Once upon a time the good _San Filipe_ had likewise stolen in upon them; a storm drove her against shoals; as was custom and law they seized her and confiscated the cargo; the pilot captured and questioned, confidently, but proudly, spread before them a chart showing the vast domain of Spain, his native country, and the ship's defender. "How came your king by all these possessions?" Hideyoshi had asked him. "Oh, that is simple enough," replied the unsophisticated sailor. "We first send out our religieux to convert the people, then seize upon their lands with an army supported by the newly made Christians. It's easily done." "What? My states filled with traitors, and the government about to devolve upon a child? Impossible!" cried the taiko, amid his adherents, and the echo had not died or ceased of its meaning. This unguarded statement of the over-anxious, yet innocent Spaniard, of the merchant class--and not so particular about the fate of priests or religion--that, it were, had, more than anything else, among other things, convinced Ieyasu of Hideyoshi's having acted very unwisely, through weakness or decline, with yielding to the importunities or blandishments of a woman, Yodogima or Jokoin, presumably the former, in permitting the priests to return to Nagasaki; that it now became him as a leader, first of all to remove them bag and baggage from the land. They had seized upon their reinstatement with an avidity that augured renewed activity and their operations seemed directed chiefly toward Ozaka, alternating between the highest and the lowest in or out of authority. A prodigious evil this appeared to be--the gathering and fraternizing of the high and the lowly, the good and the ill, the interested and the disinterested, under the auspices of a single flag, unfurled and waved solely and authoritatively by none other than Ishida, whom he knew and could not misunderstand. "You accuse Yodogima wrongly," said he, to Oyea, as they too sat upon a veranda, overlooking not the sea, but that selfsame lake, Biwa, with its more subtle, if less inspiring outlook. "She is surrounded with evil influences, and must be relieved. Her motives are pure--over-intended--but the chicanery of Ishida is more than a woman should be left to cope." "Then it is Yodogima that concerns our lord: the Christians are but an excuse?" queried Oyea, with suppressed emotion. Ieyasu answered discreetly with a question; still resist as best he could, the rising color in his face disclosed to Oyea unmistakably the one truth which had under-disturbed her every thought and action since the day she had consoled with Yodogima in the hope that Ieyasu should not lose to Hideyoshi: "Why do you ask, Oyea?" "Is it not enough that I have insured you Hideki, my nephew's support, intrigued with Ishida to further your cause, surrendered favors, which I might have had, in the interests of one whom I--" "Hold, Oyea. You have already gone too far. I am loved, and I love--"