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seemed to him that such deeds of martial valour as he had performed today were perfectly natural, almost disappointingly so. Lord Tadanao’s exultation became mingled with a feeling of complacency which he found it difficult to keep in check.

“My grandfather was a little too hasty in his estimate of this Tadanao. I must see him and hear what he has to say.”

He hurried off at once to seek an audience with Ieyasu, whose headquarters had now been moved up to the Okayama pass.

Ieyasu, seated on a camp stool, was receiving the formal congratulations of a succession of daimyō, but when Lord Tadanao appeared he rose from his seat—a signal honour—and grasped him by the hand.

“Splendid! The hero of the day, and a true grandson of Ieyasu!”—He drew Lord Tadanao close, praising him unreservedly to his face—“In military valour you have shown yourself worthy of a place beside Fan Kuai of China. Yes, truly, you are the Fan Kuai of Japan!”

Lord Tadanao was of an ingenuous, uncomplicated nature, and as he heard himself extolled in this manner tears of happiness welled in his eyes. The fact that he had been insulted by this same person only the day before was instantly forgotten. Not the slightest tinge of resentment remained.

On returning that evening to his camp he mustered his retainers for a great celebration. He knew himself now to be the strongest and bravest of all men. Even that flattering reference of Ieyasu’s to ‘the Fan Kuai of Japan’ seemed to him, as he recalled it, only partially adequate.

Darkness had fallen, and in the night sky he could see the ruddy reflection of scattered fires still raging within Osaka castle. Those fires, he idly imagined, were bonfires lit in honour of his own exploits. He drank to them, re-filling his great wine-cup again and again.

Except for a certain hazy exhilaration, Lord Tadanao’s mind was empty of all thought and feeling.

On the fifth day of the following month, when all the feudal