Part 2

“Yes, alas so, excellency,” admitted the Japanese miserably. “Her mother was Nii-no-Ama (noble nun of second rank) and kin to our august Prince. She broke her vows to the Lord Buddha, desecrated and disgraced his temple. The gods visited their wrath upon her offspring. They gave it a body only—no soul, save that of the fox. She is beyond the pale, honored sir, and no clean being may look upon or touch her.”

The Tojin-san, sitting up erectly now, was holding his lower lip thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger.

“Your fox-woman then is some sort of outcast, who has lived all her life avoided by her kind?”

“She had the company of her degraded parents,” said the officer gruffly, “until she was the age of ten. Then a zealous band of former Danka (parishioners) assaulted the temple by fire and sword. The parents of the fox-woman met a deserved death, being literally torn to pieces before the very altar of Great Shaka himself.”

The Daimio’s officer paused, his little black eyes glittering with a fanatical light. Then the exhilaration dropped from his voice.

“But the ways of the Lord Buddha are strange. How could the devoted Danka conceive that Shaka would turn his wrath upon them also, for thus scorching his altar with unclean blood. Since the Restoration, excellency, our city’s history has been one of blood and poverty. Some assert the province is doomed. Others, more optimistic, that it is but passing through its new birth pains, and that, as of old, its history will be glorious.”

The Tojin-san puffed at his relighted pipe in meditative silence. Then, very quietly, he asked:

“Do you lay the misfortunes of your province upon this fox-woman, as you call her?”

“Aye!” said the officer almost fiercely. “The hand of Fate fell heaviest upon us after the assassination of the intruder. We have never recovered from the humiliations heaped upon us by—the countries of the West. The bombardment of beloved Kagoshima by the allied forces of the western nations followed almost instantly after the death by violence of—”

He stopped abruptly, and coughed in gruff alarm behind his now sheltering fan. He had been upon the verge of telling what had been forbidden.

The Tojin-san looked puzzled, baffled.

“I do not see the connection,” he said.

“Yet—it is so,” said the Japanese vaguely, shifting his eyes from the averted faces of the samourai guard.

Said the American forcefully:

“It seems to me an amazing thing that to-day when you are frankly hoping to join the nations of enlightenment, you still give yourselves up to barbarous persecution because of what, after all, is nothing but a legend fit for children only. For my part, I intend to sweep from my house vigorously the absurd belief I find actually seated on my hearth-stone.”

The Japanese said solemnly:

“There are several things in life it is impossible to do, exalted sir. We cannot throw a stone to the sun, or scatter a fog with a fan. We cannot build a bridge to the clouds. With this little hand I cannot dip up the ocean. We bow to the elevated wisdom of the West your excellency has come to teach us in honorable chemistry and physics, but, though we humbly solicit pardon for thus stating, there is nothing your augustness can tell us of our own beliefs—and knowledge.”

He made a slight, stiff sign to his attendants and they assisted him to arise. The American stood up also. He was smiling grimly.

“When the snows melt,” he said, “I shall ask for guides of your excellency, and personally make a pilgrimage to the lair of this dreaded fox-woman of the mountains.”

At that the Daimio’s officer’s face distinctly paled. His impassive features were anxious, troubled.

“What does your augustness seek to do?—regenerate one without a soul?”

“I wish merely to see her. She must be an interesting specimen—of her kind.”

“‘Making an idol does not give it a soul,’” quoted the Daimio’s officer, solemnly. “Honored sir, a snake has its charm to some, and the vampire is kin to the snake. In Japan we believe the fox-woman one form of vampire. Condescend, exalted sir, to beware.”

The Tojin-san laughed shortly, contemptuously. He was a man of gigantic stature, and as he stood there towering above his gleaming-eyed visitor there was something about his attitude careless, indifferent, fearless, and beyond the understanding of the Oriental. With a morbid recollection of specific instructions from his Prince, the officer restrained his fingers, turned almost automatically toward the two short swords hanging at his side.

“It is my duty, excellent sir,” he said with forced courtesy, “to convince you of the danger wherewith you seek to play. Condescend to permit the humble one once again to be seated.”

“By all means,” said the American, hospitably, and, in a moment, they were back seated upon their respective mats, their pipes refilled at the hibachi.

IV

“YOU have stated, honored sir, that the Fox-Woman of Atago Yama is but a superstition worthy of a child, and you have laughed, Mr. sir, at the possibility of danger from proximity with the forsaken creature. Thus spoke and laughed another before your time in Fukui. We of Echizen do not forget the very recent fate of Gihei Matsuyama.”

“And pray who was Gihei Matsuyama, and what was his fate?” asked the Tojin-san, good-humoredly.

The fanatical fire was back in the eyes of the officer. He had thrust forward his thin, yellow face and was regarding the Tojin-san with an almost venomous glance. His words, however, were pacific, and, as he talked, the American showed a greater interest with every moment.

“We sent seven of our youths to the universities of the West. They were chosen from the most intelligent and noblest of our families. Gihei Matsuyama was one of these, and in him we had particular interest, for he was of Fukui. After two years’ sojourn in Europe he returned for service in Dai Nippon, and we gave him a position of honor and housed him in an honorable yashiki hard by Atago Yama.

“As a youth—as a child, he had known the story of the fox-woman. His honorable sire and other male kin had participated in the slaughter of the parents of the creature. Now with this new wisdom he had acquired in the West, as fresh as new-spread varnish upon him, Gihei laughed to scorn the stories of her fiendish origin, and boasted he would dissipate them as the air does the steam. Making a bold and ingenuous wager that he would enslave the sprite, he set himself the task of tracking her. Unaided by even the counsel of the priests of neighboring temples, he blithely followed the trail of the witch over the river, through the woods and mountains and in and out of the cemeteries, until he had driven her to her final refuge—the Temple of Tokiwa, wherein no man had stepped since the accursed blood spilt before the eye of the eternal Lord.”

Here the Daimio’s high officer reverently bowed to the floor, ere he continued his narrative, his eyes gleaming more fiercely as he proceeded.

“As he hesitated upon the threshold, divided between a desire to penetrate its mysteries, and an instinct which peremptorily bade him depart, she came forth from the temple doors dancing, as the nuns of old danced for the gods, with her wild, unbound hair outmatching the sun, and her hungry, vivid, smiling lips scarlet as the deadly poppy. He, having looked upon her face, became blinded to all else on earth. Infatuated and maddened, he sought to touch, to seize the creature, when she fled suddenly before him, mocking him with the silver laughter of the sea-siren and hiding her face in the glimmering veil of her hair.

“Thus they sped on, she ever before him, with her luring hair streaming like a gilded cloud in the wind, springing as lightly as a breeze from rock to rock, over brooks and slender streams that melted in between, up this cliff and down that dell and through this valley, on and on she led the infatuated seeker.

“Suddenly, while his dazzled eyes were fastened solely upon her, and he reached forth a hand to seize her, she darted like a nymph over some unseen chasm of the mountains. He stumbled in her tracks, reached out vainly to seize her, saw not the gulf at his feet, and plunged headlong down into the abyss.”

The mask-like face of the Daimio’s officer quivered. He wiped his face with a hand that shook visibly. Then, rejecting his breath in that hissing fashion so peculiar to the Japanese, he added fiercely:

“This, honorable sir, is the story of Gihei Matsuyama and the Fox-Woman of Atago Yama. It belongs not to the lips only of the children, as you name them, but is true, well-authenticated history, which any one in Fukui can prove to you.”

The Tojin-san was silenced. He had followed the officer’s story with unabated interest. He had no word now in defense of this Japanese Lorelei. His voice was grave, stern:

“What did she do—when the boy disappeared?”

“There are different stories, honored sir. Some say she not even stopped in her flight. Others that she came of nights and hung over the edges of the chasm, shrouding her mouth in her hands and calling to her victim beneath as if she had the power to lure him back. But we have no certain version of this part of the tragedy. For the first part, we have the tale, four times repeated, from the body-servants of Gihei Matsuyama, who dutifully had followed their master upon his wild quest.”

The Daimio’s high officer arose and made several profound obeisances to the Tojin-san. His face had resumed its immobile melancholy. As he was backing formally toward the exit, bowing at every step, the American suddenly remembered his name. He took a step toward him, his hand impetuously outstretched:

“Pardon me, the boy you speak of was—near and dear to you, was he not?”

Slowly the officer raised his head. Not a quiver broke the stony impassivity of his face. His eyes met the Tojin’s blankly:

“He was—my son!” he said.

V

THE sense of discouragement and gloom which had seemed to take full hold upon the Tojin-san on his first night in Fukui was, after all, but temporary. He awoke the following morning, feeling refreshed and invigorated. The sun was pouring into his room, gilding even the farthest corner with a friendly touch. He jumped out of bed, donned a warm bath-robe and shoved his feet into fur slippers. Crossing the room in a few quick strides, he threw open one of the latticed sliding doors.

It was a clear, cold day, but the snow, enshrouding trees and ground, glistened with the warm sun upon it. The army of crows on the roof of the go-down were chattering and fighting among themselves like magpies, and a monkey, swinging by one foot from a camphor bough, shook its fist playfully in his direction, screwing up its face in apparent derision.

From the direction of the narrow river, which threaded its ribbon-like way in the valley below, a rollicking voice was heard in song, and, presently, the owner of the voice climbed up the crest of the slope, skirted the sunken garden hard by the Tojin-san’s windows and moved across the lawns toward the kitchen regions in the rear. She was a great, fat girl, whose enormous, muscular arms were balancing on either side huge pails of water. As she waddled along, wheezing and singing, she resembled, to the Tojin-san’s humorous sense, a bag of jelly, her bosoms and thighs shaking at every step, her fat soft cheeks keeping time in unison. Close upon her heels, and, himself carrying two smaller pails of water, the cook’s diminutive heir toddled solemnly after her.

It was he who first perceived the Tojin-san at the opened door, and he promptly dropped his pails upon the serving-maid’s heels, causing her to kick backward in squalling alarm as the cold water splashed about her bare legs and drenched her scanty skirts. Doubtless she would have punished her small charge, had she not at this juncture also perceived the Tojin. Her thick red lips fell instantly agape. She stared at him in a stunned wonder. Then her knees began to wabble, and she attempted to make an obeisance. With every kowtow she essayed, the waters from her pails bounced up and merrily splashed her. The Tojin-san burst into hearty laughter, and after a moment maid and youngster joined in his mirth. They then scuttled off like a pair of panic-stricken rats, their shining, wet heels flashing like snowballs in the sun behind them.

This simple domestic incident put the Tojin-san into an excellent humor at once. As he looked after the comical pair, and then turned back to gaze, entranced, at the magnificent view on all sides of him, his garden exquisite even in its winter dress, he marvelled at his gloom of the previous night. Then his glance went upward, travelled across the pure blue sky, and rested upon the snowy bosoms of Atago Yama and Hakusan. Suddenly he thought of the fox-woman. There was something chill, forbidding, sinister in those great, beautiful mountains of snow, looming out there in the sunny sky. He pictured this forsaken creature threading her bleak way under the towering frost-incrusted pines. The gloom of the previous night fell upon him again like a shadow. Shivering, he went indoors, snapping the closed latticed doors behind him.

A fine horse had been provided for the American teacher, and he rode abroad through the streets of Fukui, under an escort sent by the Prince of Echizen himself. Everywhere the friendly and curious citizens ran out to see the white-faced teacher, and bows and smiles were the general rule on all sides.

Occasionally, however, he met the scowling, threatening glance of some roving samourai, who, the interpreter explained, under the new order of things, was out of office and consequently a ronin. It was one of the unfortunate effects of the Restoration that so many men of the sword, who had previously been supported by the people as retainers in the service of princely houses, now found themselves without aristocratic employment, and, too proud to turn to trade, or other equally debasing labor, they wandered about the provinces, voicing their discontent of the order of things, picking quarrels on the slightest provocation, and prophesying dread things for the empire when it should fall under the dominion and patronage of the nations of the West. The ronins were all Jo-i (foreign haters), and they alone the Tojin-san need fear. Happily, the Prince of Echizen had furnished an adequate guard for his protection, and the students of the college, themselves samourai, or sons of samourai, were all pledged to protect the Tojin-san from harm.

Presently they arrived at the school, an enormous building, once the citadel of the Castle, and here nine hundred students received the Tojin-san with a veritable ovation.

As he stood straightly before them, looking across at that sea of bright friendly faces, is it any wonder he recalled another scene in America, so similar, yet dissimilar, and that his heart went out yearningly to the youths facing him?

These intelligent, eager-faced boys were looking to him to guide and lead them. And, in turn, already they had pledged themselves to be his vital friends and allies. He felt emboldened, courageous, proud, elated. Not for a moment would he have retraced his steps to that other land he had regretted.

VI

IN the Tojin-san’s absence several aggravating accidents had happened in his house. While little Taro, the cook’s youngest child, was sitting on the doorstep in the sun, nibbling on a sammari sembei (thunder cake), suddenly from behind an adjacent pine-tree the fox-woman had appeared, and before the frightened child could open its mouth to scream she had pounced upon him, nipped the cake cleanly from his hand and was off.

The child’s nurse (who was none other than the fat wench of the morning), who adored her charge, and had already herself suffered at the hands of the mountain witch, rushed out valiantly at the child’s loud cry of alarm. Her fury getting the better of her fear, she started in pursuit of their tormentor.

The latter she discovered serenely seated upon the topmost bough of a bamboo-tree, where she was demolishing the rice cracknel at her leisure. From this perch she threw white pebbles, with which her sleeves seemed loaded, down upon the head of the irate Obun, and while the latter was execrating her and calling upon Ema (the Lord of Hell) to come to her assistance the fox-woman slid down the bamboo trunk so swiftly and so silently she was beside the terrified serving-maid before the latter knew. She felt her arms caught in a sudden squeezing grip. Sharp fingers sank into her thick, fat flesh, crept up along her arms to her shoulders, nipped at her breast, her neck, her cheeks, her great muscular legs, and with a last vicious tweak at her nose, the fox-woman had again vanished.

The kitchen was in an uproar, the cook’s wife in hysterics, and Obun herself reduced to such a state of stunned terror it was impossible to get her to stir from a corner of the kitchen whither she had fled like a whipped dog for refuge.

The Tojin-san, as master of the house, was besought to lend his honorable assistance and advice. He ordered that Obun be brought before him.

After some delay there was a sound as of scuffling and shoving in the hall, and presently the perspiring face of the cook was seen through the parted screens. He was pushing something which looked like a great soft ball along before him, and, in turn, ordering and pleading with the object in question to stand upon its feet and help itself. He was assisted in his pushing endeavors by a small army of lesser menials of the kitchen, who took turns in pushing and shoving the unwilling Obun into the presence of her dread master, the Tojin-san. Presently she was at his feet, her face hidden on the floor.

“Come, come!” said he, suppressing his inclination to laugh. “Stand up, my good girl.”

This was translated in sharp peremptory tones by his interpreter:

“Thou worm of a slattern! Rise to thy degraded and filthy feet. How dare thee bring agitation into the chamber of the Guai-koku-jin [outside countryman] guest and protégé of His Imperial Highness the terrible Prince of Echizen.”

Whereupon Obun came tremblingly to her feet, and shaking from head to foot, raised a pair of eyes that rolled with terror to the face of the Tojin-san. What she saw there must have reassured her. The rugged features of the giant foreigner were softened humorously. In the keen gray eyes bent upon her she saw nothing but kindness and understanding. Instantly she began to whimper, like a great baby unexpectedly comforted.

“You are in trouble, my good girl,” said the Tojin, in his deep, kindly voice. “Pray tell me what ails you.”

And the interpreter translated:

“Repeat to your terrible and inflexible master the incidents of the morning, and arouse not his dreadful wrath with vain exaggerations and lies.”

She opened her lips to speak, encouraged by his smile, closed them again, and mutely uncovered first her arms, then her neck, and finally her great soft breast.

The Tojin-san, his brows now drawn in a slight frown together, examined the girl’s wounds, and with the quick eye of a surgeon instantly perceived their nature. She had been pinched sharply by little relentless fingers which had evidently flown with lightning swiftness from one portion of the hapless maid’s body to the other, and finally with a last mischievous tweak had left their mark upon the round bit of putty which served Obun for a nose. The Tojin-san whistled under his breath. Obun had certainly been the victim of a most curious and spiteful antagonist.

He gave some brief directions for healing the wounds, and then turning gravely to his interpreter admonished his servants for their excitement and foolish fears.

Undoubtedly, Obun had got the worst of her fight with this fox-woman, as they chose to name her; but probably, had she not permitted herself to be overcome with fears, she might have left her own mark upon her assailant also. It was vain and foolish to regard this troublesome one who annoyed them so often in the light of a spirit or witch or ghost, as they believed her to be. There were no such things in the world.

The interpreter repeated these instructions with personal embellishments, and the little army of servitors with sidelong glances of wonder and awe at their master sucked in and expelled their breaths, and, with final servile bumping of heads to the floor, retreated kitchenward.

The Tojin-san remained for a moment apparently plunged in puzzled thought. Suddenly he turned toward his interpreter, who was regarding him with popping eyes of interest. Indeed no move, no word, no action of the white man escaped the notice of Genji Negato, who found him an object of absorbing interest and wonder. His manner of eating, his manner of sleeping, his manner of thinking, talking—all things about him, were a source of wonder and entertainment to the young samourai, who was more than satisfied with this interesting position he had obtained.

“Genji,” now said the Tojin-san abruptly, “you have seen something of the world. At all events you have lived in the open ports among people of other lands. You speak English excellently and must have read considerably. Tell me what is your opinion of this fox-woman?”

Genji Negato was all flattered smiles. He drew up his well-groomed shoulders in a profound French shrug.

“It would give me supreme pleasure to agree with your excellency,” he said ambiguously, and smiled apologetically.

“I see,” said the Tojin-san, “you, too! Why?”

The stiff expression on the interpreter’s face relaxed. In a blurt of confidence he said:

“I have felt the fox-woman’s touch also, honored sir,” and blushed like a boy at the admission.

The Tojin-san was smiling broadly.

“Ah! When?”

“The first night in your service, excellency—a month before your coming.”

“Indeed. Tell me about it.”

“I was changing duty with Samourai Hirata. As a large amount of provisions had been put in the storerooms it was necessary to mount guard at various points of the Shiro and the grounds. I was assigned by the Daimio’s officer to the lodge gates, and there, to my humiliating condemnation be it said, I fell asleep. I carried with me a box containing my rations for the night, and this was strapped upon my back. I am addicted to sleeping on my honorable belly, which your excellency is aware is the proper position for all sleeping animals—to which kingdom I unworthily belong.

“While I slept, I dreamed I was climbing down a mountain-side when suddenly an avalanche of rock and earth swooped down upon my defenceless back, pinioning me to the ground with the excess of its weight. I sought to throw off the burden, shaking my shoulders from side to side, and as I cast back my hands, the better to seize it, something caught them in a quick, elastic grip. I rolled over bodily, and, as I opened my eyes, perceived the fox-woman leaning over me. She had cut loose the straps of my luncheon-box and was drawing it from under my back when, with a cry of rage, I caught her by the shoulders and pulled her down upon me in a vise-like grip. The blood rushed to her unearthly white face, her piercing wild eyes blazed upon mine till my own eyeballs felt afflicted as if with fire. I felt her breath, sweet as the Spring, coming yet nearer and nearer to my face. I was like one inebriated by saké, with but one impulse, one desire, to feel the actual touch of her unhuman face against my own. As finally we touched cheek to cheek, honored excellency, my fingers released their grip. Just as they did so a sharp pain stabbed me in the cheek. Before I could regain my wits the witch was gone.”