Matsuda laughed unpleasantly.
“Huh! Then it is my sleeves which are weighted!”
In the room above the speakers the woman Azalea watched over the open patch in the floor. Her face beneath the heavy rouge plastered lately upon it by Natsu was a ghastly white. Her bosom was heaving with her quick breathing, her glittering eyes were horrible to look upon. She had heard and understood every word of the dialogue, and now she crouched in the attitude of a feline about to spring, looking down with dreadful eyes upon the head of that one below. Yet in this moment of frenzy Azalea did not scream or faint. Now the strength of her samurai ancestors surged upward through her veins, tingling her whole being. Everything else was blotted out—forgotten. She obeyed only the hereditary instinct of the samurai—an instinct for revenge. When she could move from her crouching position by the opening, she arose with silent swiftness. She stood straight and still, only her eyes slowly travelling about the room as though seeking some object.
Suddenly she found it—the sword! Her small hands gripped its blade and felt its keenness. Then she hid it in the folds of her kimona, and, her colorless lips close pressed together, she passed soundlessly from the room down the little flight of steps and through the hall. Suddenly and almost soundlessly she pushed aside the shoji of the ozashishi. Now she stood between the opening, her eyes upon the startled ones of Matsuda Isami.
“As the sword flashed upward he dashed to one side and then slipped under its guard.”
(Page [229])
In a flash he understood that somehow she had heard and knew now the truth. His servants had grown careless. She had escaped from the trap he had set for her. Vengeance was written in every line of her rigid form. He could almost see the twitching of her fingers upon the concealed weapon in her sleeve. With a cunning worthy of the man he advanced a step toward her, hoping in this way to precipitate her attack, and when she should spring upon him he would trip her. He said as he advanced:
“Little dove, you look pale to-day—why——”
As the sword flashed upward he dashed to one side and then slipped under its guard. His heavy hands locked together descended crushingly upon her head. She threw back her arms, the sword slipping from her hand. Then she fell backward.
Across her fallen body Matsuda Isami and Okido stared at each other. The latter was shivering as though afflicted with ague. He kept repeating over and over between his chattering teeth: “Shaka! Shaka! Shaka!”