nd in sight of its crimson and
white went out--mad with the supremest ecstasy a Japanese can know--out
in the great red death to another reincarnation, at what, for the fourth
time, he must have thought the happiest moment of his life.

And then--shall I tell it?--his call came.

And a letter from Zanzi, now a general commanding a brigade. Almost as
one would write of love, he wrote.

"Come back, eta," it said joyously; "we need you now. You shall not go
to the Hakodate men. Every one of us clamors for you at the colors.
Come! It is war. Your doctrine prevails. There are now neither samurai
nor eta, but only sons of the emperor. Come! We are going to a glorious
victory. Take your share. Your penance is complete. Your exile is
finished. Come, the emperor himself calls his sons to die for him! Come!
The flag waits. Come!

"ZANZI."

"PRESENT FOR DUTY"

XXVIII

"PRESENT FOR DUTY"

OF Hoshiko I do not speak--I have not spoken--in these last days. I
cannot. I am near her heart as I write. She for whom everything had been
had nothing--was eternally to have nothing. Yet it remained for her now
to make all that be which would have been--but for her. The way of the
gods was quite plain.

There was no oath to this effect, no tragic undertaking before the
mysterious gods. It became simply her life. Nothing else was possible
with the existences which remained but to make all true which ought to
be true--which would have been true--but for her happiness. She had had
that, and now was to come the recompense which the gods always demanded.
And the plan of it had not consciously grown; it had been
there--inside--always. Save that when she knew he was to die the small
white death, all the details formulated themselves in her mind there at
his side, fixed, she had no doubt, by the gods.

We know now that the war was fought to its end in the council chambers
in Tokyo long before that torpedo sank the "Tsarevitch." This is the
curious fashion of the Eastern mind: to see the end before the
beginning. So now all that was to follow formed itself in the mind of
Hoshiko as if it were already done and she saw it not from the beginning
but from the end. The means to make it be would have puzzled us. They
puzzled her not at all. She knew that suffering lay there; but no
suffering could matter if the end was achieved and that was safe.

In due time General Zanzi received a cable, saying:--

"Keep colors. Coming.