The Motor Maids in Fair Japan Part 25

"Oh, he did. That was the point. The magic curse had to be repeated every year, and the saint gave the receipt to a priest and it was handed down from one generation to another in the priest's family for nearly nine hundred years, but the demon still pursued, as you have probably observed."

They were all silent for a while. Mary was making a picture in her mind of the aged priest in his white robes standing like a midget on the side of the vast mountain exorcising the storm king. That personage, she imagined, was a gigantic figure formed princ.i.p.ally of black clouds with a terrifying human countenance. Every breath was a whirlwind or a hailstorm and when he struck the side of the mountain with his staff the lightning flashed--

Here Mary's thoughts were interrupted by just such a flash uncomfortably near.

Billie leaped to her feet.

"Oh, Nicholas," she cried, "do you think Papa could still be looking for me? Suppose he should be out now in all this frightful wind! I hadn't thought of it until this moment."

"He'll be all right, Miss Billie," answered Nicholas soothingly. "Don't you worry."

"Don't you tell me not to worry," cried Billie, almost angrily. "Do you think Papa would look after himself if he thought I was lost on the mountain? Oh, heavens, why did we count those old broken statues?"

Nicholas laughed.

"Excuse me," he said, choking back his amus.e.m.e.nt at sight of Billie's reproachful eyes which even the dim lantern light could not hide. "What are you going to do?" he added, as Billie seized the lantern from his hand.

"I'm going to wave this at the door and yell with all my strength until I haven't any voice left. If Papa is anywhere near he may see it and come straight here."

Nicholas, who, having also had much training in camps and outdoor life, had not felt the least uneasiness about Mr. Campbell's safety, now quietly took the lantern from Billie and began waving it to and fro at the door, while they both shouted again and again. But their voices were lost in the roar of the tempest. Billie stifled a sob.

"Papa!" she whispered to herself. "Dearest, dearest Papa!"

While she spoke a flash of lightning lit up the side of the mountain, and in that momentary illumination Billie saw her father toiling up the path against the wind and rain.

"Papa, Papa!" she shrieked, seizing the lantern and waving it wildly back and forth.

"Halloo!" yelled Nicholas, and then there came an answering shout, a really human cry this time, and after several breathless moments of waiting Mr. Campbell staggered into the temple.

Nicholas and Mary turned their faces away at sight of his emotion when he found his daughter in his arms. He actually buried his face on her shoulder and wept like a child.

"I was beginning to think I was never going to see you again, sweetheart," he said brokenly.

It gave Mary a lonesome, remote feeling. She drew away from the others into a corner of the temple and rested her chin on her hands.

"I wonder how it would feel to have some one big and strong and--and handsome to love and protect one like that," she thought contemplatively.

Just then a figure staggered into the circle of light cast by the lantern. It was Mr. Buxton.

"Good evening," he said. "Delightful weather, isn't it? Suppose we shed a little light on Carlton's path," he added calmly, holding the light to the door. Reggie was close behind his friend, however, and with feelings of enormous relief, the little company proceeded to sit down on the floor and relate their experiences.

"It all really happened," remarked Mary, after Billie had confessed the cause of all the trouble, "because we tried to count the four hundred statues of Buddha and never got the same answer twice, and he naturally didn't like it, and I suppose he put us to sleep and summoned the Storm King--"

"No, child," interrupted Mr. Buxton, "I am sorry to disabuse your romantic young mind, but it really happened because the pressure of the coming storm had a stupefying effect. Buddha was a very high-minded gentleman. He would never have taken offence over such a trivial matter."

"Don't contradict her, Buxton," said Mr. Campbell. "You have no imagination to comprehend the supernatural, anyhow."

"It would be supernatural for two women to count alike," answered the incorrigible bachelor, who would have the last word.

Gradually the storm spent its fury, and by midnight they were able to return to the little villa. Except for a few scratches and bruises, the only important result of the Storm King's visit was Nancy's determination to write a letter to Mme. Fontaine.

CHAPTER XVII.

A VISIT OF CEREMONY.

The most unhappy person in the whole of fair j.a.pan was Miss Nancy Brown one lovely morning in July. At least she thought she was; which is very near to being the same thing. She had dispatched a letter to Mme.

Fontaine and received an answer that the bra.s.s vase by the writing desk was now empty--a curious way to put it, Nancy thought, and one which did not quiet her uneasiness in the least. In return for this bit of information the Widow of Shanghai asked a strange favor of Nancy, one which puzzled and troubled her considerably. But it was a simple request and Nancy could not see any reason for declining to grant it.

So, Mistress Nancy was the prey to indefinable anxieties and vague forebodings. Everybody had noticed her sadness. Mr. Campbell had spoken of it with concern and had promised to take them all on another trip to the mountains.

"The heat is too much for the child," he had remarked to his cousin. "I didn't realize she was such a fragile little thing. Even Mary Price seems more robust."

"She never was a fragile little thing before, Duncan," answered Miss Campbell. "I always thought that Billie and Nancy had unlimited endurance. The other girls are much more delicate. Do you suppose Nancy has anything on her mind?"

Mr. Campbell shook his head. It was impossible for him to think that any of those light-hearted creatures could have troubles. They had nothing to think about but their own pleasures; nothing to do but enjoy the house and the garden, the tea parties and excursions. Their happy laughter and gay chatter, floating to him through the open window of his library did not carry a single note of sadness; for Nancy had tried to cover her unhappiness under a cloak of forced gaiety; but she could not hide her tragic little face, nor the pathetic droop of her lips and the circles under her eyes.

"I can never look Billie in the face again," she had said to herself a hundred times. "I almost feel as if I had murdered somebody and hidden the body away. n.o.body knows about the letter but it's just as bad as if they did. I believe I couldn't be more miserable if I had sent it to Billie. Thinking is just as bad as saying things out loud, and writing them seems to make it even worse."

Furthermore, Onoye had been acting very strangely toward Nancy lately.

Twice she had come and stood before the American girl with downcast eyes and twice tried to say something, failed and slipped quietly away.

On this wonderful Sunday morning, when the world seemed indescribably fresh and fair after the recent rains, only Nancy was sad. Mary, who had blossomed into a flower herself in the soft warm air of j.a.pan, was fairly dancing along the walk.

"There is so much to do," she cried. "I haven't a moment to spare. The red lilies are in bloom. They all live together in a place near the old shrine. Saiki says if the weather keeps on like this the lotus flowers in the pond will open. Over against the old south wall there is a climbing rose bush that is a perfect marvel. You see, Saiki tells me all the secrets of the garden. He and I are the most devoted friends."

The girls smiled indulgently at Mary, who seemed to them to have developed in a few weeks from a timid, shrinking little soul with a tinge of sadness in her nature into the most joyous being.

"Go on and tell us some more," put in Elinor. "I like to hear all this garden gossip. You'll be hearing the secret the white rose whispered to the red next; and how the sensitive plant shrank when she heard the news, and the lilies shut up--"

"And the flags waved and the gra.s.ses drew their blades, and the trees barked and the cow slips and the bull rushes--" cried Billie. And they all burst into absurd laughter, that is, all except Nancy, who felt immensely remote from this foolish, pleasant talk.

"It will never do for you to be a teacher, Mary, dearest," said Elinor.

"You'd simply fade and droop in a schoolroom. We'll just have to look up some other occupation for you. If I had my way with Providence you should do nothing but play in a garden all your days in a land of perpetual summer."

"I am afraid I should have to pa.s.s into another world to accomplish anything so wonderful," laughed Mary. "It sounds a good deal like Paradise to me, and I haven't learned to play my harp yet. I would never be admitted into such a beautiful garden until I had learned to play real music on the harp, and not discords."

Mary often spoke in metaphors like this, which half puzzled, half amused her friends.

"I never heard you strike a discord, Mary, dear," Nancy observed sadly, when Billie interrupted:

"Canst tell me who that grand personage is riding up the avenue?"

In a jinriksha drawn by one man, while two others ran in front to clear the way of imaginary obstacles, since there were no real ones, sat a magnificent person clad in full j.a.panese regalia. He wore a robe of dark rich colors, but the girls could not see his face, which was hidden by a parasol.