"How shall that come to pass, augustness?" I asked upon my face.
"'Through his son,'" said the god. "'The names are the same. Arise and light the lamps and burn the bitter incense.'"
"And the augustness only vanished with the light of the new lamps I lighted before Shijiro's tablet."
"Yet," doubted Namishima, though a deity had spoken, "the vengeance of the gods must also first be accomplished—yea, satisfied full! And until he is redeemed by this unhappy onna-jin, must our brother wander in the dark Meido—so think I! The new lamps will be sacrilege."
"Nevertheless, one cannot honorably tell," argued the milder uncle from Osaka, himself not convinced by his vision. "His father was no taller nor of a greater spirit than he. He may not always be an onna-jin. And, also, any day the vengeance of the gods may be satisfied and they will permit him to redeem both his own and the spirit of his father. For I believe it true that he was not beheaded by the victors at Jokoji, and cast into the ditch as dogs are cast, but committed the honorable seppuku upon himself. That he would do."
"Let it be hoped so. This is our one blot wherefore we cannot speak of our ancestors."
And they chafed a prayer from between their hands that it might all be so.
The little boy parted the fusuma yet more and looked. He had been taught that his face must always be as expressionless as if it were always under observation. And these old uncles had, more than others, taught him so. Yet now they were not observing their own precepts. Their faces were unmasked, and showed terror and anxiety. And this communicated itself to the boy as he looked.
"Does it matter to the gods," asked Kiomidzu, "how fealty to the heaven-born-one is augustly inculcated?"
"'The way does not matter when one is arrived!'" said Namishima.