f,
however, you should think it best to take my advice, let me know of your
recovery."

"I thank you, sir," said Arisuga, chokingly, "it is impossible. The
flag--my flag--?" he begged.

"Good morning," said the officer; "I will find some one for the flag."

But, after he was gone the colonel determined to see what manner of
woman this was who could make Arisuga give up his flag. Orojii had said,
in China, that she was pretty! He pictured her an Amazon, with
tremendous force, and painted cheeks, who had enslaved the little
color-bearer, and he meant to exhibit his authority against hers and
save Arisuga from her.

"It is always so," he was thinking as he arrived at the little house, in
some haste to be ahead of Arisuga, "a little fellow like Shijiro is sure
to choose some woman twice his size for a wife, and to be under her
thumb ever after."

You may fancy, therefore, his surprise, when a little flower of a maiden
pushed aside the door for him, and, to his question, announced that she
was Shijiro's wife. For a moment the colonel did not speak. Tremendous
readjustment was necessary. In the meantime she had led him within.

"Sit down," she said. "I will bring you some tea. My husband will be
here very soon. He has gone to see his colonel. Alas! you must sit on
the floor in the Japanese fashion. We have none of the new foreign
chairs!"

In an instant she had the tea before him.

"I do not care for tea," said the soldier. "I am Colonel Zanzi."

"His colonel!" gasped the little wife. "And--and--you have come to be--"

"As kind to you as I can be," said the soldier, hastily. "Be at peace!"

"Oh! Is it true?" The tears ran over her eyes at once. "You know? And
yet you will be kind? Oh, Jizo--that is my favorite goddess--look upon
you! But you will smoke a little? See, here is my own pipe." She
cleansed it and filled it and put it to his lips, and he who smoked only
cigars smoked Hoshi's little metal pipe. "And he is not disgraced? I
have not ruined him? No! Or you would not be here smoking my pipe. You
would be savage. You would wish to kill me. Oh, I know he is the
emperor's and you, also, even me! I know how that is. Everything for the
emperor! Wives! Children! Even parents! Why, was it not Akima Chinori
who killed his child, which was too small to be left alone, so that he
might obey the call? 'I have given you life,' so says the imperial call,
'now give it back to me.' But I will not harm him. I will help him