I look into the face of Mousmé, and then into the faces of the people near us. Yes, that is it. The moon is gone down into the sea, and the sun will be climbing up the first steps of another day’s journey ere we arrive home.
We leave the terrace, with its lingering crowds of tired-faced holiday-makers, and fading light of lanterns and tea-houses, and by a short cut gain a mountain-path leading close home.
The sound of the trumpets is less and less distinct, and that of the ever-chirping cicalas more so, as we wend our way—Mousmé and I—along the narrow, rough, unpaved path in the rapidly growing dawn of a Japanese morning.
Below us to the left lies the town as yet indistinct in the slowly increasing light, a mysterious mass of shadows and projections which mark the places of streets and roofs of houses. Here and there
