Part 13 (1/2)

Page joined us, inquiring anxiously, ”You are not hurt? I call it plucky, but very foolish. Didn't you hear me call to you?”

Zura, looking up from fastening her shoe, replied stiffly, ”Mr.

Hanaford, once is quite enough for you to interfere with my affairs.”

The boy flushed, then smiled, and dropped to the rear.

As she spoke I could but notice her voice was a little less joyous. It sounded a note of weariness as if her high spirit, though unconquered, was a bit tired of the game.

In depressed silence our party mingled with the throng on its way to the shrine where the last tribute was to be paid. The place of devotion was in a dense grove, isolated and weird. A single upright post held a frail, box-like contrivance. The inner recess of this was supposed to hold a relic of Buddha--some whispered a finger, some a piece of the great teacher's robe; but whatever the holy emblem, both place and shrine were surrounded with a veil of superst.i.tious mystery and held in awe. A lonely taper burned before the shrine, dimly lighting a small opening covered with ground gla.s.s and disclosed above a written warning to all pa.s.sers-by to stop and offer prayer or else be cursed.

The crowd of wors.h.i.+pers paid tribute, but rather than pa.s.s on, lingered in the shadow, their curious eyes fixed upon the half-foreign girl.

It was splendid for her to brave the fire-G.o.d, but no living soul dared face the Holy Shrine with the scorn Zura's face and manner so plainly showed. Admiration melted into distrust. They would wait and see the end.

One by one my host, his mother, wife and daughter pa.s.sed before the relic and reverently bowed. Then they stood aside in a silent group, slightly apart from Page and me. It was Zura's turn. In the face of Kis.h.i.+moto San, as he looked at his granddaughter, was concentrated the power of his will and all the intolerant pa.s.sion of his religion. He looked and he waited--in vain. The girl did not move.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, but his words fairly stabbed the air. ”Obey me! Approach and bow!”

Zura seemed to be turned to stone. But her words were as clear and as measured as his own. ”I will not! Now or ever!”

Past all endurance of the girl's disrespect, the man made one step forward, grasped Zura by the shoulders, and pushed her towards the shrine. The force sent her forward. As she stumbled she seized a bamboo pole. With it she gave one swift blow. At our feet the little shrine lay shattered, and out of its secret recess rolled a pasteboard box, mildewed and empty.

Then, like the hissing wind, rose the quick anger of the people.

At the same instant Page and the crowd rushed toward Zura, who, with bamboo stick in her raised hand, stood white and defiant.

A coolie made a lunge at her. With closed fist Page Hanaford struck him full in the face; the other arm s.h.i.+elded Zura. Another man spat at her, and met the fate of his brother from Page's well-directed blow. There is nothing so savage as a j.a.panese mob when roused to anger. Knowing them to be cruel and revengeful, my heart stood still as I watched the throng close about Page and Zura. I knew the boy single-handed could not hold out long before the outraged wors.h.i.+pers.

Then above the noise and curses and threats Kis.h.i.+moto San's voice rang out. ”Stop! you crawling vipers of the swamp! How dare you brawl before this sacred place? How dare you touch one of my blood! My granddaughter accounts to me, not to the sp.a.w.n of the earth--such as you! Disperse your dishonorable bodies to your dishonored homes! Go!”

Blind to reason, they cowered before a masterful mind. They knew the unbending quality of Kis.h.i.+moto's will, his power to command, to punish.

The number grew steadily less, leaving Page and Zura and her grandfather alone.

Kis.h.i.+moto San turned to the girl and with words cold as icicles, cutting as a whiplash, dismissed the child of his only daughter from his house and home. He cared neither where she went, nor what she did. She no longer belonged to him or his kind. He disowned her. Her foreign blood would be curse enough.

Bidding his family follow, he turned and left. As Mrs. Wingate pa.s.sed her disgraced offspring, with troubled voice and bewildered looks she repeated once more her set formula of reproof, ”Oh, Zura! I no understand yo' naughty; I no like yo' bad.”

The homeless girl, Page, and I were left in the darkness.

”Come with me, Zura,” I said, not knowing what else to do; and the three of us made our way toward the high twinkling light that marked the House of the Misty Star.

As the boy walked beside her, hatless, tie and collar disarranged, I could but see what his defense of Zura had cost him in physical strength. His face twitched with the effort to control his shaking limbs; that strange illness had robbed him of so much.

”Please, Mr. Hanaford, do not trouble to climb the steps with us,” I urged. ”There is no danger. By now the crowd is doubtless laughing over the whole thing.”

”No, Miss Jenkins,” he said, ”I cannot leave you till you are safely shut in the house. Rather interesting, wasn't it?”

”Interesting! Well, I guess I know now what making a night of it means.”