To awaken on an afternoon in summer upon a bed of moss and fragrant leaves; to rest tired, aching eyes upon a clear, pale sky, which smiled divinely through interlacing boughs of towering pines and hemlocks; to hear the whistling calls of the wood-birds; the murmuring, sobbing laughter of some fairy brooklet close at hand; to feel the touch of a fugitive gentle breeze upon one’s brow—this was the fate of the Tojin-san!

For how long he could not have told he lay unmoving, staring dreamily at the sky above him, a sense of contentment, of rest, of comfort—such as one might feel after a long, exhausting race, permeating his whole being.

Then suddenly upon his consciousness there stole another sense—the dim, exquisite feeling of a loved presence close at hand, and he raised himself slowly, weakly upon his elbow. It was like music in his ears, that faint, caressing voice he had listened for for so many days:

“To-o-jin-san! Goran nasai!” (august glance deign).

She was kneeling by his side, her questioning, wistful face hovering above his own; her soft, timid little fingers touching his brow, his eyes, his lips.

He felt himself falling backward again, as if in some delicious swoon, from which there could be no awakening. Then like the dimly remembered scenes of a vague dream, he seemed to recall a time wherein he had wandered through some unending woods, seeking, seeking! Now the dream had ended in this—this that was part of the dream itself!

She stirred ever so slightly, and as if he feared she might vanish by her mere stirring, he reached up the great, once mighty arms, and sought to envelop her within them.

Her hair had the odor of the pine woods; upon her lips there was the breath of some sweet incense. She remained passive within his grasp, but presently her voice, with its tremulous tone of tears, broke the spell between them—reached him with the gentle appeal of a child distressed.

“Honorable water good for thirsty throat,” she said.

Now he released her, and she drew back to find the little cup beside her. He let her raise his head and bring the cup to his lips, and with his eyes still hungrily upon her he drank the water.

He was content merely to gaze at her, though it troubled him that she no longer smiled. She said in a very stricken voice:

“August food also good for Tojin-san. Bud, alas! I god nudding bud rice! Thas good enough for Tama—bud nod for you, Tojin-san.”

Even in his weakness he laughed joyously at the mere notion of food fit for her being unfit for him, and at the sound of his low laughter her face lighted up wonderfully.

“You gittin’ better!” she exclaimed joyously. “Now I bring you thad rice. Too bad—bud thas all I got! I go ad grade temple at top those hill. Priest too fat run quick to catch at me.” She laughed with an element of her old mischievous defiance.

As he did not speak, too intent upon gazing at and marvelling on the fairness of her face, her expression changed to one of melting anxiety.

“I am lig’ unto those foolish karasu [crow], who mek chatter all thad time. Condescend forgive me, Tojin-san. I nod speag agin mebbe for—for twenty hour—yaes?”

No one had ever kissed her hands before. The sound, the touch aroused her wonder, her apprehension. She drew her hands instinctively from his, and for a moment held them up before her, almost as if she looked at them. Then with an impetuous, laughing little sob she thrust them back upon him:

“Do agin ad my hands, Tojin-san! I lig’ those,” she said.

It was not alone the pallor of bodily illness, but of some mental pain that swept over his face, as he set the little hands back into her lap, reverently, gently.

Later, when strengthened with the simple meal she made for him, she told him how the night before she had come upon him in the Atago Yama woods. It was but two days since the terrible events at the Shiro had driven them both forth into this enchanted wilderness. He had been ill but a night; yet it seemed to him many days.

No, she had not heard him calling her, nor had she called him. This, too, was part of the dream; but something louder than any human cry had reached her in her hiding-place in the mountains, the intuitive, certain sense of the blind. She had retraced her steps down the mountain-side, and had gone cautiously seeking in the woods for him; and the gods had guided her aright. Ah! to his very feet.

She humbly begged him to pardon her for leaving him; but she had thought this was the only way she could save him from those who hated her. Now—now she wished to repeat the prayer and promise she had made him down in the old Shiro. Never again would she desert him. She would always abide by his side. She humbly entreated that he would permit her to remain with him, even if she must follow him throughout the world as a slave, the meekest and lowliest of servants.

He did not reply, so obsessed was he still with the vision of her loveliness. Throughout the golden afternoon he lay there watching her every little movement, her slightest change of expression; thrilling under the touch of her hands, the sound of her voice; obeying her slightest request; permitting her to serve him as if he were a babe and she his mother.

Gradually the murmuring of the crickets in the grass, the soft chirping of the birds, even the babbling of the brook, the sighing of the gentle breezes seemed to soften their tone to one concerted murmuring lullaby. A veil crept gently over the sky, shutting out the sun and its light.

She put a pillow of pine needles beneath his head, and she covered him over with a downy, silken mantle that smelled of temple incense and was gorgeous beyond words with the golden embroidery of some sacred order.

And presently as he drowsed deliciously under the warm fragrant silk, he felt her stirring at his feet, and her tired little voice came whispering to him as if from very far away:

“Sayonara, Tojin-san! Imadzuka!” (Now we rest).