Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [409]
Jōtarō darted after her and grabbed her around the waist, but he lost his hold. She started running down the darkened street, Jōtarō close behind.
“Stop!” he cried with alarm. “You mustn’t even think of it. Come back!”
Though she seemed not to care whether she ran into something in the dark or fell into a swamp, she was fully conscious of Jōtarō’s pleading. When she had plunged into the sea at Sumiyoshi, she had wanted to kill herself, but she was no longer so lacking in guile. She got a certain thrill from having Jōtarō so worried about her.
“Watch out!” he screamed, seeing that she was headed straight toward the murky water of a moat. “Stop it! Why do you want to die? It’s crazy.”
As he caught her around the waist again, she wailed, “Why shouldn’t I die? You think I’m wicked. So does Musashi. Everybody does. There’s nothing I can do but die, embracing Musashi in my heart. Never will I let him be taken from me by a woman like that!”
“You’re pretty mixed up. How did you get this way?”
“It doesn’t matter. All you have to do is push me into the moat. Go ahead,
Jōtarō, push.” Covering her face with her hands, she burst into frenzied tears.
This awakened a strange fear in Jōtarō. He, too, felt the urge to cry. “Come on, Akemi. Let’s go back.”
“Oh, I yearn so to see him. Find him for me, Jōtarō. Please find Musashi for me.”
“Stand still! Don’t move; it’s dangerous.”
“Oh, Musashi!”
“Watch out!”
At that moment the rōnin from the sake shop stepped out of the darkness. “Go away, boy,” he commanded. “I’ll take her back to the inn.” He put his hands under Jōtarō’s arms and roughly lifted him aside.
He was a tall man, thirty-four or -five years old, with deep-set eyes and a heavy beard. A crooked scar, no doubt left by a sword, ran from below his right ear to his chin. It looked like the jagged tear that appears when a peach is broken open.
Swallowing hard to overcome his fear, Jōtarō tried coaxing. “Akemi, please come with me. Everything’ll be all right.”
Akemi’s head was now resting on the samurai’s chest.
“Look,” the man said, “she’s gone to sleep. Off with you! I’ll take her home later.”
“No! Let go of her!”
When the boy refused to budge, the rōnin slowly reached out with one hand and grabbed his collar.
“Hands off!” screamed Jōtarō, resisting with all his strength.
“You little bastard! How’d you like to get thrown into the moat?”
“Who’s going to do it?” He wriggled loose, and as soon as he was free, his hand found the end of his wooden sword. He swung it at the man’s side, but his own body did a somersault and landed on a rock by the roadside. He moaned once, then remained still.
Jōtarō had been out for some time before he began hearing voices around him.
“Wake up, there.”
“What happened?”
Opening his eyes, he vaguely took in a small crowd of people.
“Are you awake?”
“Are you all right?”
Embarrassed by the attention he was attracting, he picked up his wooden sword and was trying to get away when a clerk from the inn grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute,” he barked. “What happened to the woman you were with?”
Looking around, Jōtarō got the impression that the others were also from the inn, guests as well as employees. Some of the men were carrying sticks; others were holding round paper lanterns.
“A man came and said you’d been attacked and a rōnin had carried the woman off. Do you know which way they went?”
Jōtarō, still dazed, shook his head.
“That’s impossible. You must have some idea.”
Jōtarō pointed in the first direction that came to hand. “Now I remember. It was that way.” He was reluctant to say what really happened, fearing a scolding from Daizō for getting involved, but also dreading to admit in front of these people that the rōnin had thrown him.
Despite the vagueness of his reply, the crowd rushed off, and presently a cry went up: “Here she is. Over here.”
The lanterns gathered in a circle