to be
a soldier. Oh, I am brave! You cannot think how brave. It is only
waiting, waiting, waiting, that I cannot endure. Do you know that we
were married away down there? And that Arisuga-Sama left me to go to the
emperor? Did you know that? And that it was I came to him? He did not
bring me. I meant to die here without harm to him. But only Isonna died.
He is not to blame."

"Who was Isonna?" asked the soldier.

"She was my little maid. She was to die first when the clock struck, die
there in the moat--then I. But first I came to see his shadow on the
shoji--touch it. Say farewell. To hear a word, if there were one. I am
afraid I wept, fainted with hunger, and he heard me and took me in and
kept me. He _did_ wish me! He _did!_ But Isonna was dead. Yes, while I
slept in his arms! Dead for us. The tea is very good, excellency?"

And because she put it into his hands with that fear in her great eyes,
and because of that shaking of the little hand, and that chattering
story in the quavering voice, and those tears, he drank the tea, who
drank only hot brandy.

"Do you mean to say that Isonna killed herself so that--so that--"

Even the grizzled soldier choked at the thought.

"So that no disgrace might come to him. And I--I, also, should have
died--before he knew. Then he would not have been harmed. As long as the
thin paper was between us he was safe--safe as if I were yet in China.
But you do not know how sweet that was--to sleep in his arms, to wake in
his arms--with the words he spoke that night he married me again in my
ears? But while I slept the clock struck. Ah, you know him only as a
soldier! I know him as a lover! A husband! A god!"

Still this soldier, brought up to the religion of sacrifice, thought of
the serving-woman sacrificially dead there in the moat.

"Was Isonna an eta, too?"

"She was an eta, too," said Hoshiko.

"Gods! And we think you lack spirit--courage--devotion!"

"No! We are brave!" she said piteously. "We are as ready as you to die
for the emperor! If you will only learn to let us!"

"I believe you!" said Zanzi.

"Shall I tell you?" she begged. "He is not at fault. Let me plead for
him!"

"Yes, tell me," he said.

But she could only repeat the old story:--

"We came because we thought he was dead--he said that only death should
keep him from us--to take his body back with us--only his dear, dead
body. That would have been no disgrace. For the Lord Buddha does not
permit any