Then, like the hissing wind, rose the quick anger of the people.
At the same instant Page and the crowd rushed toward Zura, who, with bamboo stick in her raised hand, stood white and defiant.
A coolie made a lunge at her. With closed fist Page Hanaford struck him full in the face; the other arm shielded Zura. Another man spat at her, and met the fate of his brother from Page's well-directed blow. There is nothing so savage as a Japanese mob when roused to anger. Knowing them to be cruel and revengeful, my heart stood still as I watched the throng close about Page and Zura. I knew the boy single-handed could not hold out long before the outraged worshipers.
Then above the noise and curses and threats Kishimoto San's voice rang out. "Stop! you crawling vipers of the swamp! How dare you brawl before this sacred place? How dare you touch one of my blood! My granddaughter accounts to me, not to the spawn of the earth—such as you! Disperse your dishonorable bodies to your dishonored homes! Go!"
Blind to reason, they cowered before a masterful mind. They knew the unbending quality of Kishimoto's will, his power to command, to punish. The number grew steadily less, leaving Page and Zura and her grandfather alone.
Kishimoto San turned to the girl and with words cold as icicles, cutting as a whiplash, dismissed the child of his only daughter from his house and home. He cared neither where she went, nor what she did. She no longer belonged to him or his kind. He disowned her. Her foreign blood would be curse enough.
Bidding his family follow, he turned and left. As Mrs. Wingate passed her disgraced offspring, with troubled voice and bewildered looks she repeated once more her set formula of reproof, "Oh, Zura! I no understand yo' naughty; I no like yo' bad."
The homeless girl, Page, and I were left in the darkness.
"Come with me, Zura," I said, not knowing what else to do; and the three of us made our way toward the high twinkling light that marked the House of the Misty Star.
As the boy walked beside her, hatless, tie and collar disarranged, I could but see what his defense of Zura had cost him in physical strength. His face twitched with the effort to control his shaking limbs; that strange illness had robbed him of so much.