Yodogima looked out and over the dazzling troopers, as they marched and countermarched to orders flowing from lips she adored as only a mother can. Hideyori, her son, had come into his own; should follow up that defeated army, and make doubly sure glories which were of right only his; would send his name down to all posterity, as the builder of a commonwealth founded upon an equality of opportunity and with favoritism to none. Men and women should thenceforth develop the ideal that God infixes, share the real in due proportion, and worship according to the dictates each of his own untrammelled conscience. "God bless you, my son; and may He give you strength to win," said she, with no other thought encouraging, as their preparations progressed apace. Then, as if fate intervened, she looked toward the South. The mother instinct had strangely given way, to that other force, man's larger comprehension. Love itself had beamed inconsequently through those rays illuminating and searching had not a lesser respondent turned heavenward with glad countenance long before race or creed echoed the part and powers of an abiding God. "Kyogoku?" commanded she. "Carry this, a message, to Ieyasu. Then await, at yonder gate, his answer." CHAPTER XXXIII Yodogima apparently faltered in the face of positive victory. Was it soul that stirred her to larger comprehension, or had God himself intervened to stay an absolute, a total, the fatal? Jokoin came in from the field, aglow with expectation, fairly dawning and resolving at the prospect of Hideyori's famed, unquestioned gallantry. His furbelows shone out bewilderingly beautiful under the influence of a risen sun, and her light heart danced the more in consequence of its apparently disassociated illusionment--the food she really relished. "It's a jolly fair day, this, Yodogima," promised she, bounding in, without so much as a permission. "Have you seen the artillery? Oh, but it's an odd looking thing--a gun on wheels! I'm sure if Ieyasu had had one like it he could have made some impression on these walls. I should like to have seen the fun--but, I suppose, it's lucky there was only one of them to be had; and luckier still that we've got it. We couldn't have made out at all without the Christians, and they're a bully lot, too; gold is no temptation to such people." "Perhaps," remarked Yodogima, unconcernedly-- A shell burst near by, in the palace grounds. The impact deafened them. "Horrors!" exclaimed Jokoin, nestling close under Yodogima's shelter. "I am afraid there must have been two of them, after all," surmised Yodogima, attempting to calm the fears of Jokoin. "But it is too late now, to be firing at random into the castle. They had better save themselves the trouble. Oh, well; I shouldn't mind a little thing like that; Hideyori shall soon enough put an end to any further nonsense of the kind. Have courage, Jokoin." "I pray they don't shoot again, this way."