Masago remained standing, her tall figure mirrored in the water, her shrunken hands crossed upon her breast, amazed and troubled. What was this new factor in the embroglio? She was with child--the interloper. There would soon be a new bond, a fresh silver link to unite more closely the pair whom she was bound to separate. The woman's influence over my lord would be greater than ever; and, all for evil as of yore. The breach between No-Kami and O'Tei would grow wider. As in a dream--with slow gait and corrugated brow--the Abbess passed back towards the grove, heedless of the salutations of the peasants,--of the brown urchins that plucked at her skirts. A child--a son, perhaps--that woman's son! Swiftly there passed through her brain a sense of the results that would accrue. The wife, ambitious and unscrupulous, who was a mother, would become all-powerful. Fresh insults would day by day be heaped on the one who was not thus blessed among women. In her mind's eye Masago beheld a long train of disasters and calamities, O'Kikú the active agent. Crouched down before the altar, her chin supported by her palms, she gazed at the bronze symbol that sat so calm and still and upright, with mouth shut and eyelids closed.
"Oh, if you would vouchsafe to speak," she murmured imploringly, "one little word of guidance. One other ray of light; one little, little ray! During years of unflinching devotion has my life been given to your service. I know that I have earned nothing save, perhaps, one touch of pity!"
With sore and heavy heart the Abbess sighed, for the bronzed lips remained tight shut, the eyelids closed. He was asleep and deaf. There was no sound of comfort or of counsel.
Presently she distinguished the patter of clogs upon the outer stairs, and, after a while a man, pushing aside the curtain, stood framed in the doorway.
"Sampei!" Her boy! Was this the reply of Buddha? Ashy pale, trembling like a leaf, the old woman bent to the stones with moving lips; while the General, reverently doffing his geta, and beating his hands together, approached and knelt. She took his warm broad hand between her cold ones, and earnestly scrutinised his face. Her thoughts were in such a turmoil that, though she heard his words, they seemed to reach her ears from a distance, through a tunnel. Riding listlessly, as was his wont, with no settled purpose, he had been astonished to see the geisha in conference with his mother. What could those two have had to say to each other? Greatly marvelling, he had watched, and then turned his horse towards the temple. What ailed his mother, that her features were grey-green? Was she ill? She looked so scared and strange and terrified. Was it some ghost she saw that caused that look of awe?
Without taking her eyes from her son's, the Abbess rose, and like one in a trance led him behind the altar, down the open corridor, into her own quiet chamber. Nothing could be more simple than its furnishing. The woodwork was unadorned, but scrupulously clean, so were the mats and screens. A plain fire-box of iron stood in the centre. Above the low dais in the tokonoma, or place of honour, there hung a single and very ancient kakemono, representing Kwannon, the thousand-handed; and under it, upon the dais, stood in a lacquered sword-rack, a dirk in its silken case.
Floating before Sampei she lifted the weapon, pressed it to her bosom, then slowly unfastening the case, drew forth the dirk, which, with a cry, he recognised. It was a precious blade, forged by Miochin himself, adorned with a hilt minutely worked with gold--a dirk which in childhood he had been wont to play with.
"My father's!" he murmured, and pressed it to his lips and forehead.
"Your father's!" echoed the Abbess, in a whisper, drawing herself to the full height of her commanding stature, and placing on the bent head of her son a trembling hand. "Your father, and his, wore yonder blade in many a fray, and it was never sullied with dishonour. To you, my dear son, do I surrender it. The gods have spoken. She must die!"
As pale as his mother, who looked on him now with a rapt and solemn smile, Sampei heaved a sigh of relief. She. His nerves tingled to his finger ends, for he had thought that the deed must be done which had so often crossed his mind, and which he had always put away from him with dread. It was not his brother--thanks to the gods for that--but the wicked concubine, whose blood was required in atonement.