With the passing of Hideyoshi, Yodogima faced a maze possibly less promising than had the taiko lived longer—to suffer violence or subversion at the hands of those eager and prepared to take advantage of his decline. The captains, his real adherents, stood as it were, confused and unready; whereas had any one of the enemy’s schemes to do the master false sooner proven successful there should no doubt have been in consequence a mere pronounced or sudden welding and rousing of them to the cause he left. Yet, in the face of uncertainty, they gathered to a man in support of the infant kwambaku: also many of the larger daimyos proffered their friendship—if not to Hideyori, then to his mother—and Ozaka rang again resonant with the glamor of authority.

Oyea had been ignored, perhaps understood; Hideyoshi, at the last moment taking from her every visage of authority—discerning Yodogima’s true disposition—her own conduct in the presence of all and under stress of a last appeal alienated others upon whom she might have reasonably depended.

“I’ll yet see her burned at the stake,” muttered Oyea, departing unheeded and alone toward the beggarly inheritance left her—Azuchi, and that as well with no other immediate chance or real adviser save Esyo, the wife of an infant, a son of Ieyasu, Hidetada, verily Buddhist born.

A mixed situation, therefore, presented itself for her delectation. Yodogima had won favors on every hand, and there were no more Christians than Buddhists at Ozaka, with Shintoists a plenty and to spare over both. The government had been, as a last resort, intrusted to the care of five designated Regents during the minority of Hideyori: the taiko believed Yodogima competent to see that justice were done, and no one there assumed his responsibility more readily or inauspiciously than she.

“I’ll make my son ruler in fact, not alone suffer him to succeed in name: what greater end can a mother achieve than succor the laurels of a child she bears?” meditated she, as the luxuries—even shorn of the comforts—of a respected, though unloved, husband’s bounty showered down upon and around her.

Kuroda accepting command, not a captain among them—excepting Takiyama—wavered in his loyalty or bore the slightest mistrust. The chests were filled to bursting; no such bounty as that left in Ozaka had theretofore accumulated, and new recruits proffered enlistment from every source save one—Yedo apparently foresaw another need for its soldiery.

The regents had sworn to respect the will of their deceased taiko, who had enjoined them severally and collectively from engaging in political marriages of whatsoever kind or character during the regency: as Ieyasu and Ishida both stood highest in council, Yodogima very naturally had good occasion to rest easy thereabout on her own account, and certainly nowise other respecting Hideyori, her son and their kwambaku.

“There is nothing to this San Filipe affair; it was but the babbling of an underling, who, finding himself in a tight place, sought by braggadocio to escape further custody or avoid some fancied harm; please do not refer to it again,” begged Yodogima, of Ishida, who had called professedly to advise her of certain rumors, which she had sooner heard, emanating no one seemed to know just how or where, yet surmised high in authority.

“But Ieyasu is bent upon expelling the Christians, and of course needs some excuse. No doubt your ladyship is right in her estimation, still there are other reasons why the good and faithful should listen to any proposal aiming at perhaps total extinction, and Ieyasu is clever.”

“Are you not his equal? And, I am sure, there can be no good reason for drastic measures except it be political. Are a few priests, a dozen or so daimyos, and a handful of followers to be treated a menace? Nonsense! None knew better than Hideyoshi the province and probabilities of religion, and I mean to be as tolerant, if not so capable. Must you let every project that comes along, invented or otherwise, swerve you in your bounden duty? Christianity has quite as much right or reason to thrive and comfort whoso or whereat as any other religion: when creed has proven itself fruitless, it shall die of its own accord: as soon as inimical to further progress, then chop it down; man is neither rank nor incapable.”

The sun shone hot out of a clear sky, and the shade fell invitingly from an aged wistaria that hung in profusion overhead. Threatening clouds gathered and banked huge and dark in the west, yet the voice of storm had not sounded there, in Ozaka, where they two sat, overlooking the glassy bay to the southward, nor had it quite closed with Amaterasu in her downward whirl toward the passing of day. They pondered, and a sail came into view far distant.

There appeared nothing as yet to distinguished it from one of their own, and the imagination played on. Who has not been stirred by the mysteries of an undiscernable ship at sea?

Once upon a time the good San Filipe had likewise stolen in upon them; a storm drove her against shoals; as was custom and law they seized her and confiscated the cargo; the pilot captured and questioned, confidently, but proudly, spread before them a chart showing the vast domain of Spain, his native country, and the ship’s defender.

“How came your king by all these possessions?” Hideyoshi had asked him.

“Oh, that is simple enough,” replied the unsophisticated sailor. “We first send out our religieux to convert the people, then seize upon their lands with an army supported by the newly made Christians. It’s easily done.”

“What? My states filled with traitors, and the government about to devolve upon a child? Impossible!” cried the taiko, amid his adherents, and the echo had not died or ceased of its meaning.

This unguarded statement of the over-anxious, yet innocent Spaniard, of the merchant class—and not so particular about the fate of priests or religion—that, it were, had, more than anything else, among other things, convinced Ieyasu of Hideyoshi’s having acted very unwisely, through weakness or decline, with yielding to the importunities or blandishments of a woman, Yodogima or Jokoin, presumably the former, in permitting the priests to return to Nagasaki; that it now became him as a leader, first of all to remove them bag and baggage from the land. They had seized upon their reinstatement with an avidity that augured renewed activity and their operations seemed directed chiefly toward Ozaka, alternating between the highest and the lowest in or out of authority.

A prodigious evil this appeared to be—the gathering and fraternizing of the high and the lowly, the good and the ill, the interested and the disinterested, under the auspices of a single flag, unfurled and waved solely and authoritatively by none other than Ishida, whom he knew and could not misunderstand.

“You accuse Yodogima wrongly,” said he, to Oyea, as they too sat upon a veranda, overlooking not the sea, but that selfsame lake, Biwa, with its more subtle, if less inspiring outlook. “She is surrounded with evil influences, and must be relieved. Her motives are pure—over-intended—but the chicanery of Ishida is more than a woman should be left to cope.”

“Then it is Yodogima that concerns our lord: the Christians are but an excuse?” queried Oyea, with suppressed emotion.

Ieyasu answered discreetly with a question; still resist as best he could, the rising color in his face disclosed to Oyea unmistakably the one truth which had under-disturbed her every thought and action since the day she had consoled with Yodogima in the hope that Ieyasu should not lose to Hideyoshi:

“Why do you ask, Oyea?”

“Is it not enough that I have insured you Hideki, my nephew’s support, intrigued with Ishida to further your cause, surrendered favors, which I might have had, in the interests of one whom I—”

“Hold, Oyea. You have already gone too far. I am loved, and I love—”

“But Oyea is patient: I am not too old—will serve you—look, Ieyasu; my face comely—form preserved—”

Ieyasu turned away, toward the mountains: looked into space, limitless and conjectural. Words had been worse than a crime, then. Oyea read the answer, searched his innermost depths; she had failed the taiko; should Ieyasu take her on trust? True her hair was streaked, but underneath that, down deep in her heart, there held and beat a warmth as fervid, an ardor as prone, and the purpose as strong as of the days when Hideyoshi had abused a confidence no less compellingly bestowed.

Thunder rumblings in the distance, lightning flashes bolting the heavens, ominous clouds overcasting the earth—these drove home the dragon’s fearful promise: Oyea only drew closer round her the simple kimono she so gratefully wore.

Arising, Ishida approached, and respreading his rug sat nearer. Yodogima gazed the more intently at the tiny speck upon the angering waters in front.

“How like a human,” mused she, as the struggling bark raised and lowered, bantered or plowed its way toward the beacon that fond anticipation shall never cease of hailing.

“It lacks originality,” ventured he, in some vainly attempted response.

“As I do, you may think,” retorted the princess, bowing with just a blush, which no man could resist.

“You grant me undeserved merit, your ladyship.”

“Why not ‘Yodogima’, though not guilty of as much as a thought?”

“May I dare?”

“I should be mean to deny a worthy man,” responded she, with a look more convincing than words could have been.

“I’ll prove it, my lady. In the meantime—oh, Ishida; what an ass to bandy opportunity!” muttered he, bounding off, as convinced as pleased.

With a long drawn sigh, perhaps of satisfaction, Yodogima continued gazing into the distance. The approaching vessel had ceased to be a center of attraction, though still tossing and laboring with the elements. Subtler affairs now engrossed all the princess’s attention, and clapping carelessly for a servant Junkei approached unreservedly:

“Call Maeda,” commanded she, dreamily.

Junkei bowing low departed on the run; long service with Hideyoshi had wrought of him a veritable machine, self-wound, but motionless till sprung. Not far to go, Maeda soon appeared and the princess greeted him with reverence; for he it was who had accommodated her father with a horse and service on his last flight from the enemy. Yodogima loved the old veteran, who by dint of prudence and much quivering had preserved his life and retained a domain through all those troublesome years of Hideyoshi’s enforced subduction.

None save Ieyasu—of those near the capital, and only two others, widely separated, at the two extremes of the empire—could boast or master a larger income or force: not a daimyo of them all bore the respect generally that this giant of a bygone day enjoyed among them. Hence Hideyoshi, himself, before death, had singled him out as the best fitted or suited to exercise public guardianship over the infant Kwambaku, Hideyori, during his minority, a thankless undertaking at best, refused by Ieyasu—perhaps at the request of Yodogima, for she trusted in Maeda’s honesty: believed herself competent and rightly entitled, if not best intended, to direct.

Maeda, therefore, was legal guardian, and no two held forth in stricter confidence than he and Yodogima.

“Sit down, Maeda,” commanded she—he, too, bore toward her the respect due a superior.

“I beg to be at your service, my lady,” responded he, seating himself near at hand.

“You are a friend to Ieyasu, Maeda?”

“Yes, my lady,” unconcernedly.

“You are a friend to Ishida?”

“Yes, my lady,” with growing interest.

“Then I would warn you: beware of Ishida.”

The old man trembled perceptibly; to question the integrity of a friend was more than he could do, and to listen to a proposal like that had fairly unnerved him—yet he knew this daughter of an older champion, had studied her every mood from childhood up: no uncertain thing could prompt her to make such a declaration.

“I thank you, Yodogima—pardon the allusion; I was thinking of your father,” replied he, presently the moments passed.

“Thank you, my lord,” responded she, no less spontaneously.

A greater respect could not have been paid him, or an honor more highly appreciated; the old diplomat thenceforth knew no higher duty, cherished not a thought other than to uphold the child whose mother he believed divinely cast, no matter what his opinion or other men’s contentions might be—about a father.

Maeda had pledged himself irredeemably, and Yodogima believed the fortress impregnable against the arms alike their cunning of any man or combination that might dare or choose to go against it. Night came on, and they parted; the ship she had fancied vanished, with the light that lowered real.