Chapter XXIII: The Pity of the Gods

There seemed little kindness in Colonel Zanzi's greeting when Arisuga arrived. He did not even look up.

"You will be transferred to a Hakodate regiment," he said in a monotone; "they are ruffians, but good soldiers. You will report to your new regiment when you are recalled. Your furlough must be spent in America and in communication with headquarters."

This was exile, but mitigated by every possible circumstance.

"Sir," said Arisuga, with emotion, "I do not deserve this consideration."

"No," answered his colonel; "but your wife does."

Have I let you suppose that Hoshiko accepted all this perilous happiness without question? No Japanese woman ever does that. It is true that, at first, there was no thought--there could be none. The gods had put them both suddenly into a position from which they could not retreat. But after that, when thought came, and Hoshiko knew that it had all been for her, and how much it was that he had given--then she began to prepare her recompense. To you it would have been a strange one, but it was not so to her. What she had taken beyond her share from the universal happiness, that she would balance with such suffering as came.

What she had taken from him, the shade of his father, that she would restore. What he stood in danger of losing because of her, that she would insure against loss. And the gods would help her. For they always heeded such constant and faithful praying as she meant to render. At last she knew that they would. For they sent her a sign. But before I speak of that I must go on and make plain what her purpose came finally to be. Nothing less than to make sure in some way (she waited on the gods to make the way plain to her) that since she prevented Shijiro from dying for his emperor in his father's stead, his reparation should come about in some other way--perhaps some way not thought of as yet--even by the gods. All she could do now was to pray that if he should die the small white death, the gods would send _her_ some sort of reincarnation in which _she_ might accomplish his purpose, though he were dead. And of course, whether she survived him or not, this was possible, to the immortal gods. But I think she had no idea that she--she herself--might herself be the instrument--that the gods meant anything as strange and startling as that--nor that her reincarnation might be in the very form of her husband while she yet lived. She would not be likely to think of precisely that. Until that day of the sign from heaven itself--that day while they were playing as children might do on the mats. Their feet were against the groove which held the fusuma. The little soldier reached upward above his head.

"I can touch the other mat," laughed Arisuga.

"And I," laughed his wife, doing the same.

"What!" cried the soldier. "I am taller than you are."

Then Hoshiko understood that she ought not to have said that. It was heinous to make herself the equal of her lord in anything.

"No, lord," she hastened to say, "I lied--a little lie--while we sported. I am sorry."

"It is no lie," laughed happy Arisuga once more; for you will remember that all her daintiness was then his, and that he was not like other Japanese husbands; "we are exactly the same height."

"No, no, no, lord," pleaded Hoshiko, who fearfully knew that it was so, "you are much taller than miserable small me."

And, to prove it, she bent her knees within her kimono and stood beside him, for he had risen to prove the matter.

But he detected the bent knees and straightened them, and, lo! there was not a shadow of difference in their height.

And when the little soldier laughed and was very happy about it, she laughed too, timorously at first, then more joyously than he. For to be his equal in something, and to see him happy about it--well, she supposed that no Japanese girl had ever before such felicity, and perhaps she was right.

So, in their playing and laughter, he cried:

"And I shall be punished for my haughty spirit in thinking I was, and you shall be rewarded for the humility of yours in thinking you were not."

And the manner of this punishment and reward was for him to strip off her kimono and put it on himself, and his uniform and put it on her. Oh, you may be sure that she tried to fly in her terror of him, that she fought and wept and at last utterly exhausted had to let him have his way--even to tucking her splendid hair under his military cap. She lay there happily crushed and disgraced until he had made himself so like her that she hardly knew him.

But she would not see herself until he brought the mirror and told her that he was looking at himself. Then she looked, and it was true. With staring eyes she stood upon her feet and passed the mirror up and down.

Then suddenly she saw the smiling face of a god in the mirror also, and knew that this was to be the fashion of the reincarnation she had begged of the gods.

She whispered her husband to look into the mirror.

"There is the face of a god there!"

Arisuga looked and laughed, but saw no god.

"It is the reflection of your Jizo," he said, pointing to the goddess behind her.

But Hoshiko said it was not that. For, you see, she knew what it was, and her husband did not--and must not--the sign.

Now after that Shijiro Arisuga was amazed, considering the terrors out of which it had first been accomplished, to find his little wife often in his uniform. And more, to learn that this gentle creature was mad for the learning which is a soldier's. Of course it was great sport in this happy time, and Arisuga taught her all he knew!--how to stand and step and march, to load and fire and intrench herself, and all the hoarse songs and sayings of the army--among others that battle song of his. But most of all he taught her how to carry the sun-flag, and how to keep it, nay, how to retake it if it should be captured--which, however, he instructed her, illogically, must never happen.

"Our method of advance," he told her, "is never in thick fat lines--such delectable food for the shrapnel. One at a time we run to a position we have fixed in advance. Then we dig. Sometimes there are as many as five all scattered--never more. After digging holes we make another rapid advance and do the same, and then, again, until there are three chains of holes parallel to the enemy. Then other troops advance. They have the first holes to hide in. They make them deeper and wider and advance as we did until we have a solid line out near the enemy, the holes being joined to form a trench. And by that time there are two such trenches to our rear for those who support us--or to retire to--"

Here he laughed, and added impressively:--

"If that should ever become necessary. But a Japanese soldier goes only in one direction--forward where the flag is. And as to the flag," he went on, "that goes forward with the first advance, like this--"

He rolled it into a ball.

"But, once it is there, the lines formed, the advance ordered, it is raised, like this, so that the artillery know where we are when they fire at the enemy. So," he laughed happily, "when you take my flag forward, you will go like this--"

He made her run with bent supple back the length of the apartment.

"Drop like this; now there is nothing but a small lump of earth to see; dig like this, lying on the flag, and so on till, out there, in the first trench, you raise it never to return with it. Then you will hear the bursting of the gates of all the hells. For our enemies are stupid and never understand, until they see the flag, what our purpose is, then they waste their ammunition and we _use_ ours. But then it is too late for them and it is ours only to go forward and defeat them, led by the sun-flag."

There was nothing of this which the girl did not treasure up. And Arisuga laughed, she laughed, and he never asked or wondered why.

THE LAND OF THE BRAVE