CHAPTER X

Neither Hideyoshi, nor Yodogima, for the moment, took any pains to discover or to suspect the identity of that last message-bearer; though had either one observed at all only the dishevelled clothing he might have been induced to look underneath the mask, hiding too slenderly a timid, anxious face. It were enough for Yodogima to know that her lover had risen to first place in the estimation of an only rival: for Hideyoshi to realize once and for all that the price of Shibata’s eldest daughter was to be something dearer than the lone bagatelle of a daimyo’s willing or the baser invocations of a traditional heritage.

Hideyoshi tore his way over the open road like mad. The vitalest opportunity of his life had been denied him, a victory snatched away that seemed almost within grasp, and he himself written down an ass at a time when his name should have been heralded throughout the empire as invincible—and by the doing of a woman.

“Shame be upon they who think themselves sexed into heaven; it is might that makes us what we are—right or wrong, male or female, man or his kind. Then beware!” threatened he, as the dust rolled in the wake of his ride toward the field.

Nor was Yodogima less conscious of a dawning respect for Hideyoshi. The knowing princess had expected harsher treatment, if not more subtle means, at the hands of her captor; who had, after all, proven himself a respecter of ability if not an admirer of virtue; and what if he should vanquish Ieyasu and, in fact, carry out his ideas about total extermination? The very thought of such a possibility deadened every reason.

Esyo, too, had gone; she had devised less and reasoned more, conjured her sister ambitious and charged Hideyoshi with ungratefulness; she had witnessed, become conscious of the latter’s growing regard for Yodogima in the face of all that she had done to check it—to further her own designs—and now turned to a newly devised, though less hopeful, expediency: overcoming with difficulty the distance, soon found herself in the bosom of Ieyasu’s command; a crooked purpose put to straights, knowing no rest and once off, she did not lag so much, in fact reached her destination before Hideyoshi had sighted his.

Thus abandoned by the only sister apparently left to her—without some hint or even a surmise as to the cause or purpose—and with a determined suitor speeding toward the destruction of the only one she loved, and with her own hands tied, and she powerless to succor him, Yodogima turned to composure alone for consolation—presumably a little body, unexpected and unmindful, careless and happy, as if an angel from heaven, tripped lightly into her presence, and throwing down a big, ungainly mask, bantered, rather provokingly, if happily:

“You didn’t know me at all, did you?”

“Jokoin!” gasped Yodogima.

“Yes; and Hideyoshi, with all his eyes, never saw a thing. What stupid people.”

“How did you find the way, Jokoin; and—what brings you?”

“I came to tell you—I just couldn’t wait; they are such a poky lot, those captains and generals and would-be gallants—and it isn’t any trouble, at all, to go anywhere one wants to go—how did you like my disguise?”

“I hadn’t thought about that—it looks a bit scant—but where have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve had lots of fun; went to the front—but Takiyama is a bore; can’t think of anybody or talk about anything save someone, said to have lived sometime, called Christ—oh, but they’re a pesky lot, these Christians!”

“Jokoin! How you talk!”

“It’s their way and—quite catching, you know; they say, there are a lot of them, already—in Hideyoshi’s service, though.”

“Please do not, Jokoin; I cannot bear it—to hear you use such language.”

“Well, I gave them the slip, all right, and here I am—but where are the men? Is Hideyoshi the only one you had?”

“Sister, you shock me; I cannot understand you!”

“Oh, yes, you can. Just take a tumble. Turn a somersault—you have no idea how easy it is; and how stimulating, withal. I wouldn’t be in love with only one man, at a time, as you are, right now, this very minute, for anything. It doesn’t pay, at all, to be sentimental.”

Yodogima did not answer, at once; she could not at first, for want of composure; afterwards, perhaps, because her own ideals seemed the harder to encourage in the face of such light-heartedness; but finally, that joy which is wrought only in the crucible of a convicted enlightenment opened wider still the floodgates of confidence, bidding her say:

“Jokoin, let me tell you that to love is a sacred thing; and if you care to win and hold a man’s regard, then learn to use your tongue, but keep in hand the heart.”

“As you did with Ieyasu. Poor fellow. They say he is about to croak from distraction.”

“I do not know what you mean; your speech has become quite unintelligible. Someone must have exercised a strange influence upon you.”

“It’s the newfangled religion—I’ve got it, I’ll admit—though it’s the worst sort of a makeshift and good only for those who need it, who practice it, and who believe in it. Why, Yodo, under it, you can do anything, then take a bath, bend the knee, and shout for Christ’s sake: he’ll do the rest.”

“Horrors, sister; I do believe you are possessed!”

“So are you, Yodogima, and all the rest—everybody, dead or alive, born and unborn; only you don’t know it, and for that must suffer: they say, go to—well I can’t just recall the name, and it’s such a bad place I won’t startle you with mentioning it.”

“Please do not; I shouldn’t comprehend it—but what of Ieyasu? Why distracted?”

“Because of your advice, and Esyo’s treachery; she fibbed on both of you to the one, and tried to inspire the other wrongly: between the two of you he has taken a tumble—as I but a moment ago said you might find it advisable or convenient to do. The whole enemy is afraid of him, their reports are all a pack of lies, and nothing less than Hideyoshi’s presence can save Ieyasu’s doing about as he pleases, in these parts. Take courage, sister, and bet your boots on—the winner; I am going to return, for the fun, and if you wish shall give your love to—which one, Yodogima?”

Jokoin ran away, without giving her sister a chance to answer had she possessed the courage or the patience to do so; Yodogima loved too deeply, held life, that she knew, as against death, its natural consequence, too seriously revealed in the underlying humanities of an established conduct, to bandy truth for the sake of bolstering courage or lightening the burdens of an ordered continuity.

Oyea proved a better counsellor, more a comforter, and together they reconciled their returning, though weary it was, toward the castle whence they had departed so shortly, more hopeful, if less doubtful.