Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/199

 Other the covering, while basket-lids served for pillows. The floor was cold as well as hard, and the rows of cotton towels hung on the walls by preceding pilgrims fluttered in the draughts from the howling blasts that shook the solid little hut. The shriek and roar and mad rushes of wind were terrifying, and we were by no means certain that the little stone box would hold together until morning. One hanging-lamp shed a fantastic light on the rows of heads under the blue futons, and the stillness of the Seven Sleepers presently befell the lonely shelter.

Saturday until Tuesday, three endless days and as many nights, the whirling storm kept us prisoners in the dark, smoke-filled rest-house. What had been the amusing incidents of one stormy night became our intolerable routine of life. Escape was impossible, even for the hardy mountaineers and pilgrims at the other end of the hut, and to unbar the door for a momentary outlook threatened the demolition of the shelter. A tempest at sea was not more awful in its fury, but our ears became finally accustomed to the roar and hiss of the wind, and the persistent blows it dealt the structure. The grave problem of provisioning the place in time confronted us, and after our one day’s luncheon was exhausted, it became a question how long the master of the station could provide even fish and rice for forty people.

The two boys, or valets, brought by their sybarite masters, like all Japanese servants out of their grooves, 183