The Man the Martians Made

Now, the first of these five great occasions was that day Shijiro was accepted in the haughty Imperial Guards, most of whom had genealogies which would best impress us by the yards of illuminated mulberry paper they covered. Arisuga had many of such yards himself. That was not a question. But his inches raised many questions. The Guards were tall. Shijiro Arisuga was small. Though he was a samurai of the samurai, his ancestors kugé, it seemed impossible to admit him until Colonel Zanzi spoke.

"He is a samurai," said Zanzi, gruffly. "Of course all Japanese fight. But the rest, the commoners, are new to it. It is possible in a pinch for them to run away. It happened once to my knowledge. But a samurai goes only in the one direction when he is before an enemy. You all know what direction that is. The commoner may be as good as the samurai in a century. But the samurai is always dependable now. I wish the whole of the Guards were shizoku. His uncles, the Shijiro of Aidzu, though they were shiro men at Kyoto, and so against the emperor, in that old time, were, nevertheless, kugé by rank. I do not see how we can keep him out of the Guards. I don't want to, whether he is tall or small."

Now Zanzi was an autocrat who constantly pretended that he was not. He had an iron temper which he nearly always concealed under courteous persistence, until his men understood what must be without his ever having precisely said that it must be. So, in this matter, he pretended to have left it to them. But he had decided upon Shijiro's final admission to the regiment, even though it was a time of peace, when one's qualifications were more strictly scanned than in time of war, simply because he was of the samurai, whom he adored.

"Nevertheless," warned Nijin, the recruiting major, "he is considerably below the physical standard."

"He is not the stuff for the Guards," alleged Yasuki.

And Matsumoto said:-

"I have heard him called 'Onna-Jin.'"

"Girl-Boy!" laughed Jokichi. "So have I."

"He used to carry a samisen about with him when he was a child-he and little Yoné, Baron Mutsu's daughter."

This came from Kitsushima, who added:-

"I have seen them at Mukojima, wandering under the cherry-boughs, hand in hand, and singing childish songs!"

"I have seen him doing that later, where the lanterns shine in Geisha street, and the little girl was not Yoné."

They all laughed. This was not seriously against him.

"Having settled it that he practises the art of music, I will surprise you with the information that he also pretends to the sister art of poesy," laughed Asami. "He is the author of 'The Great Death'!"

"What!"

From half a dozen of them.

And they broke into the song: hoarse, iron, clanging, mongolian! Within the six notes of the old Japanese scale!

(Do not be surprised at this. The Japanese army is full of poets. Indeed, the Japanese land is full of them. They will spin you a complete comedy or tragedy between seventeen or thirty-seven syllables. And, to practise poetry is not there as here, heinous to one's friends. I know of a gunner who sat cross-legged under his gun behind Poutuloff and wrote a poem concerning The-Moon-in-a-Moat. It was finished as the Russians got his range and dropped a covey of shrapnel upon him. After the smoke cleared they found him dead. And he is forgotten. But his poem was also found and lived on.)

This was "The Great Death" of Shijiro Arisuga.

"Yell of metal,

Strake of flame!

Death-wound spurting

In my face!

Hail Red Death!"

"Banzai!" cried Jokichi.

"Teikoku Banzai!" yelled Asami.

And, after the tumult, Yasuki, the reserved, himself said:-

"By Shaka, it is the very Yamato Damashii itself! The spirit of young Japan."

"Nippon Denji!" laughed jolly Kitsushima.

"Yes! The Boys in Blue-as they called them in America in 1864."

Matsumoto had been to Princeton. But the thought of war-giving his soul for his emperor-made him as mad as they who had never left their native soil.

"I take all back," cried Nijin, into the tumult.

"And I," yelled Yasuki, who had agreed with him.

"Let him in!" shrilled Matsumoto and Jokichi together. "If he can write songs-"

"And let him sing! Let him sing war-songs!" adjured Kitsushima!

Still, the happy Nijin, out of propriety of his office, as recruiting-major, pretended to wish to stem the current started by the song.

"One moment!" he cried.

But they laughed him down and again started the war-song.

"I will have a moment!"

"Take two!" shouted Jokichi.

"Singing and fighting are two very different occupations."

"No, they are precisely the same," laughed Kitsushima.

"I deny it!"

It was a fierce yell from Nijin, who was happiest, to pretend tremendous anger.

"I affirm it!" laughed Jokichi, into his face.

"Pretender!" cried Asami, shaking a happy fist at his superior.

Asami and Nijin stood with Zanzi for his admission.

Still, Nijin said in thunder:-

"Remember! poets never practise their preaching."

Nevertheless, if he had entered then, Arisuga would have been chosen, by acclaim, because of his song.

But enthusiasm cools rapidly, and these stoical orientals could be moved to enthusiasm by but this one thing-war.

So that after a month-two-it required another word from grizzled Zanzi, who had been in the war of the Restoration, to let Shijiro in.

"Jokoji!" That was the word. "His father is at Jokoji!"

And they demanded, and he told, the story of Jokoji-which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell. Save this little, so that you may understand, that it was that last terrible stand of Saigo behind the hills of Kagoshima, where the Shogunate perished and the empire was born again in 1868. And the shoguns you may care to know were that mighty line of feodal chieftains who had usurped the throne from the time of Yoritomo, to that of Keiki. For all these years the imperial power had rioted at Yedo, in the hands of two generals, while the emperor, a prisoner in his palace-hermitage in Kyoto, had been but the high priest of his people.

They are there yet, at Jokoji, to the last man, Saigo and his gallant rebels, in a great trench, without their heads, a warning to future rebels.

After that other word-Jokoji-Arisuga was chosen.

Observe that they finally took him because of his father-though he died a rebel. Indeed, those old insurgents, of 1868, are gradually being canonized with crimson death-names, because they neither knew dishonor, no, nor suffered it.

THE FLYING OF THE AUGUST CARP

There was a time, of course, when Shijiro was too young to think of being a soldier-save of the tin-sworded and cocked-hatted kind. And it must be confessed, nay, it was confessed, by his uncles with profound sorrow, that he cared little enough for even that. It is quite true that lighted paper lanterns gleaming in the night, and morning glories with first sun on them, and his small samisen, pleased him more. All this was quite heinous to his samurai uncles and they did what they could to correct it and instil into the little mind of the boy that love for the glory of combat which they had.

But, as often happens, their care and their prayers availed them nothing, while their carelessness and their repinings availed much. Of that I shall stop and tell: the picture-the flying of the carp-how all the life of the little boy was changed in one night,-so that he thought no more of Yoné, the lanterns and the flowers, but only of being a soldier.

It was that day when he was ten. All his relatives were present and they flew a tremendous number of paper carp. For you are to know that this is the way the gods have of telling one on one's birthday in Japan, whether one is to be as strong and virile as the open-mouthed carp in a swift wind, or as flaccid as they when there is no wind. The gods were kind and sent a propitious day. The carp stood out, straining upon their poles so that some of them broke loose and whirled cloud-ward-whereat the multitude of Arisuga's relatives shouted with joy. For this was an august omen of great good. Arisuga cared nothing for the omen. But the carp eddying upward, and those straining on their poles, were very fine.

The tired, happy little boy had been put early to bed, while his uncles remained to smoke and gossip. For one was from Kobé and the other was from Osaka, and they did not meet as often as they could have wished.

For a long time there was no sound save the tapping of their pipes against the metal rim of the hibachi as they were emptied of their ashes to be filled again. This is still much the way of ceremonious old men in Japan. They have learned the comradeship of silence.

Presently this sound of the tapping pipes woke the little boy from his dreaming; and hearing whisperings in the room beyond he crept from his futons to the fusuma, which he silently parted to look and listen.

His small eyes grew greater as he saw that his two uncles were still there, and greater yet as he observed that they gesticulated in the direction of the picture of "The Great Death" while they whispered.

Now this was a thing which had always troubled him: that they whispered together about that picture, and that, somehow, he was included in the mystery. It had hung there at the tokonoma since he could remember. He had been taught to reverence it; for nowhere have pictures more influence than in Japan.

It was divided in the horizontal middle into two panels. In that below was carnage amazing. On the one side were the hosts of the emperor under the brocade banner (the most ancient Japanese flag of war), yet armed with guns and using cannon. On the other side were the rebel hosts of Saigo with ancient halberds and spears and in bamboo armor, depending upon the gods alone. Dying upon one of the cannon, with a shout upon his lips and ecstasy upon every feature, was a soldier in the uniform of the ancient Imperial Guards. The panel above showed one of the heavens far toward nirvana. There this same soldier appeared glorified and on the way to his reward in Shaka's bosom. Of course! He had died for the emperor! The artist had not spared the glory when he came to write the picture. And yet he had preserved a certain family likeness, so that little Arisuga presently came to know, by the subtle presence and teaching of his uncles, that this was Jokoji, the graveyard-battlefield in Satsuma, and that the figure informed with the ecstasy of the great red death for the emperor, was his father!

That no part of the lesson might be lost, the artist had also shown, in that lower panel, the obverse of the reward of fealty. Those who had fought against the emperor were being tossed like dogs into a trench. Their heads were off. And the little boy had been taught to have no pity upon them. Of course! He had none. They had impiously rebelled against that god whose other name is Mutsuhito, Mikado!

Moreover, in the lower corner of this panel, in an amazing opening among clouds with blazing edges, was that part of the hells reserved for the souls of traitors; and there the enemies of the emperor, who had died at Jokoji, were being variously tortured, in the intervals of their reincarnations.

A GOOD LIE

Said Namishima, Arisuga's uncle from Kobé, to Kiomidzu, his uncle from Osaka:-

"The flying of the august carp has been honorably auspicious and doubtless the gods now design to make him, in spirit, unlike his regretted father."

"It was the gods' punishment upon him for fighting against his emperor-that his son should miserably be an onna-jin," whispered Kiomidzu.

"Nevertheless the honorable picture has aided greatly in making him adore the emperor," protested Namishima.

"Yes, the money for its painting was augustly well spent," agreed Kiomidzu, wisely shaking his head.

"Some day he will know, notwithstanding, that his father was a rebel. Others know. It cannot unhappily be kept from him always."

"No."

"Perhaps then we shall be augustly dead-"

Both bowed and murmured again.

"And beyond his most excellent vengeance."

"Nevertheless," said Namishima, finally, "the august conscience within informs me that we have brought him up honorably well!"

"There is excellently no doubt of it!" agreed Kiomidzu.

They bowed to each other.

For a while there was silence and the tapping of the pipes. Then they spoke of a new and weightier matter.

Said Namishima-and here the little boy's eyes bulged:-

"If the soul of our brother continues to wander in the Meido, it will not be chargeable, now, in the heavens, to us, but to him. We have kept the lamps alight. We have taught him honor."

"We are too aged, also," agreed Kiomidzu, "to redeem him forth unto the way to the heavens by dying in his stead the great death. It is for his son!"

"In us, besides," Namishima went on, "the gods could not be augustly deceived. But the child has his name."

"Therefore, should he die the great death, the merciful gods may be deceived by the name into thinking it he who died at Jokoji. In that case he would not only be redeemed to the way to the heavens, but on this earth his name would be graciously added to honor."

So said he from Kobé. And he from Osaka:-

"For the gods are merciful!"

"So merciful, I sometimes abjectly think, that they desire to be deceived, for our peace of mind."

"Or, at least," mended Kiomidzu, to whom this was a trifle too much, "they will close their eyes while we augustly do it."

Namishima disliked a trifle the correction of his brother:-

"Do not the gods so act upon the minds of their creatures that they remember or forget? Well, then! It is true that now others know that our brother died on the rebel side at Jokoji. But do we not know that, in the course of much time, the gods can make this to be forgotten, and make to be remembered that he died on the emperor's side?"

"Yea, if his son should die for the emperor."

"Yea! For the name is the same!"

"And I have had a sign in a dream," said Kiomidzu, lowering his voice a little more. "Before me stood a tall god-"

They both bowed and rubbed their hands.

"-I knew neither his august name nor his presence. But his face shone as the sun, so that it is certain he was a god who can see the end from the beginning, and all between. And thus he spake: 'Rise and light the lamps and burn the sweet and bitter incense. For Shijiro Arisuga, he who died at Jokoji, shall have a crimson death-name.'"

"How shall that come to pass, augustness?" I asked upon my face.

"'Through his son,'" said the god. "'The names are the same. Arise and light the lamps and burn the bitter incense.'"

"And the augustness only vanished with the light of the new lamps I lighted before Shijiro's tablet."

"Yet," doubted Namishima, though a deity had spoken, "the vengeance of the gods must also first be accomplished-yea, satisfied full! And until he is redeemed by this unhappy onna-jin, must our brother wander in the dark Meido-so think I! The new lamps will be sacrilege."

"Nevertheless, one cannot honorably tell," argued the milder uncle from Osaka, himself not convinced by his vision. "His father was no taller nor of a greater spirit than he. He may not always be an onna-jin. And, also, any day the vengeance of the gods may be satisfied and they will permit him to redeem both his own and the spirit of his father. For I believe it true that he was not beheaded by the victors at Jokoji, and cast into the ditch as dogs are cast, but committed the honorable seppuku upon himself. That he would do."

"Let it be hoped so. This is our one blot wherefore we cannot speak of our ancestors."

And they chafed a prayer from between their hands that it might all be so.

The little boy parted the fusuma yet more and looked. He had been taught that his face must always be as expressionless as if it were always under observation. And these old uncles had, more than others, taught him so. Yet now they were not observing their own precepts. Their faces were unmasked, and showed terror and anxiety. And this communicated itself to the boy as he looked.

"Does it matter to the gods," asked Kiomidzu, "how fealty to the heaven-born-one is augustly inculcated?"

"'The way does not matter when one is arrived!'" said Namishima.

"And 'a lie which doeth good,'" quoted Kiomidzu, "'is, manifestly, a good lie.'"

"Happy is he," said Namishima, "who, being a liar for the truth, is willing, like us, to abide by its consequences from the unenlightened, to whom there is but one office in a lie-evil!"

"Nembutsu!" agreed the brother of Namishima, his hard hands rasping with his prayer as do the soles of worn sandals.

And then they went on, to the end of the story of this picture of "The Great Death," which had been painted and hung at the tokonoma when Arisuga was a child to deceive him into thinking that his father had honorably fought and died for his emperor instead of against him, that his soul was probably in Buddha's bosom instead of wandering in the alien dark Meido, unredeemed, that his body had been burned on a pyre instead of left to rot in that great ditch in Jokoji. This these old imperialists fancied their duty. The little boy sobbed there behind the shoji.

"Sh!" whispered the uncle from Osaka.

"Sh!" echoed the uncle from Kobé. "He wakes. If he should hear, all would be of no avail."

They covered the fire of the hibachi and caused a darkness in which they stole away.

YET-A LIE LOOSENS FEALTY