HE palace, and indeed the whole domain of the Lord Catzu, presented the appearance of being constantly armed as though for attack, a not uncommon thing in the latter days of feudalism. The Shogun had been artful in his disposal of the various lords of the provinces. Families attached personally to him were stationed in provinces lying between those administered by families friendly to the Emperor. Thus none of the Emperor’s friends could meet to revolt against the Shogun.

So it happened that while the Lord Catzu was one of the most intimate and confidential of the advisers of the Shogun, his neighbor, the old Prince Mori, Daimio of the province of Choshui, desired to see the Mikado once more, the real, instead of the nominal, ruler of Japan.

Consequently the two neighboring clans, while displaying extravagant courtesy towards each other in public, were in reality unfriendly. Only during that portion of the year when the Shogun’s edict ordered a Yedo residence for all daimios, did the lords of the provinces meet one another, and that under the Shogun’s eyes in his Yedo seat of government. In the capital they simulated suavity and cordiality, but once back at their provincial capitals they preserved towards each other an attitude of polite defiance which made all intercourse between them impossible save that of the sword, when their respective samurai and vassals, coming in contact with one another, fought out their lords’ political differences.

Imbittering still more the feeling existing naturally between the Mori and Catzu clans, there was a personal element in the situation. When Catzu had first been made lord of the province he had met on a visit to the Shogun’s Yedo court the Lady Evening Glory, whose brother and guardian (she being an orphan) was a young samurai in the service of the Prince Mori. Having fallen a victim to the lady’s beauty and charms, the lord of Catzu was determined to have her for wife despite the opposition of the Mori Prince. Bold, brave, fearless, and with a grand contempt for the power of his rival, the Lord Catzu had carried off the fair lady from his neighbor’s dominions, though it was generally understood that both the lady herself and her samurai brother lent their assistance to the young lord. The young samurai, incurring thereby the deep displeasure and enmity of his Prince, was deprived of his title and estates and sent into exile upon the first convenient pretext. Strange tales told without shadow of authority diversified the nature of the crime for which the samurai had been exiled, but the two lords remained silent. All who had been concerned in the affair were commanded to the same silence by the Shogun.

Whatever were the many reasons responsible for the constant attitude of antagonism of these two clans towards each other, the lords carefully guarded their lands—more particularly those in the vicinity of their palaces—with all the rigor of a fortress prepared for the fiercest onslaught. Seemingly unapproachable and impenetrable as were the grounds of the Catzu palace, yet there must have existed at some spot in their watchful walls a vulnerable point, the heel of the stone Achilles.

A courtier, by his dress and demeanor plainly a member of the Mori household, lingered in the private gardens of the palace. The day had long since folded its wings of light, but an early March moon was enveloping the land in an ethereal glow. The courtier remained under the friendly shadow of a grove of pine-trees. His eyes were cast upon the stately Catzu shiro (palace). It seemed as though the moon-rays had singled out the graceful old castle and was bathing it tenderly in a halo of soft light.

It was cold, not bitterly so, but sharply chill, as it is at night betwixt the winter and the spring. But unconscious of the chill, erect and graceful, the courtier leaned against a tree-trunk, his arms crossed over his breast, his eyes full of moist sentiment, drinking in the beauty of the night scene, which had an added enchantment for him, a man in love.

All about him, before, behind, and around him, graceful pine-trees raised their slender, pointed heads up to the silver light. In the distance, like a strange, white mirage set in the moonlit sky, a snow-capped mountain seemed hung as in mid-air. The grass beneath his feet was young and intensely soft, with dewy moisture upon it.

A nightingale on the tip of a tall bamboo sang with such passionate sweetness that it brought the lover out from the shelter of the shadow. Quivering with emotion, his soul responding and vibrating to the song of love, he strode into the light of the moon. Unmindful of the danger of his exposure to possible observation, he drew forth from the bosom of his haori a little roll of rice-paper. Once more he read it through, and yet once again.

“My Lord,—I write this augustly insignificant letter to you, trusting that your health is good. Also the health of all your honorable relatives and ancestors.

“I have received your most honorably magnificent compliments. Accept my humblest thanks.

“Now I deign to write unto you, beseeching you to abandon so foolhardy a purpose as to follow me to my uncle’s home. I would feign warn you that my uncle’s guards are fierce and ofttimes cruel, and to one wearing the garb of a hostile clan, I fear they would show no mercy. Therefore I beseech you, do you pray abandon your honorable purpose.

“Also condescend to permit me to add, that if you must indeed truly attempt so hazardous an undertaking, I would beg to inform you, that though the grounds are surrounded by such great walls that I fear me not even a tailless cat might climb them, and also the gates are guarded by the fiercest samurai, nevertheless, on the south there is a small river. Mayhap you will hire a boat. Then do you come up this honorable river, keeping close to the shore, and I do assure you that you will discover a break in the south wall, which leads into the gardens surrounding the palace.

“My lord, my uncle’s guards are not so vigilant before sunrise, as I myself have ofttimes remarked when I have arisen early of a morning and have looked from my casement, which is also on the south side of the palace, facing the river and the outlet thereto.”

The nightingale paused in its song, and then broke out again, its long, piercing trill filling the night.

The lover returned to the shelter of the pine grove, and, throwing himself upon the grass, drew his cape close about him. Leaning his head upon his hand, he gave himself up to his dreams.