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Meantime, in the Kano home, Mata and Umè moved about in different planes of consciousness. The elder was still irritated by the morning's event. She considered it a personal indignity, a family outrage, that her master should walk the streets of Yeddo with a vagabond possessing neither hat nor shoes, and only half a kimono. Each tended, as usual, her allotted household tasks.
Her disclosures did, indeed, throw light upon a difficult situation. From the hospital the old servant made her way to Uchida's hotel, to learn that he had gone the day before to Kiu Shiu. With this tower of strength removed Mata felt, more than ever, that Kano's sole friend was herself. The loss of Umè was still to her a horror and a shock.
This treatment renders them delicious for immediate use, but if required to keep, they must be smoked for a couple of days, and then be highly dried in the sun. The 14th December was the Mohammedan holiday called the "Ume el Ete," on which day every person, however poor he or she may be, is supposed to dress in new clothes.
Mata listened with satisfaction as she heard him racing up the slope toward the hillside. "I wish it were indeed a Kiu Shiu peak he climbed, instead of a decent Yeddo cliff," she muttered to herself, as she tied on her apron and began to wash the supper dishes. "But, alas, he will be back all too soon, perhaps before my master and Miss Umè come down from the temple."
"I will return with you as soon as I may," Tatsu had assured his father on the day of reading Umè's letter. "I will try to live, and even to paint. Only, I pray you, speak not the name of her I have lost." This promise was given willingly enough. Kano's chief difficulty now was to hide his growing happiness. It was much to his interest that the subject of Umè be avoided.
Kano turned sourly. "Why," he thought, "in Shaka's name, could n't she have been a son?" He rose, however, shaking off his wooden clogs so that they remained upon the path below, and followed Umè to the zashiki, or main room of the house, with the best view of the garden. The tea was delicious in its first delicate infusion; the pickled plums most stimulating to a morning appetite.
There was a hissing noise as of a fawn hurrying down a tangled slope. The hedge near the cliff end of the garden dipped and squeaked and shook indignant plumes after a figure that had desecrated its green guardianship, and was now striding ruthlessly across the enclosure. Umè heard and saw; then wrung her hands in terror. It was he, of course, the Dragon Painter; and he would speak with her.
Attire yourself promptly, I entreat: prepare one of the small trays for your august parent, and get out two of the pickled plums from the blue jar." Umè, with an exaggerated sigh of regret, rose to her feet. Quilt and cushions were pushed into a corner for later airing. Her toilet was swift and simple.
"Hear me, Umè-ko, it is my command! Never again approach that tree. It is a goblin tree. Some dead, unhappy woman, drowned here in the self-death, must inhabit it and would entice you to destruction. Oh, Umè, my wife, my wife! I saw the black earth grinning beneath your feet. I cannot bear it! Come away from this place at once, at once! The river itself may reach out snares to us."
Umè had loved to catch them in her hands, wondering at their brightness, and trying to make him wonder, too. Love-letters of the passing year, she called them; songs dyed with the autumn's heart's-blood of regret that he must yield the sweet, warm earth to his gray rival, winter.
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