The Dragon Painter | Page 7

Kano Umè-ko, your daughter?"
"Yes," said the old man, gruffly; "but she is not a son."
"Fortunately for the eyes of men she is not," smiled Ando. "That is the
most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I have seen many. She
welcomed me at the gate."
Kano, engaged in pouring tea, made no reply.

"Also, if current speech be true, she has great talent," persisted the
visitor. "One can see genius burning like a soft light behind her face. I
hear everywhere of her beauty and her fame."
"Oh, she does well,--even remarkably well for a woman," admitted
Kano. "But, as I said before, she is a woman, and nothing alters that. I
tell you, Ando!" he cried, in a small new gust of irritation, "sometimes I
have wished that she had been left utterly untouched by art. She paints
well now, because my influence is never lifted. She knows nothing else.
I have allowed no lover to approach. Yet, some day love will find her,
as one finds a blossoming plum tree in the night. In every rock and tree
she paints I can see the hint of that coming lover; in her flowers,
exquisitely drawn, nestle the faces of her children. She knows it not,
but I know,--I know! She thinks she cares only for her father and her art.
When I die she will marry, and then how many pictures will she paint?
Bah!"
"Poor child!" murmured Ando, under his breath.
"Poor child," mocked the artist, whose quick ears had caught the
whisper. "Poor Nippon, rather, and poor old Kano, who has no better
heir than this frail girl. Oh, Ando, I have clamored to the gods! I have
made pilgrimages and given gifts,--but there is no one to inherit my
name and the traditions of my race. Nowhere can I find a Dragon
Painter!"
Ando put his hand out quickly behind him, seized the long roll tied in
yellow cloth, and began to unfasten it.
Kano was panting with the vehemence of his own speech. He poured
another little cup of tea and drained it. He began now to watch Ando,
and found himself annoyed by the deliberation of his friend's motions.
"Strange, strange----" Ando was murmuring. An instant later came the
whisper, "very, very strange!"
"Why do you repeat it?" cried Kano, irritably. "There was nothing
strange in what I said."

The parcel was now untied. Ando held a roll of papers outward.
"Examine these, Kano Indara," he said impressively. "If I do not greatly
mistake, the gods, at last, have heard your prayer."
Kano went backward as if from fire. "No! I cannot,--I must not hope!
Too long have I searched. Not a schoolboy who thought he could draw
an outline in the sand with his toe but I have fawned on him. I dare not
look. Ando, to-day I am shaken as if with an ague of the soul.
I--I--could not bear another disappointment." He did indeed seem
piteously weak and old. He hid his face in long, lean, twitching fingers.
Ando was sincerely affected. "This is to be no disappointment," said he,
gently. "I pray you, listen patiently to my clumsy speech."
"I will strive to listen calmly," said Kano, in a broken voice. "But first
honorably secrete the papers once again. They tantalize my sight."
Uchida put them down on the floor beside him and threw the cloth
carelessly above. He was more moved than he cared to show. He strove
now to speak simply, directly, and with convincing earnestness. Kano
had settled into his old attitude of dejection.
"One morning, not more than six weeks ago," began Uchida, "the
engineering party which I command had climbed some splintered peaks
of the Kiu Shiu range to a spot quite close, indeed, to that thin waterfall
which you remember----"
"One might forget his friends and relatives, but not a waterfall like
that!" interrupted Kano.
"Suddenly a storm, blown down apparently from a clear sky, caught up
the mountain and our little group of men in a great blackness."
"The mountain deities were angered at your presumption," nodded
Kano, well pleased.
"It may be," admitted the other. "At any rate, the winds now hurried in
from the sea. Round cloud vapors split sidewise on the wedges of the

rocks. Voices screamed in the fissures. We clung to the scrub-pines and
the sa-sa grass for safety."
"I can see it all. I can feel it," whispered old Kano.
"We wished to descend, but knew no way. I shouted for aid. The others
shouted many times. Then from the very midst of tumult came a
youth,--half god, half beast, with wild eyes peering at us, and hair that
tossed like the angry clouds."
"Yes, yes," urged Kano, straining forward.
"We scrambled toward him, and he shrank