose lithe, physical strength he already knew well. It would be useless to fight against that strength. His salvation lay in being passive and feigning unconsciousness; but could he do this with those terrible fingers closing around his throat, throttling the life out of him? Now they pressed hard, now relaxed, now caressed his neck and throat, rubbed it, pinched only to press again. He was playing with him! Jack did not stir. He had closed his eyes, and was praying for strength to meet unflinchingly whatever fate held for him.

"Where have you put her?" came the fierce whisper, close to his ear. "Where did you carry her to? Hah! you are silent. Have I silenced you like this and this? You are cold; you cannot breathe now, nor smile nor laugh at her. No, not while I have my hand here to press so and so. Once you were my friend, and I loved you. But now--so you killed her! Now I will kill you like this and this and this!"

Jack was becoming weaker and weaker. The white-shrouded figure sitting on him leaned forward, staring dreadfully, but his victim saw nothing, heard nothing. Suddenly it seemed as if another had sprung upon him and was beating his life out. He dimly heard a woman's cries, and, intermingled, a terrible laughter. Then life and consciousness seemed to depart, and he knew no more.

When he regained consciousness he found himself on a bed. A woman was leaning over him, bathing his head, smoothing and caressing it--a woman with an angelic face, so like Yuki's when she had nursed him during a brief illness that in his weakness he fainted at the mere dream of her sweet presence. But it was not Yuki; it was the mother. She had been awakened by the talking and cries in the sickroom, and, rushing to the door, had looked in on the terrible scene. Japanese women have little or no fear of physical disaster for themselves. She raised a fearful cry to arouse the household, then flung herself on the two men, and with her puny strength sought to divide them. At first her son laughed and resisted her, but when her white face flashed before him his grip grew weak, and he staggered back, dazed by the rush of returning reason. He, too, had taken her for the ghost of his lost sister!

The alarmed household had flocked into the room. Gently they prevailed on him to return once more to the bed, as weak as a child now.

Jack was not seriously hurt. In his shattered, nervous condition, however, the shock had temporarily unhinged him, and for several days he lay in bed, waited on and attended by the gentle Omatsu, who went like a sweet, soothing spirit back and forth between the two rooms, who called him "son," and was to him as if she were indeed his mother, till she could not approach him but he kissed her hands and blessed her from his heart.

XV

THE VOW

The happy sadness of the brown autumn had faded in a yellow gleam of light. December had entered the land with a little drift of frost and snow which had surprised the country, for December is not usually a cold month in Japan. Its advent shook the little housewives into action and life. New mats of rice straw were being laid, and every nook and corner dusted with fresh bamboo brooms and dusters, for the Japanese begin to prepare a month in advance for the New Year season, and all the country seems to wake into active life and present a holiday appearance.

But the old palace, where dwelt the Burton family, kept its garment of perpetual gloom, and stood out in mocking contrast to the neighboring houses. No window was thrown open, no door turned in to air the place and give it the sunshine of the coming New Year.

Thick as the dust that had gathered about its unkept rooms, the shadow of death pervaded the place. Vast shadows, mysterious and oppressive, crept in, enshrouding it with their ghostly presence. From afar off the drone of a curfew bell was heard, its slow, mournful cadence seeming to drift into a dirge. Outside the early winds of winter were wailing a requiem, and all the spirits of the air floated about and beat against the sombre palace.