HOWEVER fiercely the Prince Keiki desired and sought for instant action,
there were excellent reasons in the delayed march of some of the clans
journeying to the Mori fortress for the temporary postponement of
hostilities.
Keiki at first was bitterly opposed to any further delay, but the
reasonable arguments of the older daimios and the insistence of Satsuma,
the practical leader of the movement, won him over. It was their logic,
not their authority, which restrained him. He would be compelled to wait
no longer than a few days more, certainly not more than a week.
One morning shortly after Keiki’s interview with the Lord Satsuma
concerning his reputed daughter, who so far had kept apart in strict
retirement in her apartments in the castle, Keiki found in his morning
reports a reference to the youth Toro. He was riding post-haste in the
direction of the Choshui province with the evident intention of crossing
its frontier. What was the will of his excellency respecting him?
So this, then, was the way in which the rash youth repaid his
consideration, mused Keiki. Or perhaps he came because of the Princess
Hollyhock. If that were so, he would send him back to Catzu again, with
a friendly warning against the perfidious sex.
“He approaches the frontier?” he asked the soldier who brought the
reports.
“Yes, your highness.”
“Well then, let him ride unmolested towards our fortress. So long as he
advances do not touch him, but at the first sign of his return seize him
and bring him to me.”
The soldier bowed.
“It shall be as your highness commands.”
So it was that Toro, to his surprise, was allowed to proceed unharmed
through the hostile country of the Mori. His journey was without
incident until his arrival before the fortress. There a guard barred
farther progress with his sword. Toro flung himself from his panting
charger.
“The Prince Mori?” he questioned.
“Expects you and will give you audience shortly,” returned the guard.
The young heir of Catzu was conducted to a chamber within the outer
circle of the fortress’s defensive works. While this chamber was not
within the inmost area of the edifice devoted to the living apartments,
yet it was sufficiently near for the occasional passage of some
peaceable member of the household through the grimmer servants of war to
occasion no comment. Moreover, it adjoined the apartments set aside for
the Prince of Satsuma.
Thus when the daughter of Satsuma chanced to pass through the chamber,
none showed surprise until the youthful Toro came. His astonishment,
however, was such that instantly his mouth gaped wide. Before sound
could add its audible testimony to his visible astonishment, the girl
had clapped her hand upon his lips. A quick glance about the chamber
told her that they were unobserved. She took Toro gently by the
shoulder.
“Come,” she said.
Half an hour later the old Lord Satsuma stood before Keiki in alarm.
“My daughter is not to be found,” he cried.
“Not to be found!”
“No, my lord. I committed her to thy care. Thou didst promise to guard
her.”
Keiki was troubled. His conscience smote him, for he had painfully put
off making the acquaintance of Satsuma’s daughter and had left her to
the care of his underlings.
“My lord,” he said, “I will have search made at once. Your honorable
daughter must be found.”
Satsuma, in deep agitation and concern, left his pupil’s apartment to
make further inquiry of the guard. He had advanced but a little way into
one of the armed outer chambers of the fortress when a note was slipped
into his hand. He tore it open and read it through in amazement. After a
second reading a broad smile overspread his face. He sought no more for
his daughter. Instead, he despatched a hurried note to Keiki, briefly
informing him that his insignificant and unworthy daughter had become
ill with longing for her home, and had departed thence on her own
account. As she was very efficiently attended, he had no fears for her
safety.
Meanwhile Keiki was holding audience with Catzu Toro.
“This, then,” he said, severely, “is the gratitude of the Catzu for me.
I have spared your life, twice forfeit to me by every law of lord and
samurai. You have come back, it seems, and are determined to make fresh
trouble for yourself.”
Keiki paused. Toro answered, quickly:
“I have come back to you, your highness, to offer my allegiance and my
service.”
“Your allegiance!”
“My poor aid, rather, to a cause of whose nobility I learned during my
stay in your province. Sovereignty is not with the Shogun, but the
Emperor. Place the rightful ruler upon the throne, oust the usurper and
tyrant, and the rights of the people will be listened to.”
“Who taught you these counsels?”
“My own conscience, my lord.”
Keiki smiled.
“Are you quite certain, Toro, you did not read your new principles in a
lady’s eyes?” he asked, dryly.
Toro blushed.
“The Princess Hollyhock appears to have been a teacher of some weight,”
said Keiki.
Toro cried, warmly:
“My lord, you do me injustice. I love the Princess Hollyhock, it is
true—I confess it. But what my honor dictates, what my conscience has
seen, has naught to do with the Princess.” Ingenuously: “’Tis, my lord,
I do protest, but a happy coincidence that her views are mine. Were it
otherwise, though tears did blind my eyes, I should perceive the right
way; though sorrow choked my voice, I still would cry, ‘Daigi
Meibunor!’”
Toro dropped to his knees, his extravagance of expression seeming not to
have affected his sincerity. Keiki put out a quick hand to raise him. In
a voice of deep emotion he cried, impulsively:
“Toro, my brother, I wronged you. Now I make amend and receive you into
our service. My heart was bitter because of my own sorrow, but it still
has generosity left for you, friend of my hopes. You are of the days of
flowers. Now, after the flowers have withered, I still receive you.”
“The flowers have not withered,” said Toro, impulsively. “Do listen to
me. Perchance—” He broke off in some confusion, as by some sudden
remembrance.
“Speak no more, I pray thee,” said Keiki, commandingly.
“Forgive me. I would speak of my gratitude to you.”
“Toro, I will place you in command of a small company. At first I could
not do more without antagonizing some of my people. They would say that
your adherence was too recent.”
Toro replied:
“I do not seek that honor. I ask a humbler station.”
“You shall be upon my personal staff for the present,” was Keiki’s
response. “Later, as occasion offers, I will honorably advance you.”
Keiki now rose. Bowing to Toro, he signified that the interview was at
an end. Still Toro hesitated.
“You wish to have further talk with me?” inquired Keiki.
“I crave pardon,” said Toro, somewhat embarrassed, “but—”
He went towards the doors into the adjoining apartment and signalled to
some one within. A youth entered quietly. He was slight, yet of a grace
that owed its being equally to his exquisite proportions and to his
entire command of his physical being and comportment. A youth’s fringe
hid his forehead. His eyes, cast down, were veiled from Keiki. He did
not wear the armor of Toro or Keiki, but carried under his arm a small
encased sword, which he handled easily.
“My lord,” said Toro, “I have, as you see, been able to make a recruit.
He was to be my personal follower, but since I am to serve on your staff
I have no need of him.”
“I am not an exquisite. I do not need a little man to follow at my
heels,” said Keiki, surveying with disapproval the dainty lines of the
little warrior.
The unwelcome visitor flushed to his ears. Toro glanced at him with what
seemed a suspicion of humor. The youth, seemingly infuriated, whipped
out his sword.
A sudden suspicion of treachery came to Keiki as he brought his hand to
his own heavy blade and put it at guard. But the thought of the youth
attacking him seemed to amuse him also, so that he took no trouble to
defend himself.
Perhaps, too, it was because of his astonishment, and the heaviness of
his blade, and not because of lack of skill, that the tiny blade of the
youth slipped down Keiki’s guard, and, leaving the line of defence,
sought, cut, and carried away a rosette from the cuirass of the Prince.
Plucking it from his blade, the youth thrust the rosette into his
breast, while on his knees he offered his sword to Keiki with its point
directed towards his own breast.
Keiki made a motion of surprise. The youth had answered, and worthily,
his taunt. But his life hung upon the generosity of the Prince. Toro saw
that here was a test of the soul of Keiki.
The Shining Prince laughed loud and long.
“Good! I receive thee at once into my service. Thy name?”
“Jiro, my lord,” half whispered the youth from his kneeling position.
“Well, Jiro, just now you held my life in your hands. For the sake of a
worthy cause I thank you for sparing me. A thrust in the loosened
corsage below that rosette would have done for me.”
Jiro rose to his feet, but remained with his head respectfully bowed
before the Prince.
Toro clapped him on his slight shoulder.
“In the days soon to come, when your life is sought by the foes of the
cause, my lord, Jiro and I will protect you.”
When Toro, flushed with his strange success, sought the Lady Hollyhock,
he found her wholly unresponsive.
“In faith, my lord,” she said, mockingly, “it was not right for you, a
Catzu lord, to ride through the outposts of your hereditary enemy,
simply for a glimpse of an unworthy and insignificant maiden.”
“Nay—” remonstrated Toro.
“To abandon your father’s house and hopes for a girl—that is not what
the daughters of Nipon are taught.”
“My dearest lady—”
“To follow one’s conscience were an honor, but to forget all blindly, to
betray your cause, to betray your house to win a wife. Think you she
would have you after such perfidy? She would not be worth possessing did
she favor you then.”
One little, unfeeling hand Toro carried to his heart.
“Dear lady,” he said, “I did not do it for thee.”
The Lady Hollyhock frowned, and withdrew her hand immediately.
“You did not?” she exclaimed.
“Nay, dear lady. I did it because of my conscience, because I believe in
the Emperor, and not the Shogun.”
The Princess turned her back upon him.
“You are angry, sweet lady?” interrogated the agitated Toro.
No reply.
“Lady, you were angry with me when you thought I did it for you, and now
when you know I did not you are still angry.”
“A princess must have her brave knight,” said the Lady Hollyhock,
haughtily.
“You know why I did it,” said Toro, ready to forswear everything at her
demand.
Again he sought her hand, but still she denied him.
“Oh, not so fast, my lord. Let me whisper to you a report I have heard.”
“A report—concerning me?” said Toro, in bewilderment.
“Concerning a certain Catzu gentleman who recently awaited an audience
with the Prince Mori. He was placed in a certain interior chamber, which
happened to adjoin the apartments of the daughter of a certain prince of
prominence. This Catzu gentleman, it is said, disappeared into this
lady’s private apartments. Since which time the lady has been banished
to Satsuma by her own father.”
“Lady,” said Toro, in a great state of mingled fear and bewilderment, “I
pray thee repeat not such a story, even to the flowers.”
With a scornful and angry little laugh, the Lady Hollyhock, who had
inwardly hoped for a denial by her lover, stepped away.
“I am not likely,” she said, “to tell of my own supplanting.”
She drew the doors sharply between them.
Toro, alone, mused upon the imputation of her words.
“She is mine if I tell her a secret,” he said, “but that secret is not
my own; I cannot tell it!” He added, with a naïve wisdom: “Nor can I
trust her. A woman is like unto a volcano, which, even when inactive, is
palpitating to spit forth its fire, and which, when it does vent its
fury, bursts the bounds of its late enforced suppression.”
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[Illustration: Decoration]