lean
branches groped the air like the arms of a blinded demon. It seemed to
have an almost human personality an expression of fruitless striving,
pathetic yet somehow sinister--a Prometheus among trees. Geoffrey
followed his wife's gaze to the base of the island where a shoal of
brown rocks trailed out to seawards. In a miniature bay he saw a tiny
beach of golden sand, and, planted in the sand, a red gateway, two
uprights and two lintels, the lower one held between the posts, the
upper one laid across them and protruding on either side. It is
the simplest of architectural designs, but strangely suggestive.
It transformed that wooded island into a dwelling-place. It cast
an enchantment over it, and seemed to explain the meaning of the
pine-tree. The place was holy, an abode of spirits.

Geoffrey had read enough by now to recognize the gateway as a
"_torii_"; a religious symbol in Japan which always announces the
neighbourhood of a shrine. It is a common feature of the country-side,
as familiar as the crucifix in Catholic lands.

But Asako, seeing the beauty of her country for the first time, and
unaware of the dimming cloud of archaeological explanations, clapped
her hands together three times in sheer delight; or was it in
unconscious obedience to the custom of her race which in this way
calls upon its gods? Then with a movement entirely occidental she
threw her arms round her husband's neck, kissing him with all the
devotion of her being.

"Dear old Geoffrey, I love you so," she murmured. Her brown eyes were
full of tears.

* * * * *

The steamer passed into a narrow channel, a kind of fiord, with wooded
hills on both sides. The forests were green with spring foliage. Never
had Geoffrey seen such a variety or such density of verdure. Every
tree seemed to be different from its neighbour; and the hillsides were
packed with trees like a crowded audience. Here and there a spray of
mountain cherry-blossom rose among the green like a jet of snow.

At the foot of the woods, by the edge of the calm water, the villages
nestled. Only roofs could be seen, high, brown, thatched roofs with a
line of sword-leaved irises growing along the roof-ridge like a crown.
These native cottages looked like timid animals, cowering in their
forms under the protecting trees. One felt that at any time an
indiscreet hoot of the steamer might send them scuttering back to
the forest depths. There were no signs