The Kingdom of Slender SwordsRives, Hallie Erminie
History
The Kingdom of Slender Swords
Rives, Hallie Erminie
East and West -- Fiction; Japan -- History -- Meiji period, 1868-1912 -- Fiction
She shook her head. "_We have left undone those things which we ought to
have done_," she quoted in a low voice, "_and have done those things
which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us_. We all
recite that every Sunday. I have something now to confess to you. Won't
you stand there in the light? I--I want to see your face."
He stepped slowly into a bar of moonlight.
"Why," she said, "you have hurt your hand!" She made a quick step toward
him, her eyes on the stained bandage.
"It is nothing," he said hastily. "I struck it a little while ago.
What--"
He turned, suddenly alert. A sharp whistle had sounded below them, and
bright points here and there pricked the gloom. "They have turned on the
tree-lights," he said. There was a sound of voices on the path. Some one
ran across the foot-bridge.
"Something has happened," she said. "What can it be?"
He made no reply. There had flashed to him a quick realization of the
position in which, unwittingly, they had placed themselves. She must not
be seen at such an hour, in that lonely spot with him! He knew the
canons of the world he lived in! With a hushed word he drew her back
into the shadow.
The voices were speaking in Japanese, and now he heard them clearly.
"Some one is injured," he told her. "He fell down the hillside, they
think." A hurried step crossed the bridge, and a voice, sharp and
peremptory, asked a question in nervous English. Daunt chilled at the
answer, turning to her, every unselfish instinct alive to spare her.
But she had heard a name. "It is Mr. Ware who is hurt!"
He grasped her wrist. "Wait!" he said hurriedly. "I beg you to go by the
upper path to the side door." But she caught away her arm and ran
quickly down the path.
Daunt sprang up the hill, skirted the building, gained its upper
corridor, now simmering with excitement, and crossed the bridge. Near
its farther end a small group stood about a figure, prostrate beside the
phonograph whose cylinder gleamed in the lantern-light. By it Barbara
was kneeling.
But something came between her gaze and the pallid face--something which
she saw with the distinctness of a black paper silhouette on a white
ground: a glimmering object, unnoted by the rest, which had lain
half-concealed by a bush--something that one day, a thousand years ago,
had glittered against Daunt's brown hair as he saluted her from his
horse! It was a riding-crop, whose Damascene handle bore the device of a
fox's head.
* * * * *
Two hours later the corridors were silent and the bishop and Daunt sat
together in the darkened office, saying few words, both thinking of a
man lying straight and alone--and of a girl in an upper room whose
promise he had taken with him out of the world. Daunt was to leave for
Tokyo on the early morning train. Half the night through he sat there
listening to the moan of the rising weather.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account