through! At last his bunk-mates so complained of him
that the doctor sent him to live out of the barracks, where he would
disturb no one. He had a small house to himself.

But in this new solitude she came and stayed and possessed him. She made
him again to possess her. She was there always. The night mattered no
more. He saw her eyes in the dusk, heard her voice in daylight. He
often parted the shoji--sometimes to find vacancy--when his mood was
practical and he had slept well; but often when he had not eaten or
slept, and the visions came--to have her swiftly in his arms.

Presently a certain infidelity came and lodged in him, and the knowledge
of it spread through the army.

"What a spirit must that be of the emperor--the gods--the
augustnesses--even a father waiting in the Meido--which would not permit
him to have one small woman!"

That is what he publicly said. And, worse, he had once thought of
throwing his medal into the moat near by and of escaping to China. Of
deserting the emperor he had doubly sworn to serve. His gods, his
father, the shades. Perhaps there was but one thing in the old days,
worse than the eta--the deserter. He thought of this and took terrible
pause.

Finally it was known in the army that Arisuga was mad--quite mad. The
wound in his head had done it. His talk was of a woman: an houri, if
ever there was one, should his talk of her be believed. He had cursed
the gods, reviled the augustnesses, the spirit of his father, the
emperor who had pinned the medal on his coat. Certainly Shijiro Arisuga
was mad. He himself heard this, and thought to take a cunning advantage
of it. If he were mad, he would be invalided, and then he would see
China again.

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

XXI

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

But one night there came a gentle tapping on his shoji--like the dream.
He sat up and listened. There was more tapping--still like the dream.
And then a whispered voice--not the dream--which woke him to mutiny:--

"Ani-San! Beloved! Do you no more wish me? Oh, it is so long--so long!
And we have walked--walked--walked. I would rather know and die. At
first I thought you dead--you said nothing but that should keep you from
me--death! death! And I could not sleep--I never slept! At last I
decided to come and get your body, steal it out of the grave, and take
it back with me, where I might weep over it and make the offerings--only
your dear, dead body I have loved and which has lo