"Perhaps you exaggerate the man's importance," said Faxibo. "It is a love-affair that attracts him to Kioto; his head is full of follies."
"So you think; and I confess that this man terrifies me," said the Regent vehemently, pausing before Faxibo. "No one ever knows what he is doing; you think him here, he is there. He outwits the most cunning spies: one declares that he followed him to Kioto, another swears that he has not lost sight of him for an instant, and that he has hot left Osaka; all his friends supped with him, while he was fighting on his return from the Miako[1] with men stationed by me. I think him asleep, or busy with his own affairs: one of my schemes is on the eve of success; his hand descends upon me at the last, moment. The empire would long since have been ours if it had not been for him; my partisans are numerous, but his are no less strong, and he has the right on his side. Stay: that plan which I had so skilfully arranged to rid the country, under the guise of accident, of a sovereign without talent and without energy,—that plan which was to throw the power into my hands,—who frustrated it? Who was the accursed coachman who urged that infernal team across the bridge? Nagato! He, always he. However," added Hieyas, "some one else, one of my allies, must have played the traitor, for it is impossible that any other can have guessed the scheme. Ah! if I knew the villain's name, I would at least gratify myself by an awful revenge."
"I told you what I was able to discover," said Faxibo. "Fide-Yori exclaimed at the moment of the crash: 'Omiti, you were right!'"
"Omiti! Who is Omiti? I do not know the name."
The Regent had advanced into the hall adjoining his chamber, which was divided, by a large screen only, from the veranda where the nobles were awaiting his coming. From within, this screen admitted of seeing without being seen. Hieyas heard the name of Nagato uttered; he approached eagerly, and signed to Faxibo to come close to him. Thus they heard the whole story of the Prince of Tosa.
"Yes," muttered Hieyas; "for a long time I took him for a man of dissolute morals and of no political importance; that was why I at first favored his intimacy with Fide-Yori. How deeply I repent it, now that I know what he is worth!"
"You see, master," said Faxibo, "that the Prince, doubtless warned of your project, did not quit Osaka."
"I tell you he was at the Miako, and did not leave there until far on in the night."
"And yet the Prince of Tosa was with him until very late."
"One of my spies followed him to Kioto; he entered the city in broad daylight, and remained there until midnight."