The day after that we arrived in China.
Far out at sea we spied the land—all green hills with pagodas everywhere.
In the morning, not feeling Fiam move, I looked for him in his box, but it was empty, and he had disappeared. I was very anxious. There was no trace anywhere of my little friend except an odor of saki. I was afraid he had fallen on the ground and that some one had picked him up. Every time I saw a lighted pipe or cigarette my heart beat and I ran to see if the burning match could be Fiam. I couldn’t bear to leave the ship until I had found him. I actually ransacked my pockets ten times in succession. I looked in every corner of my valise, all over the floor and in every crack of the deck and in my slippers—nothing. I was afraid he had run away and I could have cried from grief.
“What have you lost?” asked one of the stewards, seeing me bending over searching on the floor and stairs.
“I am looking for a match,” I answered.
“Here is one.”
Startled, I turned quickly, but he handed me an entirely fresh box of matches.
“No, thank you,” I said. “Mine is double.”
He gazed at me in amazement and left me. If he had been the doctor he might, perhaps, have ordered ice on the head; but as he was only the steward he returned soon and gave me the bill for my meals.
I drew out my purse to pay him, and on opening it I saw a lot of papers. I looked between them feverishly. Just guess! Fiam was among the postage stamps, but in what a state!
While still wet with saki he had left his box and, without knowing what he was doing, had crept among the stamps, because that way was familiar to him. Of course, the glue on the stamps had stuck to him, and the more he struggled to free himself the stickier he became. Then the saki had dried, leaving him all covered by a collection of stamps. Think how he looked! On his legs he had two blue five-cent stamps and three red one-cent each; on his chest there were two red and one yellow. On his arm was another of one cent.
He was dreadfully humiliated, and asked me to help him get rid of them.
I carefully stripped off those on his back, but he begged me to leave some pieces on rather than scrape them off with my penknife. So from this time Fiam wore a garment as gay as a clown’s. All over him you could recognize little pieces of the face of the Emperor whose likeness is on all Japanese stamps.
Fiam was very proud of this costume on account of those fragments of the Imperial face.
“With this protection,” he said, “I can accomplish wonders.”
“Look out,” I told him. “Your suit has cost me more than twenty cents. What if I should wipe your coat off and put on a Chinese stamp to punish you?”
At this he was very angry. And when he was angry he had a queer way of getting even with me. He would say:
“All that I told you to write is false, absurd and stupid; it is exactly opposite to the pure and simple truth.” After that he wouldn’t speak for two hours. You can see that he was really dreadfully provoked.
Twice more during that long journey I thought I had lost Fiam. Each time it was on account of that hole in his box through which he crawled out to ramble, and which he couldn’t always find on his way back.
One morning in a Chinese village, where I had passed the night, just as I was mounting my horse to ride out to the army I discovered that Fiam had disappeared.
I looked everywhere, especially among my postage stamps, but couldn’t find him.
In the afternoon as I lay under a tree in the stillness of a deserted field I thought I heard his little voice.
“Fiam! Fiam!” I called.
I could make out the response distinctly:
“Miferino! Miferino!”
As I was warm I had taken off my waistcoat to use as a pillow as I lay stretched out. The voice came from that.
I fumbled around until I found him shut in between the lining and the cloth. I pulled him out and greeted him effusively.
“How did you ever get there?”
“I have a habit of going out at night.”
“A very bad one.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I don’t sleep. Last night I went out as usual. Your watch near my house made such an abominable noise, tic, tac! It was like a blacksmith’s forge. Never mind. I went out and took a trip over your clothes.”
“Over my clothes?”
“Exactly; you had thrown them on the floor, and they made a beautiful landscape.”
“A landscape?”
“Surely. All in a heap they looked like mountains and valleys, ravines, plains, precipices and grottoes—all kinds of things. It was a great pleasure to travel all over it. I climbed up and slid down. I sat on round things like immense tubes.”
“They were folds.”
“I know it, but your folds are gigantic to me. As I went around I discovered the entrance to a cave. I went in. It was a long tunnel where I had to crawl on all fours. When I got half-way in I wanted to turn around; but I couldn’t, for my hands and feet got caught in the folds, so I had to go forward.”
“I see; you were in one of the sleeves.”
“When I came out from the tunnel, I discovered a great opening with a shed over it. I entered and found a cavern full of paper.”
“It was a pocket.”
“I traveled around until I found a little hole I could scarcely squeeze through.”
“Ah, yes! My pocket is a little ripped.”
“I was now in a large and empty, wearisome place, and when I wanted to get back I couldn’t find the hole through which I entered. Imagine my suffering! After a while I felt you take up the clothes and put them on. I screamed as loud as I could, but you didn’t hear me. I knew that you were looking for me, but I could do nothing. But, at last, you heard me and I am saved.”
“I say, Fiam....”
“Miferino!”
“You ought to promise me not to go out at night or I shall be obliged to make you an iron house and shut you up for a hundred years. Just think, if I lose you the first person who finds you will burn you up without giving you time to say, ‘Ouch!’”
He promised. But a few days later he was gone again.
This time I was sure I should never find him. I went three whole days without seeing him. Every evening I shook my clothes, uselessly repeating my search. I would have given ten years of my life, and paid a large sum of money, to have found him. I blamed myself for not having looked thoroughly; perhaps I had left him on the ground among the coarse Chinese mats of the house in which I had passed the night.
On the third evening, having a little spare time, I started to develop some instantaneous photographs that I had taken during the journey.
To my immense surprise Fiam appeared in every picture, or rather his shadow, thrown across each landscape. It was evident that Fiam was shut up inside of the camera. I opened it and called inside: “Fiam!” holding it near my ear.
“For pity’s sake help me!” It was his little voice beseeching. “Take me out of this!” He was so desperate that he had forgotten his usual correction of “Miferino.”
“Come out yourself.”
“I can’t. They are holding me by the leg.”
“Who are?”
“I don’t know who; please help me.”
I looked and saw my friend held by one foot caught in the spring of the box. It was not easy to get him out. His foot was broken, and when I put him on the table he limped.
“What were you doing in there?”
“That awful place,” he whined.
“But how did you get in there?”
“You left the door open and I wanted to see what it was like. I went in.... What a horrible place! Pitch dark, and every now and then a deafening noise and blinding flash, then grinding wheels. I had to look out or I should have been completely crushed. There wasn’t a safe corner. At last my foot was caught.”
“Now,” I said seriously, “you can’t live any longer in your little house. It is for your good. You may live inside of this.” I showed him my silver cigarette case. “You will be comfortable and live like a lord. You see the inside is all decorated.”
When he saw the decoration he was resigned, and wanted to see how he felt in his new home which he called the imperial tomb.
To make up for depriving him of his liberty at night, I found him a good place to spend his days when he was near me. I put him in the ribbon of my hat; only his little black head stuck outside. He saw everything at enormous distances, and always told me what he had discovered as if he were watching from the bridge of a ship.
“There is a city,” he called one day.
“How far off?”
“Twenty miles.”
“Is it large?”
“Yes, and full of soldiers.”
Then I knew we had reached the army, and were getting into the region of the fighting.
Fiam had a passion for the top of my hat, which he called the cupola. When I was alone, traveling on foot through the country, observing the position of the armies from a distance, he asked me to let him walk on the brim, which he called the balcony, and then he went around, keeping near the crown so as not to fall off.
I don’t know how he managed it, but he understood the man?uvres of war better than I. You see, Hajis are unusually intelligent. Often I couldn’t make out what was going on. I could see soldiers running, firing, apparently turning back, cavalry galloping, and could hear the roar of cannon on all sides, yet I couldn’t tell how the battle was going. But he explained everything to me.
“Look there at that hill. Do you see they are attacking? Look to the left; that is an assault. There are ten thousand men. Bravo, advance!” He would get wildly enthusiastic, running here and there and shouting orders in his squeaky little voice, screaming encouragement, reproof, praise and blame. You ought to have heard him calling: “Re?nforcements to the right! Place two batteries behind that hill! Forward with the reserves! Smash their entrenchments!” He seemed to think himself the general.
I often relied entirely on him for information. I put my hat, with him on it, on the branch of a tree or on top of a cane and went tranquilly to sleep near my horse browsing in the grass. When I awoke I called:
“Fiam, who is winning?”
“If you are awake,” he answered, “we will go and send a telegram to your journal.”
Then I would put him in the hat band, mount my horse and gallop away to the nearest military telegraph station.
We had many curious expressions. He could never understand firearms. The discharge of muskets he called little thunder, and that of cannon big thunder. He thought that men really hurled thunderbolts. When I tried to explain to him about guns and cannon he would respond:
“All right! All right! But the fact is that these machines which work with that thing you call powder are nothing but factories of thunderbolts of various sizes, and we can prove it, because we see and hear both the lightning and the thunder.”
“WHO IS WINNING?”
Another of his ideas was that the telegraph was nothing but a Haji. For him it was a live Haji in a copper wire that carried the messages. He spoke of it as “my brother of the wire.”
I tried to tell him about it: “But no, dear Fiam. This time it is really a thunderbolt that carries the message.”
“Truly!” he exclaimed sceptically. “And where is the lightning, where is the thunder? I should think that you would admit that I, a Haji, understand such things a little better than you.”
The telegrams that he dictated to me and that I had to alter in private, usually began this way: “Brother of the wire, go and say to our friends in Europe and America that to-day after four hours of big and little thunder, etc.”
Seeing him so infatuated with fighting, I said to him once:
“It appears to me, Fiam——”
“Miferino!”
“That you love war!”
“Not at all. Do you think any one could love slaughter?”
“But you think of nothing else!”
“That is true. This is a question of my country, so I would like to be a soldier and fight with all my strength. I swear to you I wouldn’t mind dying. Just think that the future of the country for centuries and centuries, its prosperity and greatness, depend upon our victory. Hurrah for the war!”
“Brave Fiam, you are a good citizen.”
One day when we were far away from our post there was a great storm. It rained cats and dogs, and the brim of my hat dripped all around like an overflowing gutter.
I walked through the wood with my head bent forward, completely forgetting Fiam, who was fastened to the band of the crown and was soaked through and through. After many hours I reached my tent. I took off my hat and pulled out Fiam, whom I placed on a blanket, knowing how he loved to climb around the folds. But to my dismay I saw that he didn’t move. He stayed just as I had put him; flat on his back, with his arms stretched out and one leg in the air. He looked as if he were dead.
“Fiam!” I called frightened. “Fiam, my friend, speak to me.”
But he was quite still.
“He is dead, he is dead!” I exclaimed, almost with tears in my eyes. “The rain has killed him, and it is all my fault. I was so cruel to forget him.” I continued to call, “Fiam, come back. Forgive me! Fiam!”
It seemed to me as if I had lost a brother of whom I should have been careful and should have protected better. I was overcome with remorse. I thought of all the delightful times we had had together, of his kindness, of his courage, of the work we had shared and of our sincere friendship.
“Fiam, Fiam!” I called, now and again, hoping to hear once more his little affectionate voice.
At last I thought of trying a radical way of reviving him if there were still the tiniest hope.
I took a flask of saki which I had had on the ship and dropped a little on Fiam. Then I put a wad of cotton (which I kept handy in case it was needed for wounds) in the cigarette box; then put my friend on the cotton, as if he were in a beautiful white feather bed, shut the box and put it near the fire, which I lighted as best I could in the midst of my small shelter.
When I again opened the box and looked in, he was lying there immovable, his arms stretched out and his little leg raised up.
“Fiam!” I called.
No answer. I closed the box and waited, and am not ashamed to say that I waited in tears. At last after about an hour had passed, during which I had looked in for the hundredth time, I jumped for joy. His little voice had answered.
But it was a tiny voice, even smaller and feebler than usual. I asked him no end of questions most anxiously.
“Speak. What is the matter? How do you feel? What can I do for you? Tell me—why don’t you move?”
“Why,” he replied faintly, “because the water has swollen my joints.” That was it. The dampness had enlarged the wood and shrunk the thread in such a way that the little fellow couldn’t move ever so slightly.
“But you ought to have told me at once,” I said to him reprovingly and in an affectionate tone.
“I couldn’t. I was suffocated by the melted phosphorus. Now I begin to feel stronger.”
“Wait a minute; I will put you near the fire again, and when you are comfortably dry you will be as well as you ever were.”
“I am so afraid of the flames! Shut up the imperial tomb, and don’t put me too near the fire,” he warned me.
“Just keep quiet.”
Three hours later Fiam was completely cured of his cold, and walked carefully, like a person on stilts, around the house.
But a queer thing had happened. You remember that after the incident of the postage stamps Fiam had always been covered with little gummed pieces of paper showing parts of the Emperor’s face in different colors. The rain had softened the gum, and when he was put in the cotton to dry it had stuck to him, and with all my attempts to get him free I was unable to succeed, so that now my companion was completely covered with thick down, a kind of white fur coat, which made him look like a miniature automobilist.
I proposed to shave him with my razor, but he opposed this energetically.
“Don’t do it!” he said. “In the first place your razor frightens me. I see that you can’t even shave yourself without cutting your chin, and one of those slips would cut me in two. Then I like this fur; it is becoming. It makes me look bigger, you know how thin I am, and it protects me from bad weather. Let it be.”
After this to protect Fiam whenever we went out in bad or threatening weather, I covered him with a magnificent waterproof made from the tin-foil I had taken off of some chocolate. I wrapped him up well, and I can’t tell you how proud he was to see himself clad in silver like an ancient prince in armour. I put a cap made of the same material on his head, which was exactly like a microscopic medieval helmet.
In this outfit Fiam was a little clumsy at first, but soon he could move with ease, and at last he was able to walk. He was never ready to take off the brilliant suit, and even when the sun shone gloriously he would say:
“Put on my waterproof; the weather is threatening.”
“It doesn’t seem so to me.”
“Yes, yes. I feel the dampness in my joints.”
I indulged his little vanity and made him happy. But he glistened so brightly that a Japanese officer once asked politely:
“What is that you wear in the band of your hat?”
“Oh, nothing,” I replied evasively; “a little pencil.”
Also I noticed that the general who commanded the troop looked at me curiously, but said nothing, because he was afraid it was beneath his dignity.
It was the first time I had been with the general. It was the day before a battle, and he had invited me to breakfast in a tent as large as a house, where all the superior officers ate, and where a military band played all the time as loud as it could.
During the whole meal I could feel Fiam moving around.
“Is he crazy?” I thought. “He will surely be seen.”
Several hours later when I was alone again I stood him on a piece of paper, and he began to caper and jump, so that he made holes in the paper.
“Look out!” I exclaimed. “Has the smell of the saki gone to your head?”
“Oh, but something beside saki!” he shouted, standing still. “I am the happiest being in the world! I have seen him again! I have found him, his own self.”
“Who?”
“The prince Funato.”
“The one you shielded from his enemies in the wood?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“But you said he was dead.”
“Well then, precisely, so I did. He died ever and ever so many years ago.”
“What then?”
“And then—oh, it is too beautiful—he has come back to life!”
“Fiam, you are laughing at me.”
“Indeed I’m not.” And he began to shout, ecstatically happy: “I have seen him again, himself, his very self!”
When he began dancing around again I caught him by the leg and held him still.
“Explain yourself,” I commanded.
“Put me astride your collar, and I will tell you.”
“All right; now talk.”
“Do you remember I told you Prince Funato died an old man? And every year at the anniversary of the battle where I had protected him by my branches”—(here Fiam gave two of those sighs of his that sounded like whistles, and observed sadly, “What a beautiful willow I was then!”) “he came to find me?”
“Indeed, I remember perfectly.”
“Very well; his spirit has entered into one of his descendants.”
“That is only a Japanese superstition.”
“So you foreigners say; you also think that the Haji is an old Japanese superstition. You have told me so, and yet you see that I really exist.”
“That is true. I beg your pardon.”
“There is no harm done. Now I have met the man who has the spirit of Prince Funato.”
“And who is it?”
“The general.”
“Not really.”
“It is he who is the descendant of the prince.”
“How did you find it out?”
“I am a Haji, and can see things that men can’t.”
“And does the general know it?”
“No; the spirit never remembers its former life.”
“Oh,” I smiled.
“Don’t be so sceptical. You ought to have more faith in me. I can tell you something else.”
“Go on, tell it.”
“Did you see that tall, serious, gray-haired colonel, with a beautiful beard, seated at the right of the general?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Colonel of the big thunderbolt?”
“The artillery——”
“If you like. Well, he is the old warrior that climbed up the mountain alone the last time to greet me. He trembled all over from age. I remember he leaned up against me and said:
“‘Honorable Willow, we shall never meet again.’” Another little whistle showed me that Fiam was much moved by his recollections.
By this time my European ideas were pretty nearly turned upside down. “What if Fiam should be right?” Two days later I called on the general with the pretext of thanking him for the excellent breakfast of moist bamboo roots that he had given me. I wanted to question him skilfully.
I found him with knitted brows bending over a map. Every once in a while he gave an order to some officer, which was received and obeyed in silence. They were coming and going very solemnly. We could hear the tramp of horses arriving and departing outside the tent. Far off the cannon roared.
After an exchange of compliments I risked asking the question which was on the tip of my tongue.
“General,” I said, “among your ancestors was there one called Funato?”
“Yes,” he answered, with some surprise, but with a smile of satisfaction; “Prince Funato Matabaci.”
“And after a great battle was he not pursued by an enemy until he was saved by the Haji of a willow?”
“Ah, ah!” laughed the general. “I see you are up in the legends of the country. I am glad to hear it.” Then ceasing to laugh, he added: “The fact is that Funato Matabaci went to war with Nitoba Riocito, and in great fright he hid in a wood. All the rest is legendary, and the fancy of an ignorant and credulous age.”
Later when I told this to Fiam he was sad and very much hurt.
“Well,” he said, “let’s see. Look at the blessings you have brought us from the West. Those lovely inventions that chop down, split and cut poor willows in pieces. These are your beautiful ideas. The most sacred things are only legends to you.”
“Fiam, I am....”
“You—you are a stupid....”
“Ah, thank you.”
He couldn’t make me angry with his insults, for after all I thought he was quite right. Some minutes passed in silence, then Fiam went on:
“But it doesn’t matter. I love him just the same. It isn’t his fault that he denies me. To me he is still the Funato that I protected as if he were my son, and I promise you I shall never fail to guard, defend, and save him, even if it takes my life.”
“But what can you do, poor Fiam?” I asked, much interested.
“Ah, who knows? who knows?” and he sighed sadly.
Although the fortunes of war turned out for the benefit of Japan in general, this was not the case with the troops among which I found myself.
When I had seen the general studying the map so intently I had concluded that he had good reason to be so serious. Frankly, I understood very little of what was going on, but Fiam knew all about it perfectly, and he didn’t always explain it to me, because he said it was dangerous to tell everything to foreigners by the Haji of the wire. But I felt from his looks that important events were taking place.
He was restless. He seemed to be cherishing a secret sorrow. During the fighting, while he watched from my hat, he was beside himself with excitement and ran around the brim crying:
“No, no! The great thunder to the right, the little thunder to the center! Quick! Whatever are they doing! To the right, I said. Stop! It is a mistake.”
But he wouldn’t tell me of what error he was speaking. To me it seemed as if things might be going very well. The enemy was withdrawing into a mountainous region, and we followed them without hindrance. What more could be desired?
The mountains grew nearer and nearer. As we approached them we came to a deep valley, long and dark, which from a distance could be seen swarming with the enemy in the midst of clouds of dust raised by the cannon, by the baggage and the columns of marching soldiers.
One evening, after Fiam had been shouting “Halt!” from every side of my hat, he said to me:
“Listen. I will tell you an important secret. If we enter that valley we are lost.”
“Truly,” I observed doubtingly.
“Immediately. This whole division of our army would be captured. You must run to the general and tell him to halt here and take the road toward the right.”
“How shall I do it? He wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Try it.”
“Shall I say that you sent me?”
“No, he wouldn’t believe it. Tell him that you have explored and are persuaded. Do try.”
He begged and implored with so much persistence that at last I decided to please him. I put him in my hat, mounted my horse and started.
I found the general riding in the midst of his guard. I asked to speak to him alone on a very important affair.
“General,” I said gravely, “if you enter that valley you are lost!”
He stopped his horse, looked at me in amazement, and broke into a laugh.
“Ha, ha, you are joking.”
Indeed, I felt a little shaky. I should have liked to beg his pardon and withdraw in peace, but I knew that Fiam was listening, and I had unlimited faith in him.
“I am not joking,” I said. “I beg you to believe that you risk having this part of your army captured.”
He looked at me attentively as I went on:
“Send out your scouts, and you will be convinced of it.”
Then he replied courteously: “I have sent. The road is clear. Don’t worry. I think you need to take care of yourself. At the first stop take a long rest. Good-bye, and thank you.”
He held out his hand to me, spurred his horse, and rode off.
As soon as we were alone I said to Fiam:
“You see what a fine figure you made me cut.”
He gave no answer. My request to dictate a telegram to the newspaper he flatly refused. Half an hour later we arrived at the encampment. From inside my tent I heard a horse trotting and then stop. A voice asked:
“May I come in?”
“Come in,” I cried.
An officer entered. I knew him at once. It was the surgeon I had talked to on the railroad train.
“The general sent me,” he announced. “I am an army surgeon; my name is Tasa. Let me feel your pulse.”
“But I am very well,” I replied, irritated.
“Keep calm. The general’s orders,” he whispered smiling.
I held out my hand. He felt my pulse, looking at his watch, then commanded:
“Let me see your tongue.”
I showed it to him, at the same time making a face.
“Facial contraction,” he murmured, and then asked aloud:
“Do you still talk to yourself?”
“No.”
“With Fiam!”
“Let me alone; I am perfectly well.”
“No, you are ill, and I must cure you. I order ice on the head.”
“I have no ice.”
“But I have some.”
He went outside, took a piece of ice from his saddle bag, placed it on my head, bound it tight and said:
“I will return later.”
For two days I endured this torture, which gave me the worst cold I ever had in my life. I vowed to Fiam that I would never give any more strategical advice to a general, not if the world perished.
The terrible perplexities of my little friend did not seem to be fulfilled. Indeed, we entered the valley that he dreaded so much and marched steadily a whole day.
There was not even a shadow of an enemy. From the instant we filled the valley all firing ceased. It seemed as if the war were over. The advance guard reported that the region was unoccupied. No more big thunderbolts and no more little ones. The soldiers were delighted with this unexpected quiet. We could hear nothing but the rumble of the marching troops, echoed by the steep mountainsides. At night the silence was absolute, only broken by the baying of dogs from far off and the hissing of the wind on the crest of the mountain.
The valley grew constantly narrower; it was like a neck—and at last it was merely an immense cleft—a great corridor of rock, without a roof and with a narrow exit at the end.
In the evening of the second day after that I felt that something extraordinary was taking place. Every one was grave and preoccupied, and Fiam was very much excited.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him for the hundredth time. Instead of answering, he said:
“Look at me well. Do you think I could still take fire like any other match? I mean if I should strike myself against a stone could I set myself on fire?”
“Yes, of course. But for heaven’s sake, what do you want to do?” He made me anxious. “Do you want to kill yourself?”
“No, no; don’t be afraid, my friend.”
Later on the colonel of artillery, in whom Fiam had recognized the old warrior, came to my tent. He had been sent by the general to ask who had warned me of the danger of entering this valley.
“No one,” I replied.
“You were right,” he went on; “we are in danger, but the spirits of the heroes protect us, and we will come out all right yet.”
“What of the enemy?”
“It has shut us into the valley. It seemed best to come this way because it is the shortest, and appeared to be free.”
“And can’t we get out through the opening ahead?”
“That exit is closed. The enemy has buried there a thousand pounds of dynamite. If our troops pass over it it will explode.”
“Can they blow it up from a distance?”
“Yes, with an electric wire.”
“And can’t we turn back?”
“No; the valley is barricaded in the rear. If we tried it there would be a desperate battle in which every one would be killed or captured from the general to the last soldier.”
“Couldn’t we climb the mountains?”
“They are inaccessible and the enemy occupies the summit. Listen; they are already firing on us.”
We could indeed hear the first guns. The sun had gone down some time ago; the valley was dark. We could see the stars and the flash of powder on the tops of the mountains. Stray balls fell on our unprotected camp. The soldiers were preparing for battle. They were digging trenches and cutting down trees to make defences. All this silently as possible, and in the dark.
I asked the colonel how he knew the exit of the valley was mined.
“Two prisoners told us, deserters from the enemy.”
“Perhaps it isn’t true,” I exclaimed, but a tiny voice that I alone could hear said:
“It is true.”
Fiam, on my collar, had listened to the conversation.
I saluted the colonel and went into my tent.
I started to light a candle, but Fiam stopped me:
“Don’t make a light. If they see a light they may shoot you in the back.”
So we stayed in the dark, and Fiam went on:
“Take hold of me. I am on your shoulder. Now put on my waterproof,” he ordered.
“Why?”
“It is necessary for me to keep dry.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t lose time. Do as I say. It is for the good of all.”
I reached for the tin-foil that I kept behind a book, wondering what his words meant. When I had dressed him he said:
“You wish me well?”
“With all my heart.”
“Then obey me, and have faith in me. Carry me outside the tent, walk twenty-five steps toward the north, then put me on the ground and leave me.”
“Toward the north? Be careful—that way lies the mine they intend to explode under us.”
“Yes; be quiet—there isn’t a moment to lose.”
I was very much impressed by his earnestness and emotion. I went out, holding him near my face in my hand and spoke to him tenderly. I felt it to be a solemn moment.
“Fiam, what are you going to do?”
“I have already told you that I love him.”
“Whom?”
“Prince Funato. And that I am ready to protect, to defend and save him even if it means my death.”
“And then?” I asked anxiously.
“Well, the time has come. I am going to save him.”
“But how?”
“I am going to set fire to the mine, and so make a way out for him and his soldiers. Go back to your tent and send this message: ‘To-morrow will be a day of victory.’ It is the last thing I shall tell you, my dear good foreign friend.”
“Fiam, you are crazy. You will never succeed, never.”
“Why not? It will take me seven hours to go from here to the mine. A man could go in a few minutes, but my legs are so short. I shall run. I shall run faster than seems possible to you. But I shall be seven hours at least.”
“But the mine is hidden; you can’t find it.”
“I can see what a man can’t. I am a match, but I am also a Haji. I know about the mine; do you know how? Because I saw it when they were making it and we were forty miles off. I shall find it easily. I shall go directly to the dynamite, and light it myself.”
“But you will die,” I said in horror.
“Yes, but what is my life compared to that of so many people and the possibility of victory? Don’t you think I ought to sacrifice myself?”
“I PUT HIM ON THE GROUND”
I couldn’t answer. I was too sorrowful. Suddenly Fiam said:
“Here we must part. Good-bye. Think of me sometimes. I have cared a great deal for you.”
I couldn’t control my tears.
“Fiam,” I protested, “let me carry you a hundred feet further.”
“No, it is useless. We must part now. Put me on the ground.”
“Good-bye.”
I put him on the ground and leaned down to him.
“Fiam,” I whispered, “forgive me if I have tried to hinder you. You are doing well! Go and succeed. Your death is more beautiful than a hundred lives. Some day I shall tell your story.”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
I watched him starting off in the dark. His armour shone white in the light of the stars. He was so tiny, he looked like a strange little animal traveling between the stones and over the tufts of grass. Then he disappeared from sight. My little man—my wonderful little man—had gone forever.
I entered my tent. How awfully alone I was! I should never find him again in the bottom of the camera or in the midst of postage stamps! I should never hear his little voice, prompting me with “Miferino.” I should never carry him astride the battlement, or on the crown of my hat. The imperial tomb was empty except for the white cotton bed!
I couldn’t sleep. After I don’t know how long the moon rose. I got up to look at the clock. It was midnight. Fiam had been walking four hours. How far had he gone?
The firing continued every now and then. “Little thunder,” I thought, remembering the queer idea of my friend. Every few minutes I looked at the clock. One o’clock passed; two o’clock passed. I was getting anxious. I thought an hour had gone by—it was five minutes.
At half-past two I began to listen. A quarter to three, three, a quarter past three——
I thought he hadn’t found the mine, and I almost felt glad at the idea that I might see him again.
Half-past three. The minutes seemed like eternity. Twenty-five minutes to four. Twenty minutes to four——
It was (I shall never forget it) at precisely thirteen minutes to four when the night was lighted by an immense brilliant blue light. A few seconds later the whole earth shook and a horrible explosion rent the air. Then silence.
It wasn’t long before the trumpets blew. The camp was all commotion. Commands were issued, confused with shouts. These, I made out, were joyful.
“The mine has been fired! The mine has been fired!” they repeated again and again.
The ranks formed. The regiments drew up in line of march. The officers galloped about. The flags were unfurled.
At dawn the columns moved—fresh and eager, as if starting off for the first encounter.
The terrible pass was traversed by the soldiers singing while the bayonets glistened in the rising sun. Two hours later we were safely outside the mountainous defile, and were joined by the main army.
The enemy was forced to give battle, and was defeated.
That evening they all feasted in the general’s tent. All the officers were happy. I alone was sad.
After a while they began to ask, Who could have blown up the mine? Some one said:
“The soldiers sent to explore returned without finding anything.”
“Perhaps,” another suggested, “it blew up of itself on account of poor construction.”
“No,” said a third. “It was blown up by the enemy; they thought we were on the march, near the mine.”
I arose and said solemnly:
“I know who blew up the mine and made your victory and escape possible.”
“Tell us, tell us!” they shouted in chorus. “Who?”
“It was Fiam, who....”
“Who is that?” asked twenty voices at once. “Who is our hero and our rescuer? How did you know him?”
“It is,” I proceeded firmly, “the Haji of an old willow tree that....” A tumult of laughter greeted me. Even the general joined in. They thought I was joking. The general cried:
“Still more legends, ha, ha!”
“I am in earnest,” I said, turning to him, and couldn’t help adding, “It was the Haji of Funato, your Haji.”
The laughter increased. “Legends, superstitions, fancies,” I heard in the midst of the hilarity.
I was so bewildered I didn’t know whether to get angry or laugh with them.
Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. I turned to see an officer looking attentively at me. “My name is Tasa. Let me feel your pulse. Show me your tongue. I recommend a little ice on the head.”
The End