With her eyes thus opened, mysticism disappeared: the elements crackled,
and out of consciousness there arose a determination to survive any test
that might be imposed. All her tender life had been surrendered
faithfully and uncompromisingly to the harsher edicts of conventional
man; and stern realism had bidden her renounce every impulse; there had
seemed no alternative to save honor--the gods demanded it, the family
claimed it, and self had not dared deny death its sole reward.
Then, as womanhood arrived, barely kissed fain consciousness, in one
stolen rapport, just an unguarded moment, the godlight once shone in,
had seized upon her, made it seem as if there was a heaven, as if God
himself had touched her very soul and the blessed come to earth--a
little thing as insignificant as any worm or bird or animal, only a fox,
had come between her and what she might have had for the taking; and
that, too, without disturbing as she believed her father's plans in the
least or suffering the pain of being left in the world to do penance for
a thing that she knew to be wholly beyond the reach or concern of her
own insignificant little self.
Yodogima had been cast out, degraded, and left to makeshift, but not
defeated. In that one moment of utter helplessness she had resolved to
meet the world as found, and to make of life what God intended--an
abiding faith in that we know and not a conjured reach toward something
fancied.
Ieyasu had promised her protection--his love he had given her--and she
believed him capable and true; that she had renounced Katsutoya and
accepted Ieyasu rightly, though against every obligation that she knew
developments had proven beyond peradventure. Her father had anticipated
an impossibility, asked her to stultify every moral consideration on her
part to gratify an ambition of his, that proved at the first test to be
utterly groundless and without the shadow of a compensating hope.
Accident or will had denied her the privilege of an explanation; fate
alone, for all she knew, had interposed to lay bare the secret of her
heart at an inopportune moment, and a fancied code had sought to crush
her beneath its ruthless dictum at a time when the very heart-chords of
repentance called loudest for pleasing atonement.
It seemed as if the same god who had torn her therefrom must save her
unto himself; and her heart bled for him alone.
"Ieyasu," cried she, more confident than ever.
Her voice seemed to die close underneath the angry elements; but
quickly--all this had crowded upon her instantly--strong arms, others
than she had allowed, gathered her up, together with her two sisters,
younger than she, and placing them in chairs made their way through the
charred, falling remnants of all that had been so dear to her, toward
the woodland, not far distant, to the southward.
The glare of the lights and the lamentations of the populace startled
her, and she would have turned if only in some small way to their
relief, but the bettos (carriers) ran on, heeding neither her pleadings
nor their own safety so long as they might serve--their employer,
Sakuma, who led the way.
They had gone some distance and almost beyond danger from the burning
city before Yodogima had discovered him or knew who it was that planned
and directed her flight. It gave her confidence, and she did not call
out lest her interference might disturb him; nor did she fear thereafter
the course they took, though it seemed a strange direction and an
ominous exit--there was one, lurking behind, however, following their
every movement, dodging from corner to corner and street to street, who
knew better than she just what to expect and where to intercept them.
All these doings were as a blank to Yodogima, whose only thought now was
of Ieyasu. That soon she should reach him, was at that very moment on
her way thither, and that he, strong and virile, should make due
atonement for this, that she had suffered, would forthwith claim her as
his own, and after all make life worth the living was the sole
consciousness that bore her onward. Duplicity, with its cold, futile
aims, as barren in the end as Ieyasu's waiting might prove disastrous,
were a thing wholly beyond her knowledge or comprehension.
They had not gone far into the woods, however, till the confiding
princess had good reason to witness, if not apprehend, something of the
clashing motives that underlay her further progress. Sakuma had led them
to the right, toward the thick of the forest, and Yodogima's pulse then
began to slacken and her throat filled and choked her; she knew that
Ieyasu's domain lay to the left, over the mountains, through Mino, in
the southward, and supposed him there, as reason would dictate. They
were now travelling northerly, into the west, where Hideyoshi might be
expected to be found scouting or encamped: it grew dark and difficult of
going: Yodogima wondered and conjectured, till fear seized hard upon
her.
Presently the bettos halted, and resting the poles upon their staffs
breathed heavily, the while speculating among themselves as to their
further task. These fellows, then, did not know where they were to go,
and the probabilities multiplied in Yodogima's mind.
Sakuma had gone on, into the dark, as if in search of an outlet; then a
sudden whipping and snapping of twigs, at one side, distinctly heard
only by Yodogima, apprised her of the swift running of someone,
apparently past them and after Sakuma. Directly a low gurgling, and hard
thud upon the ground startled her once more into bare apprehension.
Yodogima uttered not a word, but listened; the bettos talked on; no
other sound reached her ears; then the brush rattled, and it occurred to
her that somebody's clothing had been changed; she waited; a man tramped
along, not close enough to be scrutinized, but within hearing
distance--whose outline appeared a trifle taller than Sakuma--till
directly opposite, when he commanded the bettos to change their course
and follow him.