n all our life has gone yonder!"

And the maid sobbed in utter abandon.

"You love him too? You! Isonna, the savage, the eta, the man-hater! The
declaimer against him, and me, and love! You! Oh, gods!"

"Yes," whined the maid.

"Come," cried her mistress, with tears and laughter. "He shall have two
widows!"

She embraced her maid violently enough for bodily injury.

"Oh, is not the world beautiful!" cried Hoshiko. "I, who never hoped to
be a wife at all, am the wife of a god. And he who had no thought of one
goes yonder leaving two widows! Oh, girl brute, we are his wife for all
his dear lives! Yes, we will be brave! We are a soldier's wife!"

ON MIYAGI FIELD

XIX

ON MIYAGI FIELD

But the mystery of his summoning was no more than this: One morning the
regiment was aligned on Miyagi field, in parade uniforms, and in such a
tremendous spirit as was never before known. Yet no one seemed to
understand the purpose of it. And, there, at about the centre of all the
glory, was Shijiro Arisuga himself, with his beloved colors once more
above his head--the same that he had twice fallen and risen with! Pale
he was, and ill-looking still. And the bandage on his head yet smelled
of drugs--for this excitement was a bit too much for him after the quiet
of China. Nevertheless it is not safe to let you fancy how happy little
Arisuga was--nor how his heart thumped. You will be likely to fall short
of the fact.

Now, far away on his right, came a glittering cavalcade, and the
regiment began to sing with the bands massed in his front: first, his
own exultant song, then the Kimi Gayo--hoarse, iron, terrible--announced
the coming of the emperor of Japan. This gave way to acclaim, and, to
the mongolian roll of on-coming "Banzais!" the emperor galloped down the
line, with all his resplendent suite, and, by all the gods, stopped
directly in front of Arisuga and faced the regiment! At that the singing
stopped and the playing of the bands, and there was that silence before
the sovereign which is more impressive than any acclaim. All the colors
of the regiment were trooped in a little square before Arisuga into
which the emperor rode--all the colors but his, whereat he wondered.

To his last day the little color-guard does not know precisely what
happened after his name was called.

"Shijiro Arisuga, attention! Forward! To the emperor!"

Though choked with amazement, the little color-guard forgot nothing of
his mec