Hideyoshi tore his way over the open road like mad. The vitalest opportunity of his life had been denied him, a victory snatched away that seemed almost within grasp, and he himself written down an ass at a time when his name should have been heralded throughout the empire as invincible--and by the doing of a woman. "Shame be upon they who think themselves sexed into heaven; it is might that makes us what we are--right or wrong, male or female, man or his kind. Then beware!" threatened he, as the dust rolled in the wake of his ride toward the field. Nor was Yodogima less conscious of a dawning respect for Hideyoshi. The knowing princess had expected harsher treatment, if not more subtle means, at the hands of her captor; who had, after all, proven himself a respecter of ability if not an admirer of virtue; and what if he should vanquish Ieyasu and, in fact, carry out his ideas about total extermination? The very thought of such a possibility deadened every reason. Esyo, too, had gone; she had devised less and reasoned more, conjured her sister ambitious and charged Hideyoshi with ungratefulness; she had witnessed, become conscious of the latter's growing regard for Yodogima in the face of all that she had done to check it--to further her own designs--and now turned to a newly devised, though less hopeful, expediency: overcoming with difficulty the distance, soon found herself in the bosom of Ieyasu's command; a crooked purpose put to straights, knowing no rest and once off, she did not lag so much, in fact reached her destination before Hideyoshi had sighted his. Thus abandoned by the only sister apparently left to her--without some hint or even a surmise as to the cause or purpose--and with a determined suitor speeding toward the destruction of the only one she loved, and with her own hands tied, and she powerless to succor him, Yodogima turned to composure alone for consolation--presumably a little body, unexpected and unmindful, careless and happy, as if an angel from heaven, tripped lightly into her presence, and throwing down a big, ungainly mask, bantered, rather provokingly, if happily: "You didn't know me at all, did you?" "Jokoin!" gasped Yodogima. "Yes; and Hideyoshi, with all his eyes, never saw a thing. What stupid people." "How did you find the way, Jokoin; and--what brings you?" "I came to tell you--I just couldn't wait; they are such a poky lot, those captains and generals and would-be gallants--and it isn't any trouble, at all, to go anywhere one wants to go--how did you like my disguise?" "I hadn't thought about that--it looks a bit scant--but where have you been?" "Oh, I've had lots of fun; went to the front--but Takiyama is a bore; can't think of anybody or talk about anything save someone, said to have lived sometime, called Christ--oh, but they're a pesky lot, these Christians!" "Jokoin! How you talk!"