"Then it is really quite unnecessary to arrange it--yet I had sooner meet a worthy man than fall begging of a pretty woman. Come; I shall take you whether you will or not, with or without the means, before or after the test, temptation or provocation. Let us be off, to Azuchi, where the muses hold their tongues and order wins fairly the heart." "Captivity implies compulsion--in some instances; but our lord's behavior convinces me that I might have fallen into less--considerate hands." Hideyoshi led the way down along the winding incline and back into the very place which she had but a short hour thence deserted; in a more hopeful, if less certain, mood. The same walls enclosed the front and sides, the outlet at the rear had not changed at all; humanity seemed continuing its blind rush toward an ideal bolstered with ten thousand times ten thousand conjured notions: the breath of ages smelled as sweet and wholesome as it did before she had quitted there and gone to the mountain's crest: her heart beat as warmly for her own chosen lord as ever; but something within, a silent mover of the senses and regulator of the mind, told her that were that love to ripen and shed its fruit something better than waiting and a thing more potent than might must intervene to stay the hand of probability--and together with consciousness came the sting. Then the will arose, calling loudly upon the often fickle, but now most worthy, God of Constancy to lead her truly and deliver her aright unto the man she believed incapable of design; much more, fully competent to make the rescue. "I do love you--I know it now--O Ieyasu--my love, my faith, my hope." The men and trappings rattled and tramped on the outside; preparations were making for the march, and Hideyoshi now more than ever scolded the lines and spruced his bearing. The fortunes of war had made him master of central Japan, had given him the capital and placed him in possession of the emperor, but the wiles of a woman taxed more heavily his energies. Whether to overawe with guards and poltroonery or to encourage by liberties granted and confidences bestowed, were to him, now, under the circumstances, and in this case, quite as vital a matter as had been in ordinary times the choice between tweedledee and tweedledum. The princess, herself, had made light of his own puerile methods; he had purposely refrained from demanding, as was the custom, the head of his old-time rival, Shibata, her father, solely in the hope of soothing and inspiring her: had he failed also in that? Ieyasu had been allowed to escape, that terror should not drive his coveted love to a last extremity; but seemingly all his plans had miscarried, placing him now at the brink of a still more vital blunder--and win he would: if unfairly, none the less manly, for that.