Presently the hillsides, far out over the noised-up city, rang with the
bustle and cry of "To arms". No patriot there, not a samurai's mother,
but thrilled with the joy and strengthened at the bidding of higher
endeavor.
Only the mean, the weak, and the unpatriotic would question expediency;
small men with little souls might buy to sell again; others of brawn,
their minds a mirage, fashion the wares, drones and idlers drive and
shout their wives and children to plant and draw--men and women, humans
with a purpose and a promise higher and nobler than grubbing for food or
haggling for exchange or bartering for gold served a usefulness,
encouraged a hope, and pointed the way toward that rendering which make
men large; the ideal portended a reality which bid them not, ever, stoop
to sordid, useless gain.
The lines formed, and no more pleasing scene had come down through time
or fancy; men with hardened muscle and bronzed arms, their eyes
sparkling and step quickened, with spears levelled and cutlasses buckled
on, tramped to time and listened with intent.
"Open the gates, and down with the bridge," shouted the captain, as a
hundred thousand brave troops turned their backs upon peace and stores
to face the exigencies of uncertain warfare--an underling's last sad
gasp at fate and the godly's only reach to greatness.
War--the one thing that makes man better than his neighbor, bridges the
chasm between life and death, raises a hope superior within. War--the
slogan of nature, and the handmaid of creation. War--the savior of
mankind, at the cost of brute, stirred them as it had their fathers to
superhuman, transcendent energy.
They marched past the shops--in which sycophants wrangled this and that;
through the woods where cutters and hewers sweat or chewed; over the
plains, amid sustenance born of fain indifference--into the mountains,
lofty, grand and inspiring.
The roads ran smooth and easy up the long sloping ascent, they were
builded and used, for a like purpose, long before Shibata's rise had
conjured sublimity's ultimate pass. Presently sounds beyond echoed again
the uncertainties of dame progress. The dizzy heights scaled measured
accurately the cost of further effort. Ominous clouds darkened the way.
Shibata at last lagged, and a fox leaped from the roadside.
"Gonroku! Gonroku!" whispered Shibata, springing from his chair and
peering into darkness.
"Yes, father," replied the son, a little surprised, but not altogether
unconvinced.
"The enemy! Cannot you see them? They come in columns touching the seas:
ranks receding--I cannot number them--reaching beyond the horizon.
Katsutoya leads them."
"Impossible," shouted Sakuma. "On with the march."
"Listen," whispered Shibata, now white in the face and unsteady of foot.
"They do mock Sakuma," ventured Gonroku, before the first echo had again
resounded upon the still resonant air.
"Listen," repeated Shibata, his eyes like fireballs in the dark.
"A thousand answers," said Gonroku; now, too, almost convinced.
"You see phantoms, and Sakuma hearkens not to goblins. Old women and, I
believe, some men still read disaster into the appearance of a
fox--dogs, badgers, lizards, etc. If Katsutoya really be at Shizugataka,
it is high time that we arrest him. And if Hideyoshi has been so
reckless as to risk a host in one defense, so much the better for
Shibata; the way shall have been cleared to Kyoto with a single stroke
and--if I mistake not, Kyoto without Katsutoya would be quite as
acceptable at least to a part of Kitanoshi as it should be with hi--a
phantom."
"What means Sakuma, father?" inquired the son, perchance more
intelligently than judiciously.
"Let him take his own proper command, and himself prove that prophecy is
not blasphemy--by sending up, to this, a secure place, for you and me,
the head of this 'phantom,' as he calls it."
"Good," responded Sakuma--and division again strengthened Hideyoshi's
position.
With calling at Nagahama, Hideyoshi had made easy the plan of turning an
enemy's ready contingent into a no less effective than willing
instrument.
Katsutoya had never loved Yodogima, and out of promotion had conceived
the idea also that Shibata, his benefactor's purpose, were a hindrance
rather than a help to his vainly imagined restoration. Further, this
particular young princess, according to his nicely wrought notions, did
not at all augur the fulfillment of an Ashikaga shogun's well-reputed
requirements--and Katsutoya's dreams were already resplendent with all
that had made his supposed ancestors of some three hundred years
tolerable if not respectable.
"The bargain is a just one, Hideyoshi," promised he, contemplatively.
"Shibata's daughter would serve better the necessities of a daimyo like
yourself--Katsutoya shall have more the need of an humbler service; take
her and welcome; but why risk my neck at the front? If you would serve
me as shogun then secure me a man."
"Just so. And nothing is safer or saner or sounder than self-made
security--go against this man Sakuma; the rest are only women, fit to
gobble."
"Then it is gobble, gobble, and Shizugataka for me."
"Perhaps. You know, though, that Hideyoshi is reputed, there."
Katsutoya led his troops to the defense of Shizugataka, Hideyoshi's
outlying stronghold against Shibata's well-worn approach; but no sooner
had camp been struck than Sakuma hurled Shibata's advance force against
him. The battle raged, and Katsutoya wavered; surprise had overcome him,
and defeat completed the rout. Sakuma would have followed up his success
and gained Yodogima the head, not the hand, of Katsutoya had not Gonroku
hailed him in the distance; Shibata had again seen the fox--saw
Hideyoshi's phalanx scaling the mountains to the left--and sent Gonroku
to recall Sakuma that he might make haste to save Kitanoshi itself.
"O Jimmu; O Katsutoya; O Yodogima," murmured Shibata, as Gonroku
disappeared down the mountain side.
A forced march soon brought Gonroku's reserves within knowing distance
of Sakuma's victorious division.
Katsutoya had recovered himself on the opposite side of Yodo lake.
Sakuma grew impatient to take him, but Gonroku fired at the thought of a
hireling's success and balked at the proposal, denying even the identity
of their enemy.
"It is Katsutoya, I tell you, and unless destroyed our very lives are in
danger."
"You err, Sakuma; and till you prove me wrong you shall command no more
than a body guard."
With only six men, seven including himself, Sakuma plunged through the
reeds, once more into the heat of battle, and the fighting renewed now
in desperation; Gonroku looked on with a smile. Valiant men gathered
round and Sakuma spied their bogie hero. Cutting and slashing his way
thither, at last the coveted thing dropped helpless at a stroke; but lo!
was it only a fox's head?
Katsutoya had flown, and the phantom army no longer a reality Sakuma
gathered up the gruesome thing and hastening thither bowed humbly as
tradition demanded; Gonroku sent him away, to wander in the woods, as
others had done before, a ronin and a failure--Hideyoshi thus chanced
upon him.
"What have you there, Sakuma?"
Sakuma hid his face.
"Speak, Sakuma; a friend asks it."
Could this man, a daimyo, so degrade himself as to speak to an eta
(outcast)? His appearance disclosed the cast, and Hideyoshi had eyes, it
was claimed, in the back of his head. He must answer, yet dare not utter
a word in the presence of a superior; custom forbade it, and he had just
learned a lesson. No; a subterfuge must serve him: so thinking, Sakuma
dropped his burden, and slunk back out of sight.
"Ha, ha," muttered Hideyoshi; "a fox's head--I'll warrant he thought it
Katsutoya's--reputed son of a foxier monk than Nobunaga or Christianity
has yet outwitted.
"Here, Junkei. Exchange this for the real--no; he's safe, atop Hiyeisan,
I'll warrant; a like one will do. Understand me?"
"Yes, honorable master."
The likeness was soon enough returned--there were plenty of them in the
ranks--and Sakuma was again brought in.
"Sakuma, you think yourself unfit to address even me: look at this,"
commanded Hideyoshi, holding up to view the bloodless face.
Sakuma obeyed; there was no law or privilege that he knew depriving him
of so flagrant a sight. All the joys of heaven could not have won him
more; it seemed to be the head he really coveted.
"I am your servant," promised he, and the two of them bowed
respectfully.
"Then carry this thing forthwith to Shibata; it shall be the means no
less of his undoing than of Yodogima's making--"
"Of Ieyasu--a plaything."