They had gathered in sumptuous splendor, round the laden trays, with Ieyasu in place and Hideyori at his left, as became an honored guest. Kitagira was there, too; he had been discovered hiding at Ibaraki, and in consideration of Hideyori’s presence was allowed or compelled to witness the shogun’s placing of his own valuation.

With being told that Hideyori had not the intelligence to cope with Hidetada, and deciding that only Yodogima stood between himself and ultimate supremacy, Ieyasu estimated carefully the former, and planned the necessity of immediate action against the latter.

He had grown old in the harness, would thence witness a widening of the channel: the prop that he had visioned must inure to the swift, for Hideyori justified a mother’s confidence.

The lotus studding the ponds below lagged lazily in the breeze that fanned them off the coast at Ozaka. Softened evidences of his good taste toned and inspired every nook and cranny of those immaculate halls and safely trodden grounds, but steel had marked each turn toward their advance. Must steel again assert superiority? Would he die fighting? Why should man at first despise, then relish, the olive? In his younger days Ieyasu, too, had balked at culture, but with ripened years it had become a slogan, compelling, all-forceful, and inevitable.

“I’ll crush him, untutored man, vain infant, inspired mongrel; endowed with better wit than I, he lacks only the wisdom—but his mother! Oh, well; she might as well be Christian, and dangle her bells at church; the taiko’s jingle shall be split, and men can very well spare their better halves, in the pursuit of a less obstreperous divertisement—

“Hideyori, my lad, what do you think of women?”

“They are the pendulum in a clock.”

“Pouff! I’ll make cogs and spindles of them. Kitagira, show this young man thence he came, and send Hidetada hither; I am satisfied; either of you have more brains than pluck; the sword is master, and not a balancer. Hence; and let me strike while the blood yet runs hot; I have neither time to wait nor patience to woo a goddess that isn’t mine; Ozaka must fall.”

“I thank you for the entertainment, also for losing your head, horonable host,” vouchsafed Hideyori, in parting; “the former, because it is meet to respect gray hairs: the latter, that honest men may make due defense. You need not spare Kitagira, or his kind, for escort; a newer generation makes it possible for me to leave here, not as you once entered there—in a woman’s palanquin—but as the defender of my own fortune, and the builder of a nation’s hope—both the usefulness and the sacredness of mothers: no less their motherhood.”

Hideyori withdrew, the more a man, if such had been his failing. His elder at arms and with diplomacy, had thrown to the winds all the finer notions that the younger had been taught about man’s province and woman’s part. Look as he would into the fading realities of a living yesterday, adjure from scenes imagined against the dawning to-morrow as he did, the one thought that man is a free agent and beholding only to the God that lives within drove him toward his destiny like the thundering waters of a mighty gorge leap and laugh their way to the calm and peace always lying somewhere in the untimed, but certain beyond. And as he tramped along, looking to the right and to the left, there appeared myriads of living atoms answering to the same call that so eagerly gladdened his step, and when the sun burst through, upon these, their faces turned heavenward—only the dead and unborn failed a natural appeal, Amaterasu had written Ieyasu down, and the younger man hastened to accept the responsibility.

“Woman a slave to man, men the creature of state, and the state no better than a mechanism? Hearken not the vulture, but to arms: Christ died upon the cross; let these hills and valleys grow green in the blood of Hideyori; a mother’s will and not a father’s way is the final test of a beginningless God.”

Harunaga had taught him better than Yodogima believed; there lay behind his spirit an abiding distaste for anything and everything smacking of unearned felicity; the getting of something by sufferance were a crime; profit at the expense of some other man’s effort betokened inanity; the trading of wares or of benefits lay beneath him; commercialism was robbery, and diplomacy worse; deception belonged to the devil, and God had always won, must always win.

The bribe, therefore, offered to him, by Ieyasu, the master fibber, the safe, sane, and sound merchant of goods and other things, had no effect upon the high-born, reenergized, and rightly tutored Hideyori. The sop thrown out by the one to the other, of accepting new territories in exchange for real manhood—as in the case of Ieyasu, of Hideyoshi, thence past—fell upon deaf ears; as had the attempt to seduce Yodogima, his mother, with privileges of building temples, casting bells, and otherwise demeaning herself according to the predetermined notions of the man who would use her for a plaything.

“I cannot express my love for you,” promised she, to her idol, upon his return and the departure of their two hostages, held as a guarantee; “you convince me that there is something better in man than the greed of instinct. Possession is the ultimate goal, but of the heart and not the belly—hence harakiri is a virtue and no man would despoil the fountain-head. But, my son, have you considered well the means?”

“Yes, mother—truth is invincible.”

“Yet it, like all nature, is subject to hindrances; the waters tumbling down their natural courses are oft-times retarded with log-jams, the banks break, and the producing land is flooded.”

“Only for the inevitable good of their enforced fertilization.”

“Are you sure that we, in our day, do not confront the immediate necessity of such replenishment? Are the rice-fields abundant, the dikes strong, and the waters free?”

“Let me answer with a question: if the fields are hungry, will denial, deception, or putting off, stay the hand of reckoning? Is it making history to shoulder posterity with the evil of to-day’s cowardice? Is it manly? Is it godlike? If so, then we, too, can makeshift honorably. If not, I would crush the hydra-headed monster in his den. Let him not, through our stupidity, carelessness, or cursedness, fasten his tentacles upon the unborn—most compelling of God’s previsioning—sons and daughters in whom alone we shall survive hell and attain heaven.”

Yodogima bowed in her son’s presence; she could not speak for the pride arising out of a greater sentiment; words would have voiced the colder side of life; attributes only of the soul moved her to make some recognition of this fancied, hoped-for, and willed higher reach. All the felicities of a life earnestly lived seemed answered in that one likened expression. Then why should he have burdened her with further obligation? What lacked she yet of the great circle that encompasses creation?

“Do not bow, my mother,” requested he, his voice modulated as if to penetrate deeper than heart; “it is I who should kneel; maternity is the keynote of existence, and when it has thought to command, and not obey, men shall have reached indeed the threshold of greatness. Arise, that I may do what in the future men shall learn of necessity.”

“Must I, too, do service?”

“Yes; it is ordained of equality.”

“Then I’ll do it, and see you, each, that his spear is in order, for the battle shall be to the quick.”

Before Hideyori could at all respond; Jokoin snatched up the bugle, and running to the rampart’s edge, blew a blast that brought the loyal speeding; no live man would fail a summons as vital: the one call that has lifted antiquity’s veil, makes the day worth its enduring, and rouses better expectations of the future: Sanada shouted:

“Let me fight; the princess foresees, and progression is her right,” and Goto, Ono, the young and the vigorous, those patriots and their martyrs, Christian or Pagan, rallied to the defense of liberty.

Only Kuroda, Fukushima, and the hirelings of content, their kind, refused accession to Yodogima’s stand.

“When you are as old as we, the wells of enthusiasm shall have dried,” whined they, walking out at the gate—thrown open by Kyogoku, the instrument of Esyo—regretting only that their convenience and Yodogima’s indiscretion made it more delectable for them to break an uncrossed faith than perform a sworn duty.

They walked out, and others came in, in legion. The Christians responded, to a man, and no such stalwart soldiery had before gathered—in any cause. The edict against these Christians, on the one hand, and the attempt upon Hideyori, on the other, had brought to Yodogima’s support a force and a promise that jarred for once the understanding of Ieyasu. Policy had been his stronghold, from the first; the one battle risked and fought, at Sekigahara, had been forced and won at the instance of Yodogima, and the reaper of its booty knew it, had extended his hand as recompense, and in the frenzy of madness brought about an unthought catastrophe, seemingly as needless as destructive.

Only the pinched of face and sycophant at heart surrounded him now; men waxing corpulent, and others anxious to coddle them; the philosopher because he could afford to be one; possessors of endowed chairs at colleges, the gifts of one another; builders of libraries, in the hope of perpetuating doubtful memories; merchant princes, and financial jugglers, these and their like, who lap for favors, jostled each other in the crying of peace—that their interests might not be disturbed.

Ieyasu looked them over.

“And this is what Hideyoshi’s democracy really developed! A war, and all the men at the enemy’s beck and call. Had I Yodogima’s strength I’d close these doors—but I can; I’ll make the barons defend their own vested interests. Diplomacy shall yet avail the state,” resolved he, cold and set.

“Esyo?”

“What is it,” demanded she.

“Tell Yodogima that Ieyasu would like to call, in conference, at her pleasure. Will you do me the kindness?”

“Yes, honorable father-in-law. When, please?”

“Forthwith, my good Esyo.”

Esyo went, but delivered instead an ultimatum.

“I came to thank you for the loan of Kyogoku, Yodogima,” said she, artfully.

“But he played me a trick?”

“Did you expect more?”

“No; not of him; but of you.”

“And you shall not be disappointed; you may keep the infant; women are cheap, and shoguns dear—do you observe the pattern, of my gown, Yodogima? I trust I wear it, becomingly, you perceive?”

“Yes, Esyo; I understand, now. It has taken me a long time to believe a sister could play another false—you have my protection beyond the lines, and my best wishes always: tell your father-in-law that I accept his challenge, and that war alone can determine the issue.”

Esyo could not await her own return, so couriers were advanced with the intelligence. Upon her arrival, much excitement but little enthusiasm lingered at Fushima. Kuroda, Fukushima, and others of the daimyos were there in council with Ieyasu—the new shogun, Hidetada, had already prepared to march.

“It is your fault, Kuroda, and Fukushima, and you my spineless schemers, that hostilities have begun, and—”

“Cannot their leaders be bought?”

“You shall have to fight, or surrender to the Christians; Yodogima is not purchasable.”

Levies were hastened forward, and the treasures brought in; Ieyasu had succeeded, and greed for once stood compelled to surrender its power unto determined men, or subject themselves to the leadership of a man who hated no less the influence of plethoric wealth upon state than dreaded the consequences of a partial democracy among men. The Christians had become the instrument; and diplomacy proved the means with which Ieyasu divided the nation and equipped himself to enforce centralization.

Yodogima had builded upon broader lines: her star seemed the brighter.