“Yes, yes—oh, my lord—anything on earth you may command. Only spare him, I beseech you, I pray to you, as I would to a god!” She fell to moaning and crying with the weakness of hysteria, no longer brave, defiant.
He raised her not ungently. Holding her hands firmly, he looked sternly into her face.
“Listen to me, my daughter. The task may seem to you horrible. It should not be so. It is a righteous, holy cause you serve. I have sworn to the dead, pledged myself, to encompass a certain vengeance, which must not escape me now. I have lived for no other purpose. If I have seemed a cold, unfeeling father, stern, unsympathetic, and unloving, it is because I have a mission in life greater than that of a father. It is you who must help me to attain this ambition. Vengeance—honest, righteous vengeance—for a wrong done me and mine is a holy cause. No Japanese girl can regard it otherwise. The Prince of Mori is our bitter enemy. We must accomplish his undoing—his death!”
“Yes, yes,” she said, between her chattering teeth; “and you will not harm him?”
“I repeat I have nothing against this man. It is his prince whose proud spirit I will break! Kill!”
“Yes, yes—only his prince—the old prince. You wish me to kill him? Yes, I will do so.”
“No; it is the young prince who must die—the son of the Prince of Mori. Do you not understand that I accomplish a more complete revenge by compassing the death of him who is the salt of his life?”
“Yes, yes; I see it clear. I must kill the innocent. Ah-h! Oh, it is cruel, cruel!”
She was weeping brokenly, piteously at his feet again, her physical strength quite gone.
The samurai leaned over her.