r
no blessed word. Lo! I listen--listen with my soul--but I hear no word!
All the gods in all the skies bless you. All the gods in all the skies
make you happy. All the gods in all the skies make you glorious.
Ani-San, beloved, farewell, forever and forever, farewell!"

At first the little color-bearer put his hands madly to his ears; but
not for long. Could you? And at the end he heard her sink slowly to the
earth, slipping, sighing, down the shoji.

At that moment he would have had her if the empire itself had fallen for
it. He did not wait to part the shoji. He plunged through them as he had
done once before in China. And there at his feet was the pitiful little
heap. Too numb she was to be wakened by his tumult.

He carried her within and laid her in the lamplight. The pretty face was
ghastly with starvation. The feet were nearly bare, for walking had worn
out her sandals. The kimono was one he knew. But it had been in the rain
and had trailed many tired miles in the dust. He did not need the light
of the andon to tell him of her sufferings. Nor even her voice. And
presently when she woke it was not of that she told. Indeed, of that she
never spoke. It was all forgotten in that waking in his arms. And all
she said--all she ever said of it--was to ask him, with a breath, if she
dreamed.

She slept a little, then woke and said with terror:--

"Isonna!"

"Yes, beloved," answered Arisuga. "Where is she? You have slept
sweetly."

"Has the clock struck?"

"The clock has struck."

"Then she is dead," whispered Hoshiko. "She was to die first--when the
clock struck. And I was sleeping--sweetly, you said. Oh, gods! Go to the
moat. I will pray."

At the moat there was nothing but some pebbles dislodged where small
feet might have tracked. Some fresh soil was uncovered, where two large
stones had been taken. One was gone, the other waited at the edge of the
waters. And in this he knew how the manner of their death had been
planned. Each was to take a great stone in her small arms and wade into
the moat until--At the piteous picture he who had seen death by
thousands choked in his throat and followed Isonna into the water.

But it was too late--much too late. And so he left her there, where she
had chosen to be, for him and for Hoshiko, quite at rest, with her
burden still clasped strongly in her arms, and only a little prayer to
Buddha--nembutsu--Isonna!

TADAIMA--TADAIMA!

XXII

TADAIMA--TADAIMA