"My God! I cannot face her — oh, yes; I can;
she is nothing to me — curse the Christians! I.'U slay
them — "

"No you won't," threatened Jokoin, in her way,
having entered shortly after Esyo's withdrawal, in
the course of the hearer's meditation ; "they've got
powder to burn, of a right good quality — ^just in from
Hirado, the foreigners' hold out — and a pound of it
IS worth a lot of valor — "

"I'll double the price ; tell your friends that lyeyasu
IS in the market for powder."

"And a wife, as well. But you can't have Yodo-
gima; she's given you the mit."

"Silence, child; will you never use modesty; you
are in the presence of the shogun ?"

"Oh, I wonder — indeed I'm not ; you have no right
to be shogun, and what isn't right isn't; there now!
I shall take my orders from Hideyori : perhaps marry
him, if Takiyama, Goto, Sanada, and all the rest worth
while — "

"You have a husband."

"So have you a wife; and, what is more, my. hus-
band IS willing ; and, I am sure, you can't say as much ;
and, better still, Esyo wants her daughter to marry
Kyogoku — don't you think you could use him; he
IS as good as forty women, at that?"

"Kyogoku ! Perhaps — he may know more about
them than I do," sighed the shogun, hopelessly en-



252 YODOGIMA

tangled, undoing the riddle she had unwound for his
special edification. 'I'll let you off, however; though,
I ought to send you as company for Takiyama."

"Send me? Fd like to see you do it; banish me, if
vou dare !"

"ril harness the whole of you, if you don't mind
your p's and q's. And to convince you that I mean
just what I say I am this very day going to send the
infant daughter of Hidetada, together with a retinue,
to Ozaka. No doubt you yourself will have advised
Hideyori — whom I have had appointed Nai-dai-jin
— in advance something of my expectations so that
he may be prepared to take my granddaughter as
wife upon arrival. 