The Nurse

I am bound to cherish it, to guard it, to keep it. But now I have lost it. Woe is me! I am undone, and so is all the House of Idé!”

“Oh, say not so, my lord,” said O Matsu. “Here is gold; go you your way and I will return and guard the sword of Idé.”

So Fugiwaka went his way with the gold that his nurse gave him.

As for O Matsu, she went straightway and took the sword from its place where it lay with the household gods, and she buried it deep in the ground until such time as she might bear it in safety to her young lord.

But soon the Lady Sadako became aware that the sacred sword was gone.

“It is the nurse!” she cried. “The nurse has stolen it.... Some of you bring her to me.”

Then the Lady Sadako’s people laid their hands roughly upon O Matsu and brought her before their mistress. But for all they could do O Matsu’s lips were sealed. She spoke never a word, neither could the Lady Sadako find out where the sword was. She pressed her thin lips together.

“The woman is obstinate,” she said. “No matter; for such a fault I know the sovereign cure.”

So she locked O Matsu in a dark dungeon and gave her neither food nor drink. Every day the Lady Sadako went to the door of the dark dungeon.

“Well,” she said, “where is the sword of Idé? Will you say?”

But O Matsu answered not a word.

Howbeit she wept and sighed to herself in the darkness—“Alas! Alas! never alive may I come to my young lord. Yet he must have the sword of Idé, and I shall find a way.”

Now after seven days the Lady Sadako sat in the garden-house to cool herself, for it was summer. The time was evening. Presently she saw a woman that came towards her through the garden flowers and trees. Frail and slender was the woman; as she came her body swayed and her slow steps faltered.

“Why, this is strange!” said the Lady Sadako. “Here is O Matsu, that was locked in the dark dungeon.” And she sat still, watching.

But O Matsu went to the place where she had buried the sword and scratched at the ground with her fingers.