“He bring us all down here,” Tsuda continued. “The whale is very dark, and give out long trail of black like the volcano. He tell us we build altars and one day a new god—one day the White Kami will come....” Tsuda broke off abruptly, and asked in a voice which seemed to have taken on a subtly darker and narrower quality: “You have not seen the temple?”
“No,” said Stella.
“Good—I’ll show you—gn. Done in the finest Shintō.... I have a brother, once; he is priest in the Shinshū mountains. I would be too, a priest, only—” Again he broke off, and for a moment his eyes showed a fierce gleam of reminiscent hate. But it passed, and he said very gently: “Will you come and see?”
“The temple?” she asked.
“Yes—to goddess Amaterasu”—he half chanted the name. “Mean the Heaven-shiner, goddess of the Sun—Shimmei, sometimes, Ten Shōkō Daijin, Daijingū—we say—gn—Amaterasu. You will come?”
“Is it far?” Stella asked him.
“No, no—not far.”
“Yes,” she hesitated. Her breathing was a trifle accelerated. It all seemed unbelievable....
III
There was a light truly of heaven in his eluding Asiatic eyes. He led her to a little temple in a grove of palm and giant fern; pointed out its mystic excellencies; talked a great deal about Shintō which she couldn’t grasp.