Quickly regaining his feet, the Prince devoted himself to his remaining enemy, who was a better swordsman than the others.
“Yield!” threatened Keiki, as he dealt a furious blow at the other’s head.
His antagonist laughed. Immediately Keiki thrust in quick succession at the other’s breast, head, and throat. His first blow was parried. The second at the head was a feint. As the soldier raised his sword to meet it, Keiki unopposed, thrust through his throat. He fell.
Breathing heavily from his exertion, Keiki looked about him for the maid, and the spy whose hand he had severed. He found the maiden bending over the lifeless body of his antagonist. From her hand a small dagger slipped to the ground. Satisfied as to her safety, Keiki quickly drew out his left sword from the breast of his opponent. Then without a word he climbed the wall and took the southern route again, disdaining to follow the directions of his late hostess.
In a rice-field farther down the road he bound up his wounds with the torn lining of his haori. Through the larger part of the following day he slept.
Alarmed by the recent occurrences at the little house by the highway, Keiki, who believed that the Shogun had put a price upon his head, now travelled only at night. The days he spent in sleep, and in locating, without exposing himself too much, the scenes of foraging expeditions made at night through which he managed to secure the means of sustenance.
The vigorous and unnatural fight through which he had just passed had a further invigorating effect upon him. Before that he had been near to death in his thoughts—death for the cause. Now he resolved in fresh and vigorous determination to live—and to live gloriously for the greatest cause that had ever made a pulse to leap in Japan.
At dusk on the fifth day after the fight, Keiki set forth upon the last stage of his journey. He was now near to the borders of the Choshui province. A few hours later he reckoned that he had crossed the boundary and was well within the limits of his father’s country, when there came to him the sound of swords clashing beyond a turn in the road. Keiki, now grown cautious, skirted the spot through a field, and then crept within sight of the place.
Five men were pitted against three, while on the road lay the bodies of two more. Keiki had made up his mind to aid the lesser party, when an exclamation in well-remembered tones came to him. It was from one of the lesser party, old Hashimoto, a trusted follower of his father.
In a moment Keiki was in the road. Before either party were aware of his presence, he had killed two of the larger number.