ON a day in the season of greatest heat, a few months after the going of Lord Saito Gonji to the front, there staggered up the tortuous and winding pathway, which climbed the mountain-side to where the House of Slender Pines rested as on a cliff, a curious figure. She was garbed in the conventional dress of the geisha, and the burning sun, beating down upon the little figure, showed the gold of her wide obi and the glittering vermilion of her kimono.
Something bound to the woman’s neck and back seemed to crush her almost double beneath its weight, and she clung weakly to the stumps of tree and bush as she made her way along.
It seemed almost, to the geishas sitting in the cool shade of the pavilion, that she dragged herself along on her hands and knees.
One ceased strumming upon the samisen, and a dancer, idly illustrating a few new gestures to the admiring apprentices, stopped in the middle of a movement.
Omi suddenly screeched and caught at the sleeve of the dancer. No one moved or spoke. They stood dumbfounded, staring with unbelieving eyes at the Spider, as she crept up the last height and dropped in silent exhaustion in their midst. There, with the glowing sun beating mercilessly down upon her, entangled in her glimmering gown, she lay like a great dead butterfly.
There was a stir among the geishas. Eyes met eyes in meaning, shocked glances; but still, from custom, they were voiceless.
Suddenly the little Omi began to run about like one bereft of her senses. One moment she knelt by her former mistress; the next she sought to awaken the chaperon, shaking and pounding that enormously stout and somnolent lady. Several maids now joined her, and they ran about in panic-stricken circles, uncertain what to do. Matsuda was absent. The poor, mindless Okusama was indoors, playing and talking with her countless dolls, quite oblivious of all about her. Should they go to her? Would she understand?
Omi finally darted into the house, and, dragging the Okusama from her dolls, drew her out into the sunlight. For a moment the demented creature stared with a puzzled, troubled look at the form upon the ground. Then she began to utter strange little inarticulate cries and threw herself upon the body of the Spider.
She seemed suddenly to regain all of her lost senses. She felt the geisha’s hands, listened to her heart, screamed for water, and tore at the object upon the Spider’s back, drawing it warmly to her own bosom.
One maiden brought water, another a parasol, another a fan, while Omi supported Moonlight’s head upon her lap. One vied with the other in performing some service for the one they all had loved.
Presently the heavy eyes of the Spider opened, and, dazedly, she appeared to recognize the faces of those about her. A faint smile crept to her white lips. But the smile quickly faded, and a piteous look of commingled fear and pain stole over her wan little face. She put back her hands to her neck and started up, moaning. Loving arms were about her. They reassured her that all about her were friends, and showed her her baby, where, safe and sweet, it rested in the bosom of the Okusama. Then for a long time she lay with her eyes closed, a look of peace, such as comes after a long, exhausting race, upon her face.
Later, when, refreshed and stronger, she rested among the geishas in the pavilion, she weakly and somewhat incoherently told them the story of her wanderings.
............