“I shan’t be able to tell until I am in it. There may be times I may find it very hard; but at others I may be jolly about it,” answered Kyuichi, who had never before been to war.
“However hard, you must know that it is for the state and your country,” commented the old man.
“With such a war-like thing as a dagger given you, don’t you wish to begin fighting?” asked Nami-san in her cynical way.
“That may be, but....”
The light response made the old man laugh shaking his beard, while his son looked as if he heard nothing.
“Do you mean to say that you can go and fight in battle with such an indifferent mind?” pressed Nami-san, holding her pretty face before Kyuichi, whose eyes met those of Nami-san’s brother at the same instant.
“I am sure Nami-san would make a grand warrior, if she became one,” came from the woman’s brother, as the very first word spoken to her in the boat. Judging from the tone in which it was said, one might have suspected that it was not meant to be merely a joke.
“I? I become a soldier? If I could, I would have become one long ago. I would have been dead by this time. Kyuichi-san you had better make up your mind to be killed. You would gain nothing by coming home alive.”
“Come, now, no more of your raving.... You must come home in triumph, nephew, dying is not the only way to serve the country. I am good for three or four years more yet. We will again meet in joy.”
The old gentleman’s word tapered and softened till they melted into unseen tears, which he concealed from us. Kyuichi said nothing; but turned his eyes toward the left bank of the river, where they met those of a man with a rod and line before him. It was fortunate that the angler did not ask Kyuichi why he looked so sad.