“Silly twaddle, for serious men,” muttered Maeda, upon parting and going each his way, as solemnly if doubtfully pledged.

The flames were yet raging when Hideyoshi reached the outskirts of Kitinoshi; Shibata had sooner entered the city, and lest any part of his treasured place should escape expurgation the sorely beaten and vainly tried daimyo began resolutely to apply the torch upon passing the outer ramparts, and did not cease until the fire had spread in every direction. Inside the palace all was confusion. His intimate friends had gathered in a last sad attempt to console a dying chieftain. For a lifetime they had served him and his and now that the time had come they would do him honor in death.

“It is the will of Kami (God),” said he, “that I am defeated. Do you serve me yet?”

“Yes,” they all cried, eagerly.

“Then it is meet that I do something to show my appreciation of such loyalty. Let a feast be spread and the sake brought in and music provided that we make merry, for to-morrow we shall be—dead.”

The flames roared and raged without, and they sang and danced and composed until a late hour. Not a soul there would but suffer the torments of hades to quench the thirst for chivalry—they should have died a thousand times to die an honorable death, to go peacefully to rest in the embrace of a master’s rite.

Presently the fires burned low on the outside, and the spirit increased correspondingly within; the sake cup was passed round, each taking his final leave.

“Asai, my good wife,” inquired Shibata, “will you not go from the castle? Hideyoshi will not harm you, a daughter of Nobunaga.”

“Why in the flesh, if the spirit rebels? I am yours in death as I have been in life. Do not turn me from you: let me die with you,” begged she, bowing low down, on the mat before him.

“What greater joy could heaven contain?” responded he, wholly absorbed.