The Kingdom of Slender Swords

by Hallie Erminie Rives

There was a small figure in the roadway, however, of whom no one took account—a six year old. Ishikichi had not gone to the hanami that day. For many hours that long afternoon, while his mother cared for the sick father, he had beat the tiny drum that soothed a baby's fret, comforted by the promise that he should be waked in the great hour when the crowd came home. Stretched on his worn f'ton that night, he had puzzled over the situation—the hard, blank fact that because they had no money, they must give up the shop, which was the only home he knew. When they took his father away to the byo-in, the sick-house, what would he and his mother and the baby-San do? Would they stand, like the kadots'ke, playing a samisen at people's doors? It was not honorably pleasant to be a kadots'ke! Only men could earn money, and it would be so long before he became a man. So he had been pondering when he went to sleep. Now, standing in the road, he heard the hum of the rushing motor, and a quick thought,—born of that instinct of sacrifice for the parent, that is woven, a golden thread, in the woof of the Japanese soul—darted into his baby brain. One of the big fire-wagons of the seiyo-jin was coming! When the carriage killed Toru, his playmate, the foreigner had sent much money to Toru's house. He was not sorry any more, because the white-faced man whom he liked, who lived in the temple, had told him what a fine thing it had been. For Toru's honorable father had been fighting with the Gaki, the no-rice-devils—it was almost like a war—and Toru had died just as the brave soldiers did in battle. A great purpose flooded the little soul. Was he not brave, too?

So, as Bersonin, with a snarl, shook off the hand of the chauffeur and threw the throttle wide open, Ishikichi did not scamper with the rest. With his hands tightly clenched in his patched kimono, his huge clogs clattering on the roadway, he ran straight into the path of the hurtling mass of steel.

There was a sudden, sickening jolt. The car leaped forward, dragging something beneath it that made no sound. The chauffeur hurled himself across the seat on the gear, and the automobile stopped with a grinding discord of screeching pistons. A surge of people came around it—a wave without outcry, but holding a hushed murmur like the sea. Shoji were opening, doorways filling the street with light. A man bent and drew something gently from between the wheels.

With a writhing oath the expert wrenched at the clutch.

"Go on!" he said savagely. "How dare you stop without my orders?"

The Japanese made no reply, but the arms that braced the wheel were rigid as steel.

Bersonin sank back in his seat, his massive frame quivering, his eyes glittering like flakes of mica. But for this, in ten minutes he would have been clear of the city, flying along the Chiba Road! What if he were detained? He felt strange, chilly tendrils plucking at his flesh, and a hundred fiery needles seemed pricking through his brain.

Peering over his shoulder, with his horrible fear on him, he saw the crowd part to admit a woman who, quite silently, but with haste, came forward and knelt on the ground. There was no movement from the crowd.

In a hush like that of death, the mother rose with Ishikichi in her arms. The white, still face looked pitifully small. One clog swayed from its thong between the bare toes. The faded kimono was stained with red. She spoke no word. There was no tear on her face. But in the dreadful silence, she turned slowly with her burden and looked steadily at the twitching face in the car—looked and looked. The chauffeur swung himself from the seat into the crowd.

An insane desire had been creeping stealthily on Bersonin. He had felt it coming when he faced the truth in Phil's cringing admission. The horrible compulsion to laughter was on him. The damnable man-hysteria had him by the throat. He fought it desperately, as one fights a wild beast in the dark.