"Yes," whined the maid.
"Come," cried her mistress, with tears and laughter. "He shall have two widows!"
She embraced her maid violently enough for bodily injury.
"Oh, is not the world beautiful!" cried Hoshiko. "I, who never hoped to be a wife at all, am the wife of a god. And he who had no thought of one goes yonder leaving two widows! Oh, girl brute, we are his wife for all his dear lives! Yes, we will be brave! We are a soldier's wife!"
ON MIYAGI FIELD
XIX
ON MIYAGI FIELD
But the mystery of his summoning was no more than this: One morning the regiment was aligned on Miyagi field, in parade uniforms, and in such a tremendous spirit as was never before known. Yet no one seemed to understand the purpose of it. And, there, at about the centre of all the glory, was Shijiro Arisuga himself, with his beloved colors once more above his head—the same that he had twice fallen and risen with! Pale he was, and ill-looking still. And the bandage on his head yet smelled of drugs—for this excitement was a bit too much for him after the quiet of China. Nevertheless it is not safe to let you fancy how happy little Arisuga was—nor how his heart thumped. You will be likely to fall short of the fact.
Now, far away on his right, came a glittering cavalcade, and the regiment began to sing with the bands massed in his front: first, his own exultant song, then the Kimi Gayo—hoarse, iron, terrible—announced the coming of the emperor of Japan. This gave way to acclaim, and, to the mongolian roll of on-coming "Banzais!" the emperor galloped down the line, with all his resplendent suite, and, by all the gods, stopped directly in front of Arisuga and faced the regiment! At that the singing stopped and the playing of the bands, and there was that silence before the sovereign which is more impressive than any acclaim. All the colors of the regiment were trooped in a little square before Arisuga into which the emperor rode—all the colors but his, whereat he wondered.