The crown rested, impatiently, upon its golden-lacquered tray in front.

An ambassador advanced.

“Our commission,” declared he, bowing low.

“Read it,” commanded Hideyoshi.

The interpreter complied:

“We do invest you King of Japan—”

“What? Crown me of less than I possess? No!” shouted he, snatching up the document, casting off that robe, and throwing down the crown.

The rage of Hideyoshi only increased with each attempted explanation; the real perpetrators stood mute in the background, the one bent upon Hideyori’s destruction, the other confident of a mother’s triumph. The acknowledged son and, now, only possible successor destroyed, Ishida believed it easy to lay his hand securely upon the reins of government: trusting his judgment, the taiko could be wrought into no more favorable mood than the one at present so forcibly expressed. Ieyasu, on the other hand, faltered; he adjudged Yodogima capable, but Hideyoshi fighting mad and in a corner had only too often proven it the death knell to any one, hated or loved, who had as yet invoked the temerity to confront him.

The plan in truth of his own making, and its working in perfect accord to this the culminating point, convinced him the more that someone had found him out and now fared ready to reap the reward of his iniquity.

Ieyasu stood paralyzed—yet no one seemed to suffer a moment’s loss or to heed at all any sort of plight in consequence of his failure. Ieyasu, as if dumb, Ishida exulted the more: Oyea came forth as understood, and bowing down laid the child at Hideyoshi’s feet—the taiko gasped; speech had failed.