Yodogima apparently faltered in the face of positive victory. Was it soul that stirred her to larger comprehension, or had God himself intervened to stay an absolute, a total, the fatal?

Jokoin came in from the field, aglow with expectation, fairly dawning and resolving at the prospect of Hideyori’s famed, unquestioned gallantry. His furbelows shone out bewilderingly beautiful under the influence of a risen sun, and her light heart danced the more in consequence of its apparently disassociated illusionment—the food she really relished.

“It’s a jolly fair day, this, Yodogima,” promised she, bounding in, without so much as a permission. “Have you seen the artillery? Oh, but it’s an odd looking thing—a gun on wheels! I’m sure if Ieyasu had had one like it he could have made some impression on these walls. I should like to have seen the fun—but, I suppose, it’s lucky there was only one of them to be had; and luckier still that we’ve got it. We couldn’t have made out at all without the Christians, and they’re a bully lot, too; gold is no temptation to such people.”

“Perhaps,” remarked Yodogima, unconcernedly—

A shell burst near by, in the palace grounds. The impact deafened them.

“Horrors!” exclaimed Jokoin, nestling close under Yodogima’s shelter.

“I am afraid there must have been two of them, after all,” surmised Yodogima, attempting to calm the fears of Jokoin. “But it is too late now, to be firing at random into the castle. They had better save themselves the trouble. Oh, well; I shouldn’t mind a little thing like that; Hideyori shall soon enough put an end to any further nonsense of the kind. Have courage, Jokoin.”

“I pray they don’t shoot again, this way.”

Esyo had directed a return message in care of Jokoin, at the hands of Kyogoku; she understood this particular sister, suspicioned her true proclivities, and surmising that a well directed shot would startle her into the activities desired—should induce the younger to implore the elder sister—had, herself, unbeknown either to her husband or his father, brought into use an old mortar, a companion piece to the one boasted of Hideyori, purchased in consequence by Ieyasu at great expense and stored away safely under cover of his compound, admiredly, if not for service.

“I’ll give them a taste in advance, of what is to come,” threatened she, as the inexperienced gunners fell back in terror and she herself tripped forward to light the fuse.

The aim proved blunderingly good: though the citadel her intended target had been missed, a small addition to one of the minor buildings was in fact demolished and some two or three of the occupants—serving maids to Yodogima—were as observed at this either maimed or killed outright.

The explosion had its desired effect, and no amount of assurance or coaxing would or could allay the fears or quell the anxiety of concerned Jokoin. She must at once and at all hazards get Yodogima out of that demoniacal inferno—her own security quite overlooked—and when Kyogoku came in with the message supposedly from Ieyasu, Yodogima, perhaps to quiet Jokoin, but more likely to carry out a deeper-laid plan of her own, readily yielded to her little sister’s persuasion.

“Yodogima:

Meet me, at Kyogoku’s residence, outside the castle; I must see you, and would ask no further guarantee than yours.

Ieyasu.”

It was all there was of the message—presumably an answer to the one she had sent—yet no greater influence than Jokoin’s pleading were necessary to induce an immediate cessation of hostilities on Yodogima’s part—insofar as a meeting with Ieyasu was concerned.

Hideyori protested. For once his will rebelled against his mother’s. The opportunity proffering overwhelmed every other consideration, and the young man proudly threatened to die behind those walls rather than let the enemy enter otherwise than as vanquished.

“Meet my mother, upon friendly terms? It is impossible!”

“But, my son, Ieyasu out of the way the empire shall fall directly into your hands; there is none else to dispute you, and war is—”

“Hell—all of which Kitagira advised me long ago; but you see them anxious on all hands—just now, since that message was written, a shell has been fired into our midst. There is no end to fighting as long as men’s blood runs red.”

Yodogima paused; it had come to a parting with the one or the other. Blood and love are elemental within the human, but only for love there had been none to measure in the light of soul; heart and instinct might have gone on hand in hand, yet an Infinity’s unvarying prudence saw fit to match understanding against the one; love is an affinity.

“Then accept my blessing,” urged the mother, thoughtfully, after a while; “mine is run.”

“And give you, as well, my protection; have no fear; go as you like; do what conscience bids, and the gods shall render you justice.”

“Harunaga?” commanded he, directing his further conversation to him.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Do not call me lord—not to-day; to-morrow you may, but if you would serve me now attend my mother; old men should yet be of some help, and if there are any others, of a like mind, behind these walls, let them, too, depart; this is going to be a hot place, perchance worse, if I interpret Esyo’s message correctly.”

“Esyo!” gasped Jokoin.

“Yes; it is she; and, you are safe at Kyogoku’s.”

“I shall remain here,” replied Jokoin, unobserved by Yodogima; whose interests had already settled upon one thought only.

These went their way, Yodogima accompanied by Kyogoku, to the latter’s yashiki, a commodious dwelling, nestled away among the samurai huts fringing the castle grounds all round well under the outlying city’s over-crowding borders. It was a sightly place and a safe one to which the honor-bound Kyogoku, a trusted intermediary, had led the proud, if anxious, princess, there to meet and do with life’s final consummation. The very walls around seemed to echo some fain portent, in keeping with time’s most cruelly adjudged, if seemly ending.

Harunaga lay hidden in the fastness of an humbler shrine builded farther up on the hillside overlooking the walls and guarding eagerly each approach. No deed of the hand or foulness of a heart should harm or hinder his ladyship’s grace as long as he might serve; he had divined well her secret, and marshalled afresh his own hardening courage: sought as best he knew to induce the moral which every man must finally know as in prudence wisely revealed.

She had gone there that Hideyori’s hand might not be stained, that a nation should rise upon the hard-burned figments of ambition, that her love attain its just reward, and an ideal come down from heaven to earth—a life’s work rounded out in God.

Weighing over against his own feelings a greater force, the obligations that he had incurred, this gray-haired bonze, faith’s most truly devoted, resolved in his own heart that she had chosen well, and that so long as he might prevent, her confidence should not be abused or Ieyasu’s word broken. Harunaga sat there, as he had lived, the sphinx, grinning against the gray and the dawn of duty.

Little birds twittered in the tree-tops, the frosts of winter threatened coming on, the shadows of evening were lengthening and casting their grim visages toward the treasured homestead she had left—

Two chairs, one bearing the three asarum leaves, the other an under man’s crest, came tottering up the long, crooked, narrow, and overshaded alley-way, the first ahead and the other after, their heads bobbing and poles creaking, to the patter of hurrying feet and bating of heated breaths. Harunaga, springing to his feet, edged closer to the wall, and peering hard through its miserly cracks muttered:

“It is well,” and the two passed on, to their vainly induced, if death averting, task.

Dismounting and dismissing the carriers, the two entered, at one side the larger passage, through a small, low gate in the massive unscalable stone fence surrounding the house; leaving and abandoning thus any means of defence or escape, for the gate once closed could not be again opened without assistance. Ieyasu apparently bore no weapon at all, and Honda carried only the customary appendages allowable to a gentleman of his worth and rank. Harunaga, it would seem, had adjudged rightly, for he gave the matter no further concern.

Kyogoku met them at the inner entrance, in response to Ieyasu’s loud knocking upon the door-case.

“Welcome, my lord,” vouched the former; whereat the latter responded:

“Thank you, but not as lord; I seek, am harmless, hence lordless. I trust I find myself still bidden and the princess in good parts. May I enter?”

The leaves upon the trees, standing here and there like sentinels, rustled gently in the day’s abiding round, yet there arose out of its vigor as it were the meaning of a rebirth, the resurrection of man, the inspiration of soul—an ever-present God, whom the grind of time or the compensations of living alone reveal.

Conjure that God as we may, borrow if we can, proclaim Him from the house tops though we do, worship whom we will, there is no salvation till the eye has responded to conscience; and going there, as he did, had Ieyasu but answered to the call that emanated betwixt duty and neglect? Had Yodogima found a haven that is neither of the real nor of the ideal? Had the circle that encompasses encountered its magnet?

The broad vistas opening to the eastward carried their gaze back over the same fields they had but trodden: a Star illuminated the universe, and their hearts throbbed with the freshness of a regenerated past. No earthly thing could have parted them: might a heavenly grace have cemented more deeply the affection they two had wrought in the fiery cauldron of human endeavor? Ieyasu bowed low in her presence, and she responded as no other living thing responds—the light of intelligence made certain the order intended.

Sitting there, in quiet contemplation, upon the floating bridge they trod, the future alone bursting jealously, they greeted each other; he, “How good to meet a lovely woman”; she, “How lovely to meet an honorable man”: thence love ruled and blessings showered.

Out upon the field, in front, Hideyori thundered the cry of, “To battle,” and Esyo marshaled, as well, the hosts against him. War reigned there.