The Shogun's Daughter

by Robert Ames Bennet

One had been enough for me. I turned, shuddering, to pick my way over the water-and-blood-soaked bodies of the dead, in the wake of the slowly advancing norimon. The rain-squall was blowing away as swiftly as it had dashed upon us.

With the passing of the last shower, a burst of golden light from the low western sun flooded over the roof of the yashiki on our left. At the same moment I heard the sound of rushing iron-shod feet. As I flung up my downbent head the sun-rays glittered on the wet silks and bared steel of a band of samurais that came charging out of the street on the right.

“Keiki!” cried Yoritomo, and clapping his hat upon my head, he darted forward to thrust a roll of writing through the window of the norimon, into the lap of the Princess.

With my second revolver held loose under the edge of my robe, I sprang after him to the side of the norimon, as the Mito men swarmed out and closed about the crippled cortege. The first glance had shown them the failure of their diabolical plot. Utterly disconcerted and bewildered by the defeat of the ronins, they ran about like wolves that have overshot the trail of their quarry. The two wounded hatamotos sought to wave them aside, but so many blocked the way that our party was forced to halt.

The thought flashed upon me that they might butcher every one of us except the Princess, and then claim all the credit of the rescue. This I am certain would have been the course of action of the more hot-blooded among them, had not the older men bethought themselves that they could not silence the Shogun’s daughter. To accomplish the object of their plot, they must bring her safe to her father.

In the midst of their flurry and confusion, a norimon came swaying around the corner of the side street at a most unlordly speed. Before it the excited samurais parted their ranks, and the bearers trotted across as if to range alongside the norimon of the Princess. Yoritomo sprang before them with barring sword.

“Stand!” he commanded.

The bearers halted at the word, but the samurais burst into angry yells, and turned to rush upon the audacious priest who had dared to oppose the advance of their lord. A glance around in search for some way of escape showed me the windows of the yashikis jammed with the heads of out-peering women and the main street full of running hatamotos and samurais. My pistol shots had been heard above the uproar of the squall.

Regardless of the swiftly gathering crowd, Keiki’s men pressed upon Yoritomo, with upraised swords. I drew my revolver and stepped forward beside him, certain that the end had come. I could not hope to overawe so large a band with a few shots. Without doubt we would have been overwhelmed and cut down within the next quarter-minute, had not their master called upon our menacing opponents to fall back.

The bearers of the black norimon set down their burden, and the nearest samurais sprang to remove the top. The silk-clad aristocrat who arose from the depths of the box-like palanquin was younger and even handsomer than Yoritomo, but his eyes, between their excessively narrow lids, had a shiftiness that reminded me of the treacherous Malays.