"For the gods are merciful!"
"So merciful, I sometimes abjectly think, that they desire to be deceived, for our peace of mind."
"Or, at least," mended Kiomidzu, to whom this was a trifle too much, "they will close their eyes while we augustly do it."
Namishima disliked a trifle the correction of his brother:—
"Do not the gods so act upon the minds of their creatures that they remember or forget? Well, then! It is true that now others know that our brother died on the rebel side at Jokoji. But do we not know that, in the course of much time, the gods can make this to be forgotten, and make to be remembered that he died on the emperor's side?"
"Yea, if his son should die for the emperor."
"Yea! For the name is the same!"
"And I have had a sign in a dream," said Kiomidzu, lowering his voice a little more. "Before me stood a tall god—"
They both bowed and rubbed their hands.
"—I knew neither his august name nor his presence. But his face shone as the sun, so that it is certain he was a god who can see the end from the beginning, and all between. And thus he spake: 'Rise and light the lamps and burn the sweet and bitter incense. For Shijiro Arisuga, he who died at Jokoji, shall have a crimson death-name.'"