was sacrilege to obstruct the gods; it was impossible to
pray to be kept from her own perfumed land, so--she stubbornly prayed
not at all.

And then it did come: the great war--though not as he had fancied it
would. Slowly it got into the air. Every day he spent at the bulletins.
But they said Japan would not fight. Russia was getting and would get
what she wished. She was too great for Japan. And some of the newspapers
began to pour contempt upon his country. She was baying the moon, one
said.

"What! are there no more samurai in Japan?" Arisuga cried out to his
wife that night. She did not reply. Her silence was almost guilt. For as
the threat of war went on, and as Arisuga grew older, he valued the more
what he had lost for her. "Gods," he proceeded with a hollow laugh, "I
am not a samurai myself. And I must wait my call to be even allowed to
fight."

"Forgive me, dear lord," said his wife. And the words and her attitude
recalled that other time she was servilely at his feet.

"Rise!" he commanded impatiently. "And do not call me lord. I am no
more--nothing more--than you--eta! It cannot be helped. We must suffer
it." But there were no caresses--there were never any now.

Then it came, quite according to Arisuga's fancy--a thunder-clap from
the heavens! Togo had sunk the "Tsarevitch"!

"At last," cried Arisuga, that day, "I am a soldier once more, if not a
samurai! A son of the emperor! Banzai!" And that night it seemed as if
all the old sweetness had come back and she slept in his arms as she had
used to sleep.

"All that remains now is the call," he said the next day, still happy.

He went to the consulate to see that they had his address correctly, but
on the way home he remembered that there was no money for the passage.
For, strangely, this passion of war had obliterated that other passion
of chance! He ran all the way.

"I must--I must," he said roughly to Hoshiko, "have money for the
passage! When my call comes I shall not be ready. And there is none!"

"I have not forgotten it, lord," she answered, giving him the little she
had been secretly able to save from his gambling for the purpose.

Arisuga counted it. He did not even stop to thank her for this
unexpected sacrifice and munificence.

"Gods! It is not one-tenth," he accused. "We must have more at once.
Jones liked you. Why not?"

"Yes, lord," said Hoshiko, growing pale.

"Remember the wives of the forty-seven ronins. They gave themselves