"It is blood against experience, and who would change it?" half whispered, half shouted Yodogima, a mother, as she swept the horizon with those eyes that had never failed her, looked into the faces which had gathered, and drilled, and armed, in behalf of manliness. "My dear men," said she, turning to them, from her seat above, "you cannot fail. Whatever may become of me, however I or mine may demean himself, manhood is the secret buried underneath or revealed of any and every godlike doctrine, thought, or action. It is Godly, and the trend of the devil is toward the flesh. A strong heart knows its haven: a weak one abides the fires that consume. Manhood has made this world what it is, perhaps soared here, to this, from planets above; is making the world of to-day, however prosperous lying may seem; shall continue to make it, till there remains no need of a hell--thus and then, only, may heaven be attained. On with the work, and let no guilty thing escape!" Ieyasu, too, had spoken; climbing to a hill-top, Chausu, close at hand, on the right, the would-be besieger levelled his glasses, scanning the field before him. His own division of some sixty thousand samurai occupied the open lying between the hill on which he stood and the sea to the left; on the extreme opposite side of the field to his right stood Hidetada and his army of equal size, extending on toward the eastward, till the hill Okayama, rearing up as a sentinel, shut out all intervening space between his forces and the river Hirano: the top of which hill afforded also the commander-in-chief, Hidetada, a most excellent vantage point. At the extreme front, toward the center, lay Maeda, with his perhaps forty thousand Kaga bloods, including their allies, ready to do when bid. To his, Maeda's, right and to his left, spanning the distance from Hirano river, the eastern field border, to the sea at the west, stretched, together with his own--an intended battering ram--minor forces of the doubtful daimyos who had been placed to form the famed semicircle, as well as such others as had been brought up to strengthen the contemplated charge. Still in front of all, near by, lay the small hill Sasayama, coveted by Maeda, but held as an outpost by Sanada--apparently sleeping, farther on, at the gate post. "We have the foe, safe enough, in front of us: our rear is free from molestation," chuckled Ieyasu, to Hidetada, his son, who had come over, in the evening, to consult about the proposed early morning attack. "With the enemy before them and the Tokugawa behind, what chance have these dilatory daimyos of ours? Why, they'll be chowdered before the sun is risen." "Then Hidetada shall pounce upon the foe with the freshness of morning," replied he, elated, if over-anxious, "and before the dew is fairly dried they shall have gone, to their happy hunting-ground." "Well said, my son," ejaculated the forgetful hero of Sekigahara, "and Ieyasu shall dine in Ozaka." "Alone, father?"