Part 5

They seemed both amused and irritated at the sensation they were creating, for a veritable little procession followed at their heels. Small, solemn, and mystified Japanese boys they were for the most part, who regarded them with the same awesome curiosity they would have bestowed on a wild beast. A round-eyed, startled little boy of twelve had followed them all the way from the station, through which they had entered the city. Others had quickly joined him, until gradually the following had increased uncomfortably for the foreigners, since these astonished and curious Japanese ran sometimes ahead of them, to stand in their track and gaze up at their faces.

Annoyed, the strangers quickened their speed to a rapid gait, which forced the sandal-wearers into a run in order to keep pace with them.

It was noonday and very warm. No jinrikishas were in sight. The strangers would have welcomed the piping cries of the numerous jinrikisha men of Tokyo, who had pestered and swarmed about them there like flies. Here in the City of Sendai there appeared to be no public jinrikisha stand as yet, and the “tavern” to which they had been directed had not as yet dawned upon their vision.

“We seem to be on the chief street,” said one of them. “Better turn here.”

They turned swiftly down a cross-street which seemed rather a long road, on the sides of which tall bamboos sprang upward to a great height, bending at the top into an arch which cast its shade below. The houses were set back some distance from the road, though garden walls, in which were small bamboo gates, isolated each dwelling.

The foreigners had now slackened their speed. Their following had diminished considerably, and those who remained were now keeping at a respectful distance from the heavy cane which one of the two swung back and forth in his hand with apparent carelessness. There was a hideous head on the knob of this stick. Was it possible that this might be a fiend whose touch would kill any little boy venturing too near? So the strangers, less troubled by their dwindled following, began to look about them with some interest.

The street upon which they found themselves appeared cool and refreshing because of its shadowing trees. There was an atmosphere of refinement and aestheticism about it that delighted the appreciative foreigners.

“Do you see where it leads?” said the one of the cane, pointing with his stick down the thoroughfare.

“Straight down to the water. What a wonderful sight!”

At a point where the street curved upward to a slight elevation, Matsushima, still at a good distance from them, burst upon their view. The visitors stood as if entranced. One of them lifted a pair of field-glasses to his eyes. After a full minute’s use of the glasses, he passed them silently to his companion. The other regarded the scene with equal admiration.

“We must go up there to-morrow without fail,” he said, waving his hand towards the heights on the opposite shore.

“Yes,” assented the other; “I understand there’s quite a party coming along to-morrow.”

“Yes, some Tokyo priest is escorting them. Well, a tourist might well visit the cemetery of his household.”

The other regarded him with some bewilderment.

“The cemetery of his household?” he repeated.

“This is the place where, three hundred years ago, a Japanese feudal lord, named Date, I believe, sent an envoy to Rome acknowledging the Catholic supremacy. This is practically the birthplace of Catholicism in Japan.”

“Well, this is all very interesting, I must say. Yet I understand the only mission here, at present, is Presbyterian.”

“Exactly. Catholicism has been practically stamped out. There was a horrible massacre of the Jesuits here at one time, I believe. This visit by the priest and the party may do something for the place.”

They resumed their walk in silence.

“I don’t fancy,” said the elder one, “that it will be possible for us to shake off this little herd behind us. The thing for us to do is to find that will-o’-the-wisp of a tavern or the mission-house. Where do you suppose the place is?”

“The mission-house, rest assured, is elevated on some hill. Suppose we turn upward and—”

He broke off, at the same time stopping abruptly in his walk.

They were before a little garden composed of white stones and fantastic-spreading trees, seeming to bend their boughs over the miniature lake as if to regard their own reflected beauty. But it was not the distinction of the garden which attracted and startled the strangers, but the little figure which leaned over the gate.

Filtering through the tree-top by the gate, the sun slanted full upon the head of the girlish form, bronzing the hair almost to the color of deep gold. The girl’s eyes were wide open as if with faint surprise, her lips were apart, and she was plainly flushed with some unwonted excitement. She wore a plum-colored kimono, simple and exquisite. About her waist was an old-gold obi, and there was a flower ornament in her hair. The wings of her sleeves fell backward, disclosing arms of perfect whiteness and little hands which clung in tremulous excitement to the bamboo railing of the gate.

The tourists had been some months in Japan. One of them was an attaché to an American consulate. Well acquainted as they were with the soft-eyed, cherry-lipped beauty of young Japanese girls, they stood speechless, startled, before the picture that Hyacinth presented, as she in her turn gazed in wide-eyed astonishment at them. The mission-house folk were the only Westerners she had ever seen. These strangers did not at all resemble the Reverend Blount or his friends who came at different times to visit him. Even their clothes had a different cut, and their pleasant faces, in spite of their light eyes, to which she could never become accustomed, were shaven smooth and clean. No devils, thought Hyacinth quickly, would have such countenances. A mistake had been made in the popular impression. Nevertheless, the strangers were certainly odd curiosities.

She blushed all rosy red, even her little ears and neck tingling with pink, as they paused before her. Half unconsciously she bent her head and made a timid little motion of greeting to them.

The younger man, the one with the huge stick, said, in an undertone, “I’m going to speak to her,” and he went a pace nearer.

“Can you tell me where the Dewdrop Tavern is?” he asked, in atrocious Japanese.

For a moment she hesitated. Then the faintest smile lurked at the corners of her mouth and a dimple peeped out in her chin. Her voice was sweet and low.

“The humble one cannot understand such language,” she said, pretending ignorance of his words, and secretly hoping that she might provoke further speech from these strange men.

Before the stranger could frame his question in plainer language, Aoi appeared in the path, hastening down anxiously to the gate. She was overwhelmed with distress, she declared, that the august ones were followed so rudely by the children of the community. Would not the excellencies condescend to pardon the little ones? They must appreciate how strange they appeared to them. But as for her, Madame Aoi, she was well acquainted with their people, since her own lord had been English also.

The two men looked at each other and then at the young girl, as though understanding now her strange beauty.

“What,” asked Aoi, “is it the excellencies desire that they have deigned to halt before our insignificant abode?”

“We wish to be directed to some tavern—some place where we can secure accommodation.”

“Ah, yes, exactly. In the village on the shore of Matsushima there is the Dewdrop Tavern, but that is some distance away. If the excellencies will follow the street for a little while longer they will come to the Snowdrop Hostelry. There the honorable ones would be welcomed with august hospitality.”

The strangers lingered a moment, watching the two figures at the gate, now courtesying very deeply. Then they turned slowly and resumed their walk.

Hyacinth turned to Aoi in great excitement.

“I am going to follow them also, mother. I wish to hear them speak again. What strange, deep voices! It was enough to make a maiden jump ten feet with fright. And _how_ the gods have blasted their countenances! Did you notice, mother, how their skins were bleached like white linen?”

She shuddered.

Aoi smiled indulgently.

“When one becomes accustomed to the white skin, little one, it appears very beautiful.”

“Ah, not on a man!” said the girl, with immeasurable disgust. “But perhaps it is a custom of their country. Who knows! They are barbarians, are they not? Perhaps these men whiten or chalk their skins like the priestesses at the temple.”

“Nay, it is all natural.”

But Hyacinth shook her head, still uncertain. Such beings were unnatural, more so even than the Reverend Blount or the mission men. Curiosity stirred within her. She must know if the strangers acted as the human beings she knew. Quickly she formed a plan. She would follow them at a distance and slip in at the back entrance of the Snowdrop Hostelry. Then surely her friend, Miss Perfume, the daughter of the proprietor of the tavern, would permit her to listen behind the shoji, and to watch these curious strangers, unperceived, through peep-holes in the wall.

XIV

The Snowdrop Hostelry was as quaint and refreshing as its name. Here the low-voiced, shy-faced mistress overwhelmed the strangers with expressions of welcome, while her maidens vied with one another in caring for their comfort.

The strangers were accustomed to the eccentricities of the country, and so with resignation they seated themselves upon the floor, where on little, brightly polished lacquer trays the waiting-maids set out for them an inviting and delightful repast. Upon one tray was fresh and fragrant tea; egg, fish, rice, and soup on another; fruit—persimmons and plums—on a third; and on a fourth slender, long-stemmed pipes and huge tobacco-bons.

“Now,” said the younger of the two, “we can talk with some degree of comfort and privacy.”

At his companion’s slight glance of uneasiness towards the waiting-maids, the other assured him they could not understand English.

“Let us go over the entire matter from the beginning, then,” said the other man. “Mr. Matheson, our consul, assured me that you would give me all the assistance and information you could.”

“Oh, certainly; but you must remember, Mr. Knowles, that I am entirely in ignorance as to what information you desire. Mr. Matheson gave me a number of papers in the Lorrimer affair, and I presume this case is in some way connected with yours.”

“Exactly. I am Mr. Lorrimer’s attorney, and have been four months in Japan looking up this matter.”

“Yes?”

“You already know the circumstances?”

“No, not at all. Except that a letter from some missionary started Mr. Matheson on an investigation which brought to light a letter written about seventeen years ago to the Nagasaki consul. He was an awful fool—the consul, you know—let everything take care of itself; so this matter was clean forgotten, or rather ignored. It seems his successor was a brighter fellow, and he sent the correspondence from Sendai to Nagasaki on to Tokyo.”

“Yes, and I believe the letters you hold will supply the missing links. Let me tell you the facts of the case—that is, so far as I know them. About eighteen years ago, Mr. Lorrimer was married to a Miss Barbara Woodward, a Boston girl. The marriage was one of those unfortunate, hasty, society affairs in which the parents play the leading parts.”

“I understand,” the other nodded.

“They were mismated,” continued the narrator—“unsuited to each other in every way. Their temperaments constantly jarred; they had few interests in common. Life became a burden to them. Time, however, did much to heal the breach, and finally Mrs. Lorrimer expected to become a mother. They were in Japan at the time, and she had a fancy that the child should be born here. In spite of her happy expectations, she became excessively morbid and pessimistic. She began to have hallucinations, to suspect my client of impossible things—infidelity and so forth—and hence acted as only a thoroughly unreasonable woman would. She conceived an unreasoning dislike for a Miss Farrell, and, I understand, accused her husband of being in love with the lady. Doubtless, fancying she was wronged, the poor, misguided thing left her husband—in short, ran away from him. Mr. Lorrimer took steps to ascertain her whereabouts, but was unsuccessful. Under the circumstances he returned to Boston, secured a divorce, and—ah—married Miss Farrell.”

The younger man frowned and cleared his throat slightly.

“Ugly affair,” he simply essayed, quietly.

“Yes, it was. Average woman a fool. But now I come to my point. There was a child.”

The young man whistled softly.

“I see. And the father wants it?”

“Naturally.”

“And the law gives it to him?”

“Certainly. But we have reason, fortunately, to believe that in this case the power of the law will not be necessary. The mother, we believe, is dead.”

“Ah!”

“Now I come to the papers in your hand.”

“Oh yes; here they are. I haven’t even looked at them.”

“Ah!” The sheet trembled in the lawyer’s hand. Adjusting his glasses, he read the paper carefully, and then struck it sharply with his hand.

“This is exactly what we want,” he said; “it is enough in itself.”

“Yes,” said the other, laconically.

“It gives us the subsequent history of the wife and practically the whereabouts of the child at that time. Good!”

“I can’t see why it is necessary for me to come. It’s devilish hot,” said the other, mopping his brow complainingly.

“My good fellow, you are lent to me by our consul. I believe you can assist me in the work of finding the child. It—she—is here—in Sendai, it seems—or she was. Let’s see what the other missionary writes.”

He unfolded the letter and read:

“_American Consul, Tokyo_:

“I take the liberty of addressing this letter to the various English, American, and German consuls in Japan. I wish to advise you that there is a white child in Sendai, the adopted daughter of a Japanese woman, concerning whose parentage there appears to be some mystery. The child has been brought up entirely as a Japanese girl, and does not know as yet of her true nationality. She is soon to be married to a Japanese youth, a Buddhist by religion. As she is a minor, and I consider this an outrage, I am of the opinion that steps should be taken to ascertain the parentage of this young white girl.

“I am, with respect,

“(Rev.) JAMES BLOUNT.”

“Whew!” said the younger man. “We must be hot on the girl’s trail. It would be a coincidence, wouldn’t it, though, if she proved to be the same.”

“The former missionary also wrote from Sendai,” said the lawyer. “There is not the smallest doubt in my mind that the child is the same.”

There was a slight stir behind the paper shoji beside them, causing the two men to glance towards it quickly. Then, with slight frowns, they nodded comprehendingly to each other.

“One of the unpleasant things of this country,” said the younger man, “is that privacy is an unknown quantity. As you perceive, we have had not only watchers but auditors.”

He indicated with a nod of his head a few little holes in the shoji, through one of which a little rosy-tipped finger protruded, as it carefully and cautiously widened the opening. The next moment the finger withdrew, and an eye, withdrawn from a smaller hole above, was applied to the larger hole. And the eye was blue!

“Christmas!” cried the attorney, springing to his feet indignantly. “Our listeners are not merely Japanese, it seems.”

In vexation he strode to the shoji, shook it angrily, and then savagely pushed it aside.

There was a great fluttering from within. The sliding-doors were now pushed wide apart, showing the inner apartment in its entirety. A bright-hued kimono was disappearing around an angle which led to a long hall, and close upon its heels a girl in a plum-colored kimono tripped and fell to the floor in a heap. Over to her strode the two men. She put her head to the mats and crouched in speechless fear and shame.

“What do you want?” the elder one demanded; “and what do you mean by listening at the door like this?”

She spoke with her head still bent to the floor.

“The insignificant one wished only to listen to the voices of the excellencies.”

The peculiar quality of her voice struck the men with a familiar tone. It was a voice they had heard but a little time since—but where?

“But some white—somebody with blue eyes was here, too-somebody not Japanese.”

“Excellency is augustly mistaken.”

Excellency was not augustly mistaken, and if she did not explain immediately, excellency said he would raise the roof.

Whereat she got to her feet very slowly, and lifted her face in strangely tremulous appeal to them. They recognized her instantly.

“Those abominable blue eyes,” she said, “alas, belong unto me.” She bowed in humble deprecation.

“What were you doing?”

“Pray, pardon the foolish one. I did follow you to gaze upon you,” she said.

Flattered against their will, and fascinated by the girl’s peculiar beauty, the men smiled upon her.

“And why did you wish to _gaze_ upon us?”

“Because, excellencies, the humble one wanted to satisfy herself whether the illustrious ones were gods—or—or—”

She retreated from them ever so slightly.

“—or,” the younger man repeated—“or what?”

“Devils,” she said, in a whisper.

They burst into laughter. All their good-nature was restored in a moment.

“And what are we?” inquired the elder man.

“Neither,” she said, looking at their faces very earnestly. “You only just plain men—just like me—same thing.”

“How is it you could not understand our Japanese before, yet you answer us now?”

“My ears were stupid then. They are brighter now,” was her paradoxical response.

The elder man turned to the other.

“I’ve an idea; let’s question her. She’s a half-caste, apparently, and may be able to help us in the search for the Lorrimer child.”

“Good idea.”

“Give me the first letter. Better make sure of the woman’s name. Ah, here it is—Madame A—peculiar, unpronounceable name.”

“‘Hollyhock’ in English,” said the younger, looking over his shoulder.

The girl suddenly turned to the strangers.

“Excellencies, I also understand liddle bit Engleesh,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes. And I also listen to that conversation.”

“Which was a very wrong thing to do.”

She seemed serious and regarded them with an appealing expression in her eyes.

“Is there really liddle Engleesh girl at Sendai?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

She shook her head.

“But,” she said, “I extremely sorry for her.”

“Why?”

“Soach a wicked fadder!”

“Oh no. He’s a very fine man.”

She continued to shake her head.

“He’s got nudder wife now?” she suddenly asked.

“Yes.”

“Then he don’ also wan’ his liddle girl?”

“Oh, but he does. He has no other children and is crazy to find this one.”

Hyacinth sighed.

“Well, I think I go home. Excellencies will pardon me.”

“One minute. Do you know somebody—a woman—named—how in the deuce is this pronounced, Madame A—o—”

“Madame A-o,” she repeated, softly. “No, I do not know such name—but—but—my mother, her august name is liddle like that—Madame A-o-i.”

The two men started, the same idea occurring in a flash to each.

“Jove!” said the younger, “our search is ended.”

The girl stared at them with puzzled eyes. The elder man went a step nearer to her, bent down, and looked very closely at her face.

“Do you know,” he said, slowly, “I have a strong suspicion that you—_you_ are the child we are looking for?”

“Me!” she stammered.

With sudden fright her lips parted. She became snow-white, the color ebbing out from her face under their very eyes. Her little hand was placed almost unconsciously over her heart.

“Me!” she repeated, faintly, “that—that liddle Engleesh child! Excellencies make august mistake. You excuse yourselves, if you please! You—”

Trembling she turned from them and moved towards the exit rear. As they followed her she turned her head, looking back at them over her shoulder, fright in her eyes.

Suddenly she made a quick dash forward and plunged blindly into the dark inner corridor. Her footfalls were so light they scarce could hear them, even with their ears strained, but, hastening to the window, they saw her fleeing up the street.

XV

Hyacinth did not slacken her pace until she was before her home. Then, with trembling fingers, she undid the gate, sped up the little adobe path, and burst breathlessly into the guest-chamber, where Aoi was quietly and pensively arranging blossoms in a vase.

Aoi turned with mild surprise at the girl’s entry, but when she saw her face the mother hastened towards her.

“Why, something has affrighted the little one. Aré moshi, moshi. Well, she should not have followed the strangers. There, tell it all to the mother.”

She drew the trembling girl to the soft-padded floor and placed her arm reassuringly about her. But Hyacinth seized both her foster-mother’s hands and held them in a spasmodic, almost fierce, clasp.

“They going to come for me! Oh yes, yes. They will take me away. Oh, what can I do? What—They tell me—Oh-h—”

She broke down utterly, her throat choked with her sobs.

“Why, what does the little one mean?”

She could not respond. She clung to Aoi fearfully.

There were heavy, quick steps coming up the garden-path. Then a pause before the door. The next moment loud raps.

The young girl’s trembling fear communicated itself to Aoi, and the two now clung together fearfully, listening, with strained ears, to every sound. They heard the shuffling sound of Mumè’s feet in the hall, then the gruff, deep voices of the callers, and a few moments later the men were ushered into the guest-chamber of Madame Aoi.

Their mission was soon explained. They understood that seventeen years ago an American lady had died in her home, which was then in a village on the shore of the bay. She, Madame Aoi, they understood, had adopted the child, having failed to find the father. He, on his part, had only just succeeded in tracing the child’s whereabouts. It was believed that she, Madame Aoi, was still in possession of her.

Although Aoi made no denial, she made no admission. She looked at the girl she had brought up as her own child with dry eyes and quivering lips. The young girl looked back at her with piteous, imploring eyes. Aoi closed her lips and refused even to answer the strangers. But after a space the girl herself stepped towards them and, raising her face defiantly, said:

“Foreigners, you make ridiculous mistake. Yet, supposing you do not make mistake, what will you do?”

“Send immediately for the father.”

“And then?”

“He is your legal and natural guardian. You, of course, would have to go with him.”

The lawyer did not hesitate to pronounce her the one for whom they had sought.

“Leave—Japan?” she asked, her bosom heaving.

“You are not Japanese. You see, I take it for granted you are the girl in question.”

“Yes,” she said, “I am that girl in question. My mother’s clothes—they are Engleesh. Excellencies do not make mistake. I—I—foolish to deny that. But—but what _he_—that father going to do—_if_ I will not go with him?”

“You are under age,” said the lawyer. “He can force you.”

“Force me to leave my home?” she said, softly. “Force me to leave Japan? No!”

“You belong to his home. It is some fatal and horrible miscarriage of fate that has cast your destiny among this alien people.”