XX
Now came the Season of White Dew. The days were unbelievably beautiful. The first russet touch of the autumn barely cast its shadow upon the green about them, the yellow tints of leaf and flower mellowed into a dull crimson glory.
But the nights turned chill, and in the early mornings there was the heavy print of the frosted dew upon the ground.
Unconsciously they quickened their lagging footsteps, and turned into shorter paths that would bring them sooner to Sho Kon Sha, the cemetery of “Soul Beckoning Rest,” which was to be the end of their journey. This was her home, so she said—the gardens of the temples of her ancestors. Only a few hill-lengths from the cemetery was the Temple Tokiwa, deserted, almost in ruins, but—her home!
There her parents had lived—and died! Here she had been happy in her solitary childhood, hidden and sheltered by fearful but loving parents. Here her mother had taught her to dance for the gods and entreat them with her prayers; here her father had told her of another God, another heaven. After her parents were gone, the aged temple had been her only sure place of refuge, a sanctuary wherein even the stoutest of hunters dared not penetrate; for the wrathful gods still stared with their dreadful eyes upon the affronted altar, and at the very portals the demons Ni-o, guarding the sacred gates, might no longer be propitiated.
Now confidently, happily, with the pride of a child thither she was leading the Tojin, eager to show him this beautiful shelter she wished to share with him forever. But, ah! how sweet had been the mountain paths this summer, and why need they hasten? The restless, vindictive little city was very far away, and the fox-woman trod upon territory all her own, hers by right of every instinct, and by the very law of the land, did she but know it, which made her proper heir to her ancestors’ property.
Now they were very near to the temple, and soon she would spread forth her arms and say to the Tojin:
“Behold, dear exalted one, here is my honorable home. Condescend to step upon its floor.”
And in her mind she fancied the face of the Tojin would shine with a great light of happiness.