The homegoing over, both Yodogima and Oyea settled down to a kind of preconceived expectancy. Their place continued as before, under the domination of a single master, the husband of the one and admirer of the other, assuming the attitude more of respecter than lover to either. Neither outranked the other, as yet; nor did their proposed spheres, from Hideyoshi’s way of thinking, in any manner conflict; nor were they at all inconsistent, as determined by custom or tradition from time immemorial, with good citizenship and right living: each cognizant of her duty, and mindful of the respect due to the head of the household as established and designed; no one jealous or hateful or inconsiderate of another, but thence possessed of the utmost confidence and respect for each other; they both set their hearts and energies to the accomplishment of one and the same end.

“Do you love Ieyasu, Yodogima?” queried Oyea, one soft, suggestive evening, as they two sat in the opened-up room, meditating, together, more than contemplating, the possible outcome of that conflict—then renewed and waging between the one’s lover, who had vowed to live only for her, and the other’s husband, whom she loved and hoped for quite as much.

“I do,” answered Yodogima, with brightening eyes and confident voice.

Oyea pondered now. She, too, felt the agony with which Yodogima—whom she had come to love—must receive the news: news that to her seemed otherwise impossible of coming. And Oyea had taken great pride in her husband’s achievements; next to her love for him, it had been her greatest concern. Then she thought of her own position and Yodogima’s chance should Ieyasu fall; Hideyoshi spared not an enemy, and halted nowhere in the resolving of his plans: if not by force, then by subtler means—still harder to bear. Suddenly her expression strangely changed, and turning to Yodogima, she said, reassuringly:

“Then I trust he shall not lose.”

Yodogima’s eyes softened; and bowing low, out of respect, but struggling hard against scruple, the more finely wrought princess thanked her benefactress, saying:

“How can I ever requite such generosity.”

Time wore away dull and anxiously at the castle, till presently word came of the great battle of Komakiyami, where Hideyoshi’s advance had been checked, all his ready attempts at bribing the enemy’s superior officers put to naught, and Ieyasu with inferior numbers had, at last, given his opponent such a thrashing as none thought possible: in view of further developments, proving to be the initial of a series of engagements that were to revolutionize government, change the trend of civilization, and leave, perhaps, its lasting imprint upon the future higher destiny of all mankind.

Ieyasu drove the foe out of his territory and across the river, then halted to reorganize his broken lines and conserve better their resources; Esyo deliberately told him that Yodogima had grown indifferent, his own intelligence warned him of Hideyoshi’s recuperation, and whether convinced of the former or frightened at the latter the not over confident victor in place of following up a first triumph resolutely set himself down again to defend, once more to wait.

Hideyoshi, on the other hand, had in the meantime found it convenient or wise to consult Oyea; and whether acting upon her advice to make friends with Ieyasu or designing to accomplish by unfair means what he had failed of doing with arms began forthwith to reconstruct the shattered fragments of his sorely beaten army, recruiting with additional levies and intrenching himself as best he could to scare or mislead the enemy into remaining within the confines of his own domain. And there they stayed, bickering and bartering, one on either side the river Komaki, both afraid but eager, till diplomacy had been for the first time developed into a sufficiently vital force to make war a more extensive if not crueler means of settling dispute and rolling onward the vast, silent confusion of ethical entities.

To do this, and to carry forward each his advantage in the exercising of so little known an agency, neither one halted, but adjusted his conscience in the use of instruments that the heroics had held sacredly above the sordid selfishness of eager quest; woman must be permitted to degrade herself—yes, should be used—that man’s supremacy be not endangered or questioned in its strident march toward the goal of a collectively devised, pampered, vain, and self-denying individuality.

Esyo and Jokoin were both taken advantage of. The latter to carry tainted messages from a scheming father, by adoption only; she could cross the river and thus avoid an encounter that other men than Hideyoshi in those days had courted as manlier—Ieyasu would not harm or hinder a sister to his love, whether doubted or mistaken, or both. Esyo served Ieyasu in a like capacity; not, however, until the younger man had despaired of his challenge to the other to meet him in personal combat.

“Tell your master, or father, or whatever he is,” said he to Jokoin, in answer to Hideyoshi’s repeated attempts, “that our contention is purely personal, and that neither he nor I have any right to compromise a matter of heart, or to sacrifice the lives of others and the welfare of a community to settle that kind of difference. Let us then invoke a juster means.”

“But we cannot do that except it be the will of the one for whom we fight; Hideyoshi shall not stop short of death,” replied he, without reserve.

It was agreed that they should abide the decision of Yodogima; but how obtain an impartial declaration from her? Ieyasu insisted upon her presence: Hideyoshi declared himself indifferent.

“If you want her to come here it will be necessary for you to fetch her: if you wish to right the matter there, why, then, go; until settled Hideyoshi shall employ such means as lie within his power to invoke.”

In possession, Hideyoshi’s position seemed tenable; now, no one knew better than Ieyasu the tactics with which his adversary would gain an advantage, though prone to make no promise or engagement that he should not keep. Nor did Ieyasu let himself be deceived as to his own resources or ability. True he had won a great victory over Hideyoshi, had taught him to know that willing and doing are two very different terms, and that gods ready-made or self-devised are alike amenable to the unflinching laws of inevitableness, but would not budge his ground, Hideyoshi’s resources or Yodogima’s failure to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yet he must do something, either push forward or lose the vantage gained. What was it that stirred within and would not let him dismiss an only alternating thought:

“Compromise?”

“No, no; Ieyasu could not do that; but—confidence! now I have it; I’ll trust somebody—Esyo! she shall hear Yodogima speak the word, will tell me the truth; confidence and not compromise, therefore, is the final arbiter of our destiny. Then why doubt, why have I doubted Yodogima? No; it is my short-sightedness and not her faithlessness that has caused me all these bitter misunderstandings; she will approve me right, and I shall prove her mine.”

Slow with inception but quick to apprehend, Ieyasu’s energies once kindled burned with a vigor and a glow as refreshing and as inspiring as waiting had been portentous. He would have it settled once and for all that his love had not been misplaced, and that he himself were the rightful suitor: Hideyoshi, but a mongrel pretender, an empty claimant.

“Go to Yodogima, and get her answer, if this monkey-faced deceiver would yet know that she is a princess, worthy a prince’s love,” commanded he, of Esyo—as she, and Jokoin, departed upon their mission, as arranged, under a truce, of sufficient length—no doubt whatsoever in his mind as to what that word should be.

The two sisters proceeded toward Azuchi, together and unhampered, united in their great expectations but widely divergent upon lesser grounds, those of apprehension. Esyo reasoned that Yodogima must say “No,” and by so doing relieve her of the necessity for devising an untruth; Hideyoshi had sent Jokoin along for no other purpose than to make sure the delivery of the answer he, too, believed Yodogima should return. Jokoin anticipated alone the boredom of that to her way of thinking needless journey, for how could a princess, her own sister, so spoil a good prospect by saying anything but “Yes”?

They had arrived now, and Yodogima received them in her boudoir—still open at the rear and overlooking the narrow lowland, butting up against a somber woods that covered a steep rising hillside beyond—yet it was growing late. There was no one to disturb them; Oyea had withdrawn to her own desolate chamber, apprehensive but resigned. Yodogima sat facing the dark of nightland. Jokoin at once became spokesman; she could not wait. Esyo held no interest in the gathering portent without, nor did she betray a conscious thought of things more ominous within. The clouds hung low and the air around dulled against the dead monotony of dawning sleep, over-borne and unrelated save as lettered against nature’s unfathomed deep by myriads of changing, ever-noiseless fire-flies.

“Come reason with me, with you and with him, verily the God-truth to know,” pleaded Yodogima, silently, of the great, fathomless unreality lying just beyond, always ahead, alluringly beckoning, yet so disparagingly mute.

“Really, one might think you lost in dreamland,” ventured Jokoin, after waiting some seconds, patiently, perhaps, because quite satisfied.

“Not dreaming, but coaxing,” replied Esyo, “and were I in Yodogima’s place I should do more than that; I should take the matter into my own hands, and answer as reason might dictate.”

“Sister!” cried Yodogima. “Would you, truly, deny your God, to satisfy vanity—and know him?”

“I should do the most sensible thing under the circumstances: you have my deepest sympathy, Yodogima,” continued Esyo.

“And, what is more, I have confidence in you,” replied Yodogima.

“Well, I suppose, I’m not in it, then,” suggested Jokoin.

Neither sister answered; Esyo found it enough to resist expressing some sort of feeling, and Yodogima no longer interested only in the voiceless heavens, pondered the possibilities of Ieyasu’s proposed encounter. Nor could she quite bring herself to trust probability, for had not Hideyoshi once vanquished the great Mondo, outwitted Kemotsu? What if her lover should meet with a worse fate, and that, too, only for her?

“No,” said she, to herself; “it must not be.”

Then the chance of his winning began to take hold, and her pulses tingled, and the spirit verge spoke in the voice of an ancestor:

“Yes,” whispered she, inaudibly, though the fire shone from her eyes as it had a Taira’s ages ago.

Esyo paled at the thought: Jokoin bounded up, proposing:

“Shall I shout it aloud, sister?”

“Jokoin!” commanded Esyo; how can you so profane things? Yodogima has not yet invoked understanding: neither flesh nor spirit alone satisfies conscience.”

For the moment Yodogima seemingly forgot the terrible test that raged and calmed alternately within. Facing Esyo, and penetrating with only a glance the thin gauze veiling a sister’s underlying purpose, Yodogima said, complacently, though firmly:

“One would think this solely a matter of yours, Esyo. Possibly you had best answer instead, that I may learn also your pleasure; and, perchance, the motive.”

Esyo flushed, and Yodogima read her as written.

“Come closer, Jokoin; I want to feel the warmth and cheer of your presence; it is an inspiration, if not a reason: Esyo is so cold; oh, so unsatisfying, yet also inspiring. Between the two of you I am thrust back upon heart, and shall answer neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no.’ Let them fight, if they will, but tell them, both alike, that they are men: that Yodogima shall let neither one answer to his God for a mistake of hers. It is a woman’s province to bear and not to succor man. Good-bye, and when you have need for comfort and less to know then come again; I love you both.”