ith
bullets, as, flag in hand, she leaped into the first of the Russian
trenches.

That line was in her last articulate consciousness:--

"Death-wound spurting--"

Perhaps it only remained in her ears--Arisuga's song. But she fancied
that she could feel her own warm blood spurting into her own face. Was
it as glorious as he had thought it? Or was it only terrible? At that
moment, first, she knew. Perhaps she became in that last instant all
woman once more. Perhaps she saw something not for mortal eyes. Perhaps
she was not as brave with death as she had taught herself to be--gentle
Hoshiko! Her lips moaned, piteously, when she ought to have been dead,
"Arisuga!"

So that one of the two who had gone forward with her bent hastily and
said to the other, with a pleasant smile:--

"He speaks his own name!"

"Nembutsu," answered the other. "Take the flag."

The first one tried, but it held fast in her hand.

"There is no need," he said; "the battle is won. Let him keep it!"

But they covered her face. For the peace, the ecstasy, of a glorious
death was not on it! What did she learn in that death-instant?

Others caught at the flag. But her hand held it fast. So that when that
dense line of blue which she had started from the willows reached her,
at first it parted chivalrously at the flag and passed on either side.
But at last it could not part. Some one trod upon the little
color-bearer. Then many. The thick-massed line passed over her. It could
not be helped. Some one took the flag from her hand and planted it on
the Russian redoubt. At last she seemed but part of the earth beneath
their feet, and they who trod on her did not even look down.

AFTERWARD

XXXIV

AFTERWARD

Afterward there was a great funeral. The hillside was a temple. The
summer blue was its roof. The jagged mountains were its eaves. Evergreen
trees were its walls. A torii made of firs was its gate. Blossoming
trees held the gohei strips which pledged purity to the august shades
which waited near. The altar was of rifles and a soldier's blanket. The
offerings were the vapors of the simple grains and flowers, of the
country.

Beyond it was the great pyre--not grim, as death is, but more beautiful
than that on which Dido perished, adorned, perfumed, with aromatic
spring firs and blossoming trees. In the temple, first, the shades of
those who had fought with them were worshipped and exalted by the
brocaded priests. Then fea