Gengo Struck with Deadly Aim
From all sides hatamotos with bared swords rushed in, drawn by the shrieks for help. As I knelt with Satsuma beside our dead lord, Midzuano leaped up and pointed to us, with a terrible cry: “Strike! The Shogun is slain! Kill the traitors!”
An instant’s hesitancy and we should have been hacked in pieces by the upraised swords. Satsuma sprang to his feet, his great form swelling with wrath, his heavy face dark with menace. Without a word, he pointed one hand at the dying assassin and the other at Midzuano.
“Strike!” commanded the Chief Counsellor, and his dull eyes lighted with cold malevolence.
“Strike!” echoed Satsuma, still pointing.
The hatamotos glared at us in deadly rage, yet stood motionless, checked by the power of the great Daimio. I rose beside him, and signed to the attendant with the sake flask. He pointed to the dying chamberlain, and called loudly: “Midzuano lies! Gengo is the traitor. He first brought this flask to the Prince of Owari; then came to serve the Shogun. His Highness had cause to suspect poison. He flung the bowl into the face of the traitor, who drew and struck.”
“The Counsellor is challenged to drink from the flask brought to me by Gengo,” I added.
“They are all traitors.—Kill them together!” cried Midzuano.
I held out Kohana’s scroll to the nearest hatamoto, with a laconic command: “Read!”