"No, not exacterlee," said Yuki, flushing a little at the turning of all eyes. "I have not good English, of course; but I could not say to myself all that I see, even in Nipponese. When too many new thing come, it is like fat people trying to squeeze together through a door,—all get mashed, and none come through."
Dodge gazed at the speaker in quizzical admiration. "Miss Onda, I long for a phonograph record. That is a masterly exposition of a profound psychological truth!"
Yuki cast a laughing, half-pathetic glance toward Pierre. "Is it very bad names that he is calling me, M. Le Beau?"
In spite of Gwendolen's hyperbolic boast, Arizona, next day, came near to fulfilling Dodge's prophecy. The world stretched bigger and broader, as though here, instead of at the Arctic poles, the "flattening-like-an-orange" of our globe took place. The sky, immeasurably remote and tangibly arched, was a thin crystal dome soldered to earth by the lead-line of the horizon. The red sand was hot to look at. The hills, though of vaster proportions, had more of helplessness and degeneracy in their sprawling curves. Yucca grew very closely now, marching up and down the slopes like fierce explosive little soldiers with bayonets too long for them. The objectionable prickly pears vanished. In their places rose a stranger order of being, cacti in tangled bunches, as of green serpents, sometimes with the licking red tongue of a blossom,—hunched woolly lambs of growth on high, thin stilts of shaggy black,—huge green melons, ribbed, spiked, and lazy, that seemed strangely at ease on their burning couches of sand. Far off, against the rim of nothingness, dry, blue mountain shapes emerged, mere tissue filaments of hue. And now, as part of the unreal perspective, giant cacti rose, at first no more than scratches and cross-marks on a window-pane, but coming steadily close. The first that flashed, tall, stark, and tangible, into the very faces of those who watched, brought small exclamations of wonder and distaste. It passed instantaneously, fleeing backward into nothingness,—a herald to proclaim the coming horde. In a few moments, imagination, the sunshine, and the day became mere mediums for the aggressive race. This scorched eternity was made for them. Isolated and defiant, their laws were to themselves. It seemed a deliberate assumption that they should mock reality, taking on the evil forms of crucifix, gallows, skeleton-trees, and mile-posts, where nothing but a famished death was to be pointed. The desert might have been a vast sea-bottom, set with grim coral trees and hardened polyps.
"They are a race of evil spirits, petrified," whispered Gwendolen. "I feel their sinister association with our human life. See what shapes they have chosen!"
"Yes," said Yuki in return, and caught Gwendolen's hand as if for comfort. "You are right, Gwendolen. I think it is a Buddhist hell of trees."
"But what could cause this doom to befall an innocent tree, little sister?"
"It must be evil karma," said Yuki, with wide yet shrinking eyes upon the desert. "Perhaps a tree where a blameless man was hanged, perhaps the tree of a martyr's sacrifice,—perhaps even,—" here her voice fell to an intense and dramatic whisper which chilled her listeners while it stirred them, "perhaps that terrible—terrible tree whereon our—Saviour—See—see! now, over there—there—where on top of a hill three great crosses, the middle one so great and black and high,—is it not Gethsemane?" She pointed with a shaking finger, unable to utter more.
"Come, Yuki, do not look—I forbid it!" cried Pierre, vehemently. In a moment, with a shudder, he added, "Albrecht Dürer might have dreamed them in a nightmare, had he killed his own child and slept afterward! Mother of God! I shall look no more!"
"Nor I either, Pierre," cried Mrs. Todd, in great relief. "You are right to correct Yuki,—she does have such morbid fancies. I've heard her tell stories of ghosts, and incarnations, and those scary things that would make the flesh creep on your bones. Thank heaven, this day is nearly done! Ugh! See how the lengthening shadows spread them on the sand!" Deliberately she pulled down the small window-shade, leaned back, and closed her eyes.