"Nembutsu," answered the other. "Take the flag."
The first one tried, but it held fast in her hand.
"There is no need," he said; "the battle is won. Let him keep it!"
But they covered her face. For the peace, the ecstasy, of a glorious death was not on it! What did she learn in that death-instant?
Others caught at the flag. But her hand held it fast. So that when that dense line of blue which she had started from the willows reached her, at first it parted chivalrously at the flag and passed on either side. But at last it could not part. Some one trod upon the little color-bearer. Then many. The thick-massed line passed over her. It could not be helped. Some one took the flag from her hand and planted it on the Russian redoubt. At last she seemed but part of the earth beneath their feet, and they who trod on her did not even look down.
AFTERWARD
XXXIV
AFTERWARD
Afterward there was a great funeral. The hillside was a temple. The summer blue was its roof. The jagged mountains were its eaves. Evergreen trees were its walls. A torii made of firs was its gate. Blossoming trees held the gohei strips which pledged purity to the august shades which waited near. The altar was of rifles and a soldier's blanket. The offerings were the vapors of the simple grains and flowers, of the country.