have prepared for this. They do not know that they
have not a secret from us. They do not know that the whole course of
the war is already planned here--here--by Japan. And that as it is
planned so it will be fought. Their navy first--every ship of it. Port
Arthur next. Mukden! Saghalien! Vladivostock! We will meet them at the
Yalu--do you hear? At the Yalu, near Wiju, where we met the Chinese in
1894, only to be robbed of victory by these Russian louts! We are
decoying them to the tryst now as we did the Chinese. They will not
steal our winning this time. They will pay! We shall meet them at the
Yalu. And we shall meet but once there. There will not be a battlefield
we will not ourselves choose. Nor a time to battle which we shall not
fix. Oh, they call us little men--us! But, by the immortal gods, they
will know, presently, that souls are measured not by size. They call us
few; but they fail to reckon the myriad spirits of our ancestors, all
the augustnesses who will fight with us, direct our bullets, lead our
assaults with a knowledge which they, born of beasts, cannot have. Eta,
we shall meet them at the Yalu. Wait here till you are transferred. Then
on with us. Banzai!"

They laughed together, and Zanzi went out, singing of carnage as if he
were beneath the window of his lady, with a samisen.

THE TOMB OF LORD ESAS

XXXI

THE TOMB OF LORD ESAS

It was but two days. Yet in that time Hoshiko hastened to all the dear
places where he had gone in the days he had told her of--when he held
the hand of Yone instead of hers. It was on the second day, in the
evening, at Shiba, that some one spoke his name behind her. The voice
was a woman's--that she at once knew. And also at once, in that strange
intelligence which we have of the spirit and not of any teaching, she
knew that this was Yone--and that she had not forgotten all and married
(as they had laughingly fancied), but was still waiting, as she had
said. And suddenly for a moment, only a moment, she was no longer
Arisuga the color-bearer, but again a woman of those who know the terror
and weariness of hopeless waiting--such as only women, and never men,
know. And she remembered. It was ten years. Yet this faithful one had
waited while she had had her happiness. And what should she do? There
was little question of that. Here she was confronted with the evidence
of how she had destroyed the gods' balance by taking her overdue of joy,
leaving to Yone a