“How it is to be tricked.”

“Ha, ha—you think me easily done.”

They sat upon the beach, in the afternoon of the following day, Hideyoshi listening with rising anticipation and Yodogima straining every wit she had, prolonging and intensifying the illusion. She did not know that Esyo had deliberately, if falsely, precipitated the conflict, nor was she aware of Hideyoshi’s perusal of her own correspondence with Ieyasu—all of it, excepting only the last letter, in which she had advised him to make peace at any price, save honor. Yet she was conscious that a conflict raged, was perhaps at that moment fighting to the death, between two unequal forces, in which no quarter should be asked or given, and that her own lover was desperately pitted in that struggle against the very man who held her captive, grovelled at her feet a weakling and a beggar.

“Why should I not surrender, if needs be, this frail body of mine to save him?” again and again rose in her mind, as often to be discarded and smothered as a thing utterly impossible.

“No; I’ll yet win for him by subtler means an equal chance; and when I’ve done that—a woman cannot do less: should do no more.”

A heron stalked by, disdaining a small crab that backed and snapped among the slime-washed rocks: Hideyoshi strained his eyes, meditating momentarily the legend of a bygone day.

“A Heike?” queried he, half aloud, rising to examine more closely the supposed Taira symbol.

Yodogima’s throat filled, and failed of utterance.

“It’s only a common sort,” observed he, returning with the obstreperous little thing clinging tightly to the stick’s end.

Reseating himself, the conversation for once began somewhat to lag. It was too soon yet to boat round shady points or tempt strange communications from the deep, so the two remained in the shade. Esyo studied with unconcern the deeper mysteries of early dragon-fly catching and the strange cupidity with which the stupid long-bodied creatures permitted themselves to be ensnared and haled to bay. Only Oyea clung to the old temple, near by, farther up the long, sloping incline; two lions carved in stone stood sentinel there, and these she contemplated in prayer to the good god who as earnestly watched over them. Yodogima leaned forward, and for the first time induced Hideyoshi to return her look without avoidance, asking him: