"Warriors and chiefs and the dauntless brave youth Atsumori
Drive to the sea all the hordes of the sweating red demons."
The dove-gray garments of the Japanese women, folded so modestly across seemingly quiet breasts, began to stir and palpitate. More than one tear fell upon the bandages. Yuki's face, set now unfalteringly upon the singer, grew ever more white; her long eyes burned, and trembled apart. Unconsciously she went close to him, and, kneeling upon the hard floor, drank of his voice. The group of Japanese maidens hid faces in their bright sleeves. The air stirred and tingled with invisible influences. Gwendolen began to shiver like an animal which knows not its own source of fear. The charged atmosphere, the face, the voice of the singer, Yuki's great glowing eyes, swept in her soul strained chords of unknown feeling. She felt in herself the vibrations of that trembling lute. In its cell a soul, just wakened, fumbled at a new discovered latch. "Surely it must be reincarnation," whispered the girl. "Surely I have felt and seen all this before! Yuki and I together have listened; that look was on her face. Yuki!" The cry was scarcely a whisper. Yuki, many feet away, could not possibly have heard, yet instantly she turned,—the eyes, night-black and hazel, caught and clung together, with half ghostly memories that were the same.
"Hissed there the sea with the scorching of steel and of passion,
Rolled up the clouds from the sky and the shore in a tumult,
There on the sand lies the body of young Atsumori."
One great crashing across the strings, "like the tearing of brocade," and the singer's head fell forward,—his frame trembled and shrank, he quivered into stillness. Yuki half crawled to him, holding out a protecting arm, and facing her guests like a young tigress. "Do not any one speak. Do not crowd about him," she cried in English. "His soul will be weary from the long journey."
The Japanese women understood, and returned quietly to their sewing. The foreigners tittered, shrugged, and exchanged glances, then they, too, began to work. A servant brought tea to the singer, and a glass of cold water. At length he stretched out a trembling hand to the latter, and having finished the draught, rose quietly and went from the room, with Yuki close behind. A few moments later Gwendolen heard her returning, unaccompanied, along the hall. She went out to meet her, thankful indeed for the privilege of a few words alone.
"Yuki-ko," she faltered, "I just wanted to say that at last I understand,—I think I understand entirely."
Yuki, still half in the world of shadows, gave her a strange look. "You understand, Gwendolen? Is it my marriage you speak of?"
"Oh, so much more than that!" cried the other, with a little sob. "Had you been what the conventional foreigner calls 'faithful,' you would have been the most faithless girl in all the world!"
"You are a wonderful friend," said Yuki. Her voice had the strange quality of her look. Both had caught the rhythm of low martial chanting. "But even you, my Gwendolen, did not hear or understand it all. There is tragedy before me. You did not hear that in the music?"
"I thought I heard it, darling, but I shut my ears! I shall not believe. We can compel even tragedy, Yuki. Nothing can harm you with Haganè's love!"