Neither Hideyoshi, nor Yodogima, for the moment, took any pains to
discover or to suspect the identity of that last message-bearer; though
had either one observed at all only the dishevelled clothing he might
have been induced to look underneath the mask, hiding too slenderly a
timid, anxious face. It were enough for Yodogima to know that her lover
had risen to first place in the estimation of an only rival: for
Hideyoshi to realize once and for all that the price of Shibata's eldest
daughter was to be something dearer than the lone bagatelle of a
daimyo's willing or the baser invocations of a traditional heritage.
Hideyoshi tore his way over the open road like mad. The vitalest
opportunity of his life had been denied him, a victory snatched away
that seemed almost within grasp, and he himself written down an ass at a
time when his name should have been heralded throughout the empire as
invincible--and by the doing of a woman.
"Shame be upon they who think themselves sexed into heaven; it is might
that makes us what we are--right or wrong, male or female, man or his
kind. Then beware!" threatened he, as the dust rolled in the wake of his
ride toward the field.
Nor was Yodogima less conscious of a dawning respect for Hideyoshi. The
knowing princess had expected harsher treatment, if not more subtle
means, at the hands of her captor; who had, after all, proven himself a
respecter of ability if not an admirer of virtue; and what if he should
vanquish Ieyasu and, in fact, carry out his ideas about total
extermination? The very thought of such a possibility deadened every
reason.
Esyo, too, had gone; she had devised less and reasoned more, conjured
her sister ambitious and charged Hideyoshi with ungratefulness; she had
witnessed, become conscious of the latter's growing regard for Yodogima
in the face of all that she had done to check it--to further her own
designs--and now turned to a newly devised, though less hopeful,
expediency: overcoming with difficulty the distance, soon found herself
in the bosom of Ieyasu's command; a crooked purpose put to straights,
knowing no rest and once off, she did not lag so much, in fact reached
her destination before Hideyoshi had sighted his.
Thus abandoned by the only sister apparently left to her--without some
hint or even a surmise as to the cause or purpose--and with a determined
suitor speeding toward the destruction of the only one she loved, and
with her own hands tied, and she powerless to succor him, Yodogima
turned to composure alone for consolation--presumably a little body,
unexpected and unmindful, careless and happy, as if an angel from
heaven, tripped lightly into her presence, and throwing down a big,
ungainly mask, bantered, rather provokingly, if happily:
"You didn't know me at all, did you?"
"Jokoin!" gasped Yodogima.
"Yes; and Hideyoshi, with all his eyes, never saw a thing. What stupid
people."
"How did you find the way, Jokoin; and--what brings you?"
"I came to tell you--I just couldn't wait; they are such a poky lot,
those captains and generals and would-be gallants--and it isn't any
trouble, at all, to go anywhere one wants to go--how did you like my
disguise?"
"I hadn't thought about that--it looks a bit scant--but where have you
been?"
"Oh, I've had lots of fun; went to the front--but Takiyama is a bore;
can't think of anybody or talk about anything save someone, said to have
lived sometime, called Christ--oh, but they're a pesky lot, these
Christians!"
"Jokoin! How you talk!"
"It's their way and--quite catching, you know; they say, there are a lot
of them, already--in Hideyoshi's service, though."
"Please do not, Jokoin; I cannot bear it--to hear you use such
language."
"Well, I gave them the slip, all right, and here I am--but where are the
men? Is Hideyoshi the only one you had?"
"Sister, you shock me; I cannot understand you!"
"Oh, yes, you can. Just take a tumble. Turn a somersault--you have no
idea how easy it is; and how stimulating, withal. I wouldn't be in love
with only one man, at a time, as you are, right now, this very minute,
for anything. It doesn't pay, at all, to be sentimental."
Yodogima did not answer, at once; she could not at first, for want of
composure; afterwards, perhaps, because her own ideals seemed the harder
to encourage in the face of such light-heartedness; but finally, that
joy which is wrought only in the crucible of a convicted enlightenment
opened wider still the floodgates of confidence, bidding her say:
"Jokoin, let me tell you that to love is a sacred thing; and if you care
to win and hold a man's regard, then learn to use your tongue, but keep
in hand the heart."
"As you did with Ieyasu. Poor fellow. They say he is about to croak
from distraction."
"I do not know what you mean; your speech has become quite
unintelligible. Someone must have exercised a strange influence upon
you."
"It's the newfangled religion--I've got it, I'll admit--though it's the
worst sort of a makeshift and good only for those who need it, who
practice it, and who believe in it. Why, Yodo, under it, you can do
anything, then take a bath, bend the knee, and shout for Christ's sake:
he'll do the rest."
"Horrors, sister; I do believe you are possessed!"
"So are you, Yodogima, and all the rest--everybody, dead or alive, born
and unborn; only you don't know it, and for that must suffer: they say,
go to--well I can't just recall the name, and it's such a bad place I
won't startle you with mentioning it."
"Please do not; I shouldn't comprehend it--but what of Ieyasu? Why
distracted?"
"Because of your advice, and Esyo's treachery; she fibbed on both of you
to the one, and tried to inspire the other wrongly: between the two of
you he has taken a tumble--as I but a moment ago said you might find it
advisable or convenient to do. The whole enemy is afraid of him, their
reports are all a pack of lies, and nothing less than Hideyoshi's
presence can save Ieyasu's doing about as he pleases, in these parts.
Take courage, sister, and bet your boots on--the winner; I am going to
return, for the fun, and if you wish shall give your love to--which one,
Yodogima?"
Jokoin ran away, without giving her sister a chance to answer had she
possessed the courage or the patience to do so; Yodogima loved too
deeply, held life, that she knew, as against death, its natural
consequence, too seriously revealed in the underlying humanities of an
established conduct, to bandy truth for the sake of bolstering courage
or lightening the burdens of an ordered continuity.
Oyea proved a better counsellor, more a comforter, and together they
reconciled their returning, though weary it was, toward the castle
whence they had departed so shortly, more hopeful, if less doubtful.