They had dug a trench hard by the castle moat. Over this they spread a net made of stout hempen rope, the edges of which were threaded in and out with elastic of great strength. This was stretched out and pinned, not too firmly, till it encircled and covered the pit. Then the sod and leaves and flower petals were carefully, though thinly, replaced, and the trap was ready for the Fox-Woman of Atago Yama.

Over all the Matsuhaira Shiro a tense, silent excitement pervaded. Though the students had worked in secret, swiftly and silently on a dusky, rainy night, when their prey would not be likely to be abroad, nevertheless no smallest menial on the place but knew that measures had been taken to entrap the fox-woman. They shivered deliciously over the dreadful prospect, for dire things had been promised them by the too garrulous Genji Negato, should any slightest inkling of the plans leak out from the Shiro itself.

Even the Tojin-san, who had been kept in complete ignorance of the actual methods they had taken to entrap her, was affected by that nameless feeling of uneasiness and unquiet, of repressed excitement and strained fear, which animated every other individual of his household.

Throughout the evening he paced his great chamber in a moody, wretched silence. The sense of aloneness, of homesickness that sometimes came upon him in this land, seemed somehow this night to be deeper, more depressing. For days, indeed, he had been affected by a feeling of impending gloom and disaster. He had been restless, dissatisfied, nervous—unconsciously listening and waiting for something he seemed to expect was about to happen. Now he found himself analyzing this sick sense of depression which had pervaded his whole being these latter days, and seemed to reach its culmination on this silent night.

Was it something in the look or tone of a student who recalled one of his own people, or was it the letters that had come to him from across the seas that made him realize they had cared for him more in that other country than he had realized? No—he faced the situation. This was not what had awakened the fever within him.

It was something deeper, something very beautiful and mystic. It was the golden hair of this Japanese Lorelei which had ensnared his longing! He could not banish its glitter, its “sun” as they called it here, its wild appeal from his mind. What was this creature of the mountains then, whom the gentlest of people had outcast? And what was this spell they said she had cast upon him? The words seized upon his fancy, writhed his lips into a tortured smile. He, whom a mere woman had scorned, under the spell of a witch—a wild creature of these Japanese mountains whose face he had never even seen! It was preposterous—fantastic! And yet!

The blood forsook his face, his lips. For days, for weeks, aye, for months he had thought of little else. Through half the luminous nights he had watched and waited for her—had sought her desperately, hungrily. Day and night he had been waiting for her—waiting and listening, always listening, for that appealing voice of mockery and anguish that called to him insistently—to him alone! What mad fancies were these that had woven themselves like a subtle spider’s web into his clear, sane mind? It was the country, the people! He was in a land of gods and spirits!

The night was very still and humid. The rain was gone, but its wet touch still clung in the air and was moist upon the grass and trees. The shoji of the chamber had been removed entirely on the garden side, so that he practically was out-of-doors in an open pavilion or verandah. He could see the moon-tipped branches of the trees under whose shade myriad fireflies flickered in and out, rivalling the distant stars above them in brilliancy.

A cherry grove, from which blew fairy flakes, like confetti at a carnival, was at the extremity of the garden, and ever and anon a shower of these dancing-petals blew into his apartment, giving it an almost festive air. Great drifts of them lay in the corners of the room, like snow, and upon his couch, his tables, chairs and other furnishings, marking them with a white touch. In the shadow of a bamboo grove an uguisu thrilled forth its liquid song, and the wind-bells on the eaves tinkled musically back and forth in a faint breeze, as if in unison with the song of the wood-bird.

From across the mountains came the gentle booming of the temple bells, telling the hour of the night, and, as if they were a signal listened for, the fox-woman crept out of the dense bamboo grove and felt her way among the shadows till she came to the brink of the castle moat. Along its edge she wended her fleet, cautious way, till she came to a narrow wing, and over this she stepped silently. In the vague light of the moon, she seemed indeed a wraith, in her clinging gown of white, enshrouded in the wild veil of her hair. On and on she moved, as though she travelled over known and familiar paths.

Suddenly, piercingly, in the still moonlight sounded the cry of the fox-woman, and, as suddenly, a silence fell, still as death itself. It was as if every living thing had paused to listen to that appealing cry of agony and terror.

Silence! No one stirring. No one breathing.

Then, as if brought violently into life, the Tojin-san bounded to his feet, and in the light of the swinging takahiras, for a moment his great form loomed up menacingly. From all parts of the estate now came the sound of movement, and he saw the samourai guard, their gleaming swords drawn fully and flashing eerily in the moonlight, charge down blindly in the direction of the cry. Within the woods came the sound of battle, the rumble of men’s savage, triumphant voices—a wild stirring and crying, and then again—the silence!

Presently from out the brush they came, bearing their burden—stalwart men of war, all with their hands upon her. Out along the whitewashed paths, across the green-clipped lawns and through the garden of fragrant, blowing flowers they carried the fox-woman into the cherry-petalled chamber of the Tojin-san. There they set her down, still entangled, like a wild beast of the woods, in the net they had made to snare her.

Unmoving she lay, as one indeed in whom life was extinct; but when the Tojin-san moved with an impulse of passionate yearning toward her, the boy Junzo, who loved him, sprang in his path.

“Touch her not, beloved sensei! She is accursed, unclean!”

He put the boy roughly, savagely aside, and in a moment was kneeling above her. It was the task of a minute to cut free the bonds that bound her. Still she did not move. With hands that trembled in spite of themselves, gently, softly, he put back from her face the glittering veil of her hair, and as he did so his heart came up in his throat in a great, suffocating bound—for the face he uncovered was that of a white woman!

So perfect, so exquisite the small, sensitive face, he could only gaze upon it spell-bound. The great purple eyes, wide open, and shadowed with their long, gilded lashes; the thin little nose; the lips red as a new blown rose, and as sweet!—and crowning it all, the golden glory of her hair.

In this land where only the brown face and densely black hair and eyes had been known for centuries, was it strange that this creature of the mountains seemed as of another world—a sprite indeed. This persecuted, hunted creature, whom they had trapped with ropes, as the hunter does the wild animals of the forests; this fragile, trembling, quivering little child—of his own skin and blood—this was the fox-woman!

She spoke not at all, though her wide-open eyes never moved from the Tojin’s face. Something in their glassy stare, their curious look as of a mist before them, brought an exclamation to his lips. He bent nearer to her, looked deeply, keenly into those unflickering eyes, and an imprecation swept his lips.

“And blind! My God!” he cried.

As if his voice had moved her spirit into a sudden life, the fox-woman stirred soundlessly as a cat would have done. Suddenly she leaped blindly in the face of the Tojin. He stood unmoving, a great stolid wall against which she might hurl her puny strength in vain.

Presently, gasping, exhausted, she drew backward, her fluttering hands crushed upon her heart as if to stop its frantic beating. A sound that had the vaguest, most piteous of human notes came from the fox-woman’s lips, and suddenly, with the motion of a lost child in despair, she buried her face in the fragile shelter of her hands.