I do love you—I know it now—O Ieyasu—my love, my faith, my hope.
The men and trappings rattled and tramped on the outside; preparations were making for the march, and Hideyoshi now more than ever scolded the lines and spruced his bearing. The fortunes of war had made him master of central Japan, had given him the capital and placed him in possession of the emperor, but the wiles of a woman taxed more heavily his energies.
Whether to overawe with guards and poltroonery or to encourage by liberties granted and confidences bestowed, were to him, now, under the circumstances, and in this case, quite as vital a matter as had been in ordinary times the choice between tweedledee and tweedledum.
The princess, herself, had made light of his own puerile methods; he had purposely refrained from demanding, as was the custom, the head of his old-time rival, Shibata, her father, solely in the hope of soothing and inspiring her: had he failed also in that? Ieyasu had been allowed to escape, that terror should not drive his coveted love to a last extremity; but seemingly all his plans had miscarried, placing him now at the brink of a still more vital blunder—and win he would: if unfairly, none the less manly, for that.
Her two sisters had disappeared—Takiyama had laid siege to the one, and the other scolded the way along to keep her company and see that Hideyoshis second best general proved a diligent escort.
The roads were smooth, withal their crookedness and the rugged aspect of the country through which they entered to pass. An occasional rabbit jumped away, into the thicket, none the wiser for a strange, harmless fright, and Yodogima marvelled the dextrousness of his small endeavor. Could she likewise defeat or escape harm? No; civilization had reduced her to less agile and more hardened methods. And for what? They had gone into a thickened cluster of stragglingly growing pines with drooping, needle-laden branches and no dry leaves or fallen limbs to rattle and crackle underneath. It was now getting dark again, and the probabilities of the occasion caused her to peer and listen with more than ordinary anxiety, yet no spook had ever roused in her so much as a possible thought.
The advance had gone on, rapidly, and were by this time far in the lead. Hideyoshi had remained well behind, bringing up the rear and keeping the whole under observation with as little inconvenience or damage as likely; as he was wont to do under all circumstances and in much less trying situations than this, the proudest homecoming in his hard, eventful career. That part of the cavalcade in which Yodogimas chair constituted the principal charge had strung out along the roadstead in single file, and as there seemed no possible chance for escape in either direction the guards sang their way along in front or lagged behind in contemplation of the uncertainties foreshadowing a visit with their mothers or sweethearts at home.
Directly they had reached the darkest place, rounding a sharp curve, the princess leaned forward, staring vacantly into an ominous opening, covered and narrow, through the limbs and brush, at the lower side of the roadway. The same bettos that rescued her from the conflagration at Kitanoshi had been at her especial solicitation grudgingly retained for her further use upon this particular part of the renewed journey. They knew full well the reason—Yodogima slid carefully down from the chair and as cautiously entered the gloomy place on which her eyes had all but riveted.
Yodogima? whispered a voice, that quickly set at rest her anxiously pulsating self, as to what it was and who it were so subtlely attracting her attention.
Yes, Ieyasu—but you must not be discovered here. Let me go, and save yourself. The escape you propose would ill afford either of us the relief sought.