“You are superseded,” roared the enraged Mori. “I give the command to—”
With a quick, almost superhumanly nervous movement, the gates were thrust aside from within. The black muzzles of cannon threatened the now disorganized division of the Irregulars.
“After me,” cried Mori.
A flying leap carried him across the line of cannon. Out from their mouths belched their fire. The invaders were swept aside. Mori, striking terrible blows about him, ordered his men to advance, when the Shogun cannon were withdrawn, and a body of horsemen, with savage cries, rushed from within the palace, driving before them and scattering the survivors of Toro’s division.
A horse felled Mori and tossed him aside. As he struck the ground a gigantic samurai seized his motionless form, threw it across his shoulder, and carried it into the group of palaces.
The body of chosen samurai who had followed Mori, more slowly because on foot, now came up, and made a disheartening stand. A terrible cry arose that carried dismay, disorganization, and defeat to all divisions of the Irregulars.
“The Shining Prince is taken! Mori is killed!” was shouted by some witless member of Toro’s division.
Taken up by others, the report came to the officers in whose charge the various divisions had been placed. Although Oguri made every effort to carry cohesion throughout the force, the shout had done its work. Mori, the Shining Prince, their invincible leader, was dead, thought the rank and file. All was lost. With such a spirit to combat, the officers could do nothing.
A superstitious fear that the gods had deserted them entirely for their sacrilegious act of attacking the palace of their representative on earth, the divine Mikado, added terror to the Irregulars.
Some little advantage was gained here and there by charges into the gardens of the palace, but the great force of Aidzu easily repelled them. Then pouring out into the streets, the army of chastisement, under the young Prince of Mito, cut asunder the already divided and leaderless force of Choshui. Away from the vicinity of the Imperial enclosure the centre of battle rolled. The cavalry of Mori, dashing about compactly, made charges that were intended to rally the men of Choshui, but fruitlessly. They alone, of all the bodies of the Mori army, hung together.