For several weeks it had been thronged daily by a crowd of people of all classes, who seemed to assemble there for some secret purpose. The master of the establishment was undoubtedly in league with these men; he always mingled in their conversation,—indeed he often seemed to direct and inflame it. They talked of the affairs of the nation. The general misery was frightful. This civil war, coming just at the time when the fields most needed the master's eye, had injured the harvests; several crops were utterly destroyed by the armies, others were poor; famine threatened all that part of the kingdom which still belonged to Fide-Yori. In the north, on the contrary, everything throve and flourished. While rice was scarce in the neighborhood of Osaka, it was sold at half price in the northern provinces; but Hieyas absolutely forbade it to be exported to the south, and the Shogun took no pains to have a supply brought from elsewhere. While the people died of starvation, the Court displayed an unexampled luxury: every day were given receptions, feasts, and banquets. Yodogimi excited the popular wrath; she exhausted the treasury. The taxes were raised, and salaries lowered. The Government had plainly gone mad. The Court danced on the verge of an abyss, dragging their trains of gold and satin after them, to the sound of bewildering music. All were blind; no one thought of the possible resumption of the war. Men got drunk, they laughed and sang within the fallen walls of the fortress; they took no steps to restore the army to its former footing, or to increase it if possible. Yoke-Moura had vainly striven to act; money was wanting: the caprices and ruinous extravagance of the Princess Yodogimi absorbed it all. And the Shogun, what was he about? Plunged in a mysterious melancholy, he wandered in his gardens solitary and alone, doing nothing, apparently laying down the power. It was evident that Hieyas only waited for an opportunity to give the last blow to that crumbling structure. But why should he wait? The old man's wisdom was in strange contrast with the young man's improvidence and the folly of his Court. Hieyas must be summoned; his accession would save the nation from misery and want. Why should they be reduced to the last extremity? An effort must be made to bring about the inevitable issue as soon as might be.
Omiti, with growing fear, daily heard similar discourses. The guests of the inn changed; the same men did not always return. They went elsewhere, to stir up rebellion and wrath. It was plain that emissaries from Hieyas were mixed with these artisans. The Usurper felt the value of a movement in his favor at Osaka; he was anxious to provoke it. Moreover the careless indifference of the Court was of wonderful help to him. Omiti saw all this; she wrung her hands, and wept with despair. "Then there is no one who dares to warn him of his danger!" she cried, in her sleepless nights.
One day, as she sat in her room embroidering, she noticed that the people talking in the room below had dropped their voices. Usually they cared very little who heard them. Her heart leaped in her bosom.
"I must hear what they say," she murmured.
She ran to the top of the staircase; and holding fast to the railing, glided to the lowest step as lightly as air, and succeeded in catching a few disjointed sentences.
"Yes, that beach is unfrequented."
"We will enter the inn by the door which opens from the sea."
"And we will leave on the street side in small groups."
"The soldiers must be disguised as mechanics."
"Of course; but they will keep their weapons under their cloaks."