“My lord! no bath in two days!” she gasped, and she clapped her hands sharply. There sounded an answering “Hai!” and the little serving maid appeared at the end of the room—“Quick, girl! see that the bath is heated.”
As the child trotted away, Yoritomo peered out through the open side of the room into the dim garden. “Close the shoji,” he ordered.
Kohana hastened across, and from either end of the room drew white paper screens out along the slotted sill and lintel-beams, until the room was shut in from the garden. Within a minute she was again kneeling before us. Yoritomo smiled into her beaming face, and said: “You will now be honored by seeing the countenance of my august brother. He is my friend and benefactor.”
At the word, I lifted off my deep-brimmed hat and looked at her, smiling. What she had expected to see I cannot say. My oval face and even my nose might easily have passed for Japanese, and my cheeks were tanned almost to the darkness of Yoritomo’s. But the two days’ stubble upon my lip and chin was very thick for the beard of an Oriental, and my forehead much too white, while yet far more my round blue eyes spoke of a terrifying world all unknown to this gentle girl. Before my look her eyes widened and purpled with terror. She sank down at my feet in speechless fear.
“Is it so Kohana welcomes my friend and brother?” asked Yoritomo in quiet reproach. “There is nothing to fear.”
The girl straightened and gazed up at me, wide-eyed yet with a smile on her trembling lips. “Tojin sama! forgive the rudeness of one who is foolish and ignorant! Accept the humble greetings of your servant!”
“Is the tojin so fearful a beast or devil in the eyes of Kohana San that she still trembles?” I asked.
“Woroto Sama is my friend and brother. He has been my benefactor during all my travels among the tojin,” added Yoritomo.
“Among the tojin, my lord! You have travelled among the barbarians?—beyond the sea?”
“To the five continents. I sailed away with Woroto Sama towards the rising sun, and sailed back with him from the setting sun. The world is an enormous ball, Kohana, and I have been around it as a gnat might crawl around Fujiyama.”