HE Prince Keiki had been on the highway three days before he became again something more than an unconscious automaton. After the first great shock of Wistaria’s revelation had passed from him, there had come a desperate terror and horror which seemed to numb his faculties. For several days he was not conscious of anything either within or without him. There was no anguish in his heart or intelligence in his brain. His memory of events succeeding Wistaria’s unmasking, as he believed it, was as vague as the tangled threads of a dream. He had fallen into that apathetic lethargy with which he had been afflicted upon his arrest.

He had, it is true, uncertain recollections of a place passed on the way, or of a halt here and refreshment there, but he could not assert that they were real. He might have dreamed them. He could not tell.

Then Keiki returned to his normal being. He awoke as from a troubled sleep to a world of torment. Could he have slept, and, sleeping, have imagined the events with which the name Wistaria was repulsively associated? No! It was, alas, all too true. He must bear it. As the first sharp anguish of his awakening passed away, there came visions to comfort Keiki.

When what he termed in after years his great awakening burst upon him, he found himself walking down a muddy road which led, his sense of locality told him, south to his province of Choshui. It was raining, fiercely, sullenly. Almost with a feeling of relief, Keiki found that he was wet. It gave him new life and new courage to do some simple elemental thing, such as drawing his cape tighter, closer about him. Then, as he battled against the wind and the driving rain, a fierce joy came to him. He was wise in the wisdom of suffering. His life should be devoted to the cause. No woman should destroy the significance life held for him.

Too long had he tarried with inclination. He had pictured to himself a beautiful highway through life, upon which Wistaria should tread by his side. She was lost forever. The rough path, the developing path of struggle, should be his. He would not falter. He would be true first to himself, his higher self, and then to the holy cause of his country. Patriotism and the restoration of rightful rule to the Mikado should guide him in every act. The events through which he had passed had consecrated him anew. His life could not be taken; he could not fail, until all had been accomplished.

In the new life which he was about to enter his course would not always be plain; he would not always be understood. For that he must be prepared.

When the Prince Keiki had thus settled the past and ordered the future, he began to take cognizance of outward conditions, as became him now. It was wet, and growing dark. He must seek shelter for the night. Turning aside from the highway, Keiki asked the simple hospitality of the country-side from a little house hard by the path of travel. Although it was long past the hour of their evening meal, the good dwellers in the cottage sent their daughter to the rear of the house to prepare food for the hungry Prince.

Sitting alone in a corner, Keiki, waited upon by the little maiden, found a quiet and comfort that three days ago he would have thought impossible. A strange comfort exhales from a perfectly appointed meal after the heart has been tried. It is the acme of despair, the realization of one’s duty to one’s self. Keiki, absorbed in these fantastic reflections, suddenly became conscious of the fact that for several minutes past the little maid had been making strange signals to him. Seeing this, he signed to her to advance. She did so, but in a faltering and almost fearful fashion. When near enough to him to speak without being overheard, she glanced in terror at his face and slipped to the ground, where she prostrated herself at his feet, her head nodding in frantic motions of servility.

“Why, what is this?” ejaculated the Prince, displeased.

“Y—your highness!” she gasped.

“Speak,” said Keiki, sternly. “You appear desirous of serving me. What is it?”

She rose tremblingly.

“You must not tarry here long,” she whispered. “The spies of the Shogun are about.”

“Ha!”

“It is broadly reported that the Shining Prince Keiki has escaped his fate. The roads are beset. They are tracking his footsteps. Even now some of them are before the house. Oh, my lord, I know you to resemble too closely the Shining Prince for you to linger here. We—the whole country—are in sympathy with thee and would befriend thee, but the shogunate—” She broke off, her fear and distress completely overpowering her.

Keiki laid an alert hand upon his sword.

“None may take me now,” he said, defiantly, “for I am become invincible.”

“Come!” urged the little maid.

“Whither?” inquired the Prince.

Pushing aside the doors at the rear, she led Keiki into the garden. Passing through it, they came to a wall. The maid spoke.

“Climb this, turn to the west. Go along the road a bit until you come to a cross-path. Take that, and you will come out upon your southern route below the danger point. I—”

There was a movement in the bushes behind.

“Oh, all the gods!” she cried. “It is too late, I fear!”

“What do you there?” a voice, stern with threatening, demanded from the bushes. The maid responded:

“Peace to thee! I do but bid farewell to my lover.”

A laugh answered.

“Do not fear, maiden. We do not disturb cooing birds,” came from the bushes, and a drawn sword was shifted from hand to hand, carelessly.

The warm blood surged about the temples of Keiki. Because of the perfidy of Wistaria, he would accept no service from her sex.

“I did not need thy lie, maiden,” he said.

Then to those in the bushes he shouted:

“I am he whom you seek, the Prince Keiki. Come, take me!”

As he spoke, he hurled his cape to the ground and rested his sword with its point upon his sandalled foot. Quick as was his action, it was met by those lurking in hiding. Three forms glided out from the bushes. Three blades flashed towards him. Keiki’s quick eye perceived that those attacking him wore but one sword. They were evidently merely Shogun spies or common soldiery. Their clumsy handling of their swords filled his soul with a wild elation. He would have some play with these vassals—he, Keiki, the most exquisite swordsman in Japan, and the most finished Jiujutsu student.

“Come hither—hither!” he taunted. “Without dishonor ye may yield yourselves to me, Keiki, the invincible!”

A savage yell replied. In imagination, perhaps, the Shogun spies saw the glittering price of the Prince’s head within their hands. They closed with him.

The hand of Keiki instantly snatched the second sword from his belt. With a sword in each hand he met the advance. The sword in his right hand met and parried the initial blows and thrusts of his two adversaries; the sword in his left met the blade of the third, and, though it could not attack, maintained an effective defence.

The attacking swordsmen were startled. Such a thing was beyond the traditions of the samurai, and a feat wellnigh impossible.

Of a sudden the blade of the first of Keiki’s adversaries dealt a vicious blow. Keiki met it with his left-hand sword, and before the blade could be recovered by his enemy the sword in his right hand had turned to the second adversary. This one, unprepared for Keiki’s sudden onslaught, fell back, with his sword-arm severed at the wrist. Again the first antagonist thrust; Keiki met him. He now had an antagonist on either side of him, at points nearly opposite. He answered the blow of the one with the first of his two swords, while the other recovered his blade. There could be only one issue to such unequal combat. The position of his adversaries would not permit Keiki to fight them with one sword alone. Alive to the necessities of his position, Keiki kept slowly turning as his opponents tried to take him from behind. Suddenly Keiki fell upon his left knee, as though overcome, while with his right-hand sword he kept up a vigorous attack. The sword in his left hand became feebler, weaker in its movements. Thinking Keiki affected by some of the numerous small wounds with which he was covered despite his defence, the soldier on Keiki’s left rushed in to despatch him, leaving himself but poorly guarded. The sword opposed to him became swiftly active. It passed into the breast of the samurai, where Keiki, glad that its necessity was over, allowed it to remain.

Quickly regaining his feet, the Prince devoted himself to his remaining enemy, who was a better swordsman than the others.

“Yield!” threatened Keiki, as he dealt a furious blow at the other’s head.

His antagonist laughed. Immediately Keiki thrust in quick succession at the other’s breast, head, and throat. His first blow was parried. The second at the head was a feint. As the soldier raised his sword to meet it, Keiki unopposed, thrust through his throat. He fell.

Breathing heavily from his exertion, Keiki looked about him for the maid, and the spy whose hand he had severed. He found the maiden bending over the lifeless body of his antagonist. From her hand a small dagger slipped to the ground. Satisfied as to her safety, Keiki quickly drew out his left sword from the breast of his opponent. Then without a word he climbed the wall and took the southern route again, disdaining to follow the directions of his late hostess.

In a rice-field farther down the road he bound up his wounds with the torn lining of his haori. Through the larger part of the following day he slept.

Alarmed by the recent occurrences at the little house by the highway, Keiki, who believed that the Shogun had put a price upon his head, now travelled only at night. The days he spent in sleep, and in locating, without exposing himself too much, the scenes of foraging expeditions made at night through which he managed to secure the means of sustenance.

The vigorous and unnatural fight through which he had just passed had a further invigorating effect upon him. Before that he had been near to death in his thoughts—death for the cause. Now he resolved in fresh and vigorous determination to live—and to live gloriously for the greatest cause that had ever made a pulse to leap in Japan.

At dusk on the fifth day after the fight, Keiki set forth upon the last stage of his journey. He was now near to the borders of the Choshui province. A few hours later he reckoned that he had crossed the boundary and was well within the limits of his father’s country, when there came to him the sound of swords clashing beyond a turn in the road. Keiki, now grown cautious, skirted the spot through a field, and then crept within sight of the place.

Five men were pitted against three, while on the road lay the bodies of two more. Keiki had made up his mind to aid the lesser party, when an exclamation in well-remembered tones came to him. It was from one of the lesser party, old Hashimoto, a trusted follower of his father.

In a moment Keiki was in the road. Before either party were aware of his presence, he had killed two of the larger number.

“I aid thee!” he shouted, as with his father’s men he engaged the despised Shogun followers. Speedily another of their number fell. The four obtained the easy surrender of the others.

Hashimoto approached the Prince.

“We thank thee for thy aid—” he began. Then, recognizing Keiki, he started back a pace and fell upon his knees.

“My noble prince! My master!” he cried, as he caught his robe and reverently pressed it to his lips.

“Thy master?” repeated Keiki. “My father, what of him?”

“Taken, your highness.”

“Taken?”

“After the rumors of your capture, your highness, we at once determined to raise the Imperial standard against the Shogun, and your father—”

“But we were not ready. None of our plans had been carried out!” cried the Prince.

Hashimoto answered:

“True, your highness, but your father was promised the assistance of most of the southern clans. Consequently he seized a number of Buddhist monasteries and cast their huge bronze bells into cannon. His undertaking was revealed to the Shogun before our allies could join us, and he was surprised and taken captive.”

“He serves a sentence?”

“He was sentenced, your highness. But the gods have anticipated—he is dead.”

Keiki threw off his cape, which Hashimoto respectfully lifted.

“Attend me to the fortress,” he commanded.

The followers bowed deeply. Suddenly Keiki raised his voice.

“Daigi Meibunor! The Shogun shall die!” he cried.

The followers answered with a cheer.

With head bowed in deep thought, Keiki led the way towards the principal fortress and castle of the Mori.