"I shall be home early to-day, Yasuko," said Ikamon as he parted, bowing politely to his wife, and started off on a blustering morning in March to attend to some official duties which called him outside. "Then Yasuko is happy, and will abide here and look until you come," said she in answer. She did look, for he had never deceived her, as she knew; and she saw the most frightful thing, and fell to the floor weeping bitterly. Her husband did not return; but in passing the Sakurado gate had been set upon by the ronin, and, without any chance of defence or escape, beheaded; and his head placed upon a long pole, carried high in the air, was planted at his door. This gruesome sight greeted Yasuko when she looked out along the roadway where she had so often watched her husband's coming and welcomed his entrance. So swift had been the work of his assailants that none could offer resistance or interfere until the deed had been accomplished and the warning carried into the midst of his own household. There they staked their trophy high in the air, and departing made so good their escape that no one knew until a later day who had done the hideous work. The removal of Ikamon proved an effective blow to his policy, and brought about a speedy reorganisation of the party. Hitotsubashi's regency was made certain, and Daikomitsu with little opposition chosen prime minister; in fact, the latter had been decided upon by the former incumbent's enemies before the butchery occurred. The main opposition, however, came from Tetsutaisho, though Ikamon's absence left him illy prepared to cope with the opposition in the council chamber or at the lobby. Still he developed sufficient strength to maintain his own position and wrest from them, finally, his promotion to commander-in-chief of all the shogun's forces. In this he was considered fortunate; and even he, himself, deemed his place more secure under the new régime than under the old. He reasoned that it could not have been long before Ikamon's downfall would have come from another source, and in that event he would himself, perhaps, have been less able to force recognition as a result of his own strength. He had grown wiser with experience, and no longer desired particularly to fly at the tail of another man's kite. Daikomitsu had early learned that Tetsutaisho was a friend of the army and they his main supporters, and of late made every endeavour to cultivate the popular general's friendship. He had always taken pains not to give Tetsutaisho the impression that he himself rivalled the latter's brother-in-law; but on the contrary had assumed such a plausible friendship to both that the liberal-minded commander never really knew the secret of the wise man's success.