Sitting down upon a clean-washed, sun-dried and nature-fashioned rock, there waiting--no vulgar thing or mad intellect had touched it--Yodogima looked all around, then fastened her eyes upon a blushing bluebell that tenderly upturned its sweetened lips in token of the message she sought. A cuckoo flew also there, perching itself in defiance: Yodogima whispered: "Sing to me." The bird listed mute and wanting. "I'll help the cuckoo to sing," replied she, vouchsafing to waft her melodies on the light, over-sounding air. The little thing answered her, only as it could--but out of its song there arose the voice of-- The bush rattled at her back, and springing to her feet, and turning quickly round, Yodogima shrieked: "Hideyoshi!" CHAPTER VIII "Yes; it is he--and you need not start at my presence. I hear that I am, by some, called vulgar; by many, said to be cruel; I know only that I am human: that the touch of your garment would rouse in ordinary man a passion fiercer than the flames: that I myself would make you queen; yet you are as safe from harm in my possession as he--the man you just now fancied more than manly--is impotent to render in the least a real consolation or a substantial aid. That you may realize fully that I am true and not false, I tender you the only instrument that ever made or unmade god or man. Do with it and with me as you like; you are both strong of arm and quick to see," urged Hideyoshi, approaching and tendering with much reverence the hilt of his unsheathed, if vain, resolver of ethics. Yodogima frowned. All the womanhood within her revolted at such boasted display of wanton cowardice. That man never is right till might has made him so, she could well believe; that might is right in the eyes of the gods were as incomprehensible to her as it seemed satisfying to him. "Look me in the face," demanded she, without lifting a foot. Hideyoshi colored, and bowed only the lower: his eyes shifted about reluctantly, and useless. "Shame!" threatened she, advancing a step. "I am advised of no better means than--" began Hideyoshi, cold with suspense. "A bluff? How often have you practiced this sort of ennui upon others, perhaps more tolerant? I would set a better example," interposed Yodogima, snapping his weapon against the ground and casting the fragments away. "Well done," promised he, recovering somewhat his composure. "But haven't you oversaid yourself, a bit? The tables turned, however, may be more becoming; I can prove my valor: a broken heart is less easily mended. I need not suggest, of course, that you yourself might name--the terms?" "No, no," gasped Yodogima, as the possible fate of Ieyasu flashed into mind.