Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/112

the party seemed to have grown more boisterous, for he could hear, mingled with the other sounds, someone singing to the accompaniment of an Azuma zither. But the hall was distant, and the sounds reached him too faintly to be an annoyance.

Lord Tadanao followed a narrow path through the lespedeza thicket, skirted the rocky spring, ascended a miniature hill, and arrived before a small thatched pavilion. He went inside. From here the mountains of the Shin-Etsu range could be dimly seen, floating high in the moon-drenched air. Lord Tadanao fell into a sentimental reverie, seized by an emotion he had never before experienced in all his life as a daimyō; and he stood where he was, unconscious of the passage of time, for well nigh an hour.

Suddenly he heard men’s voices. In the stillness which, until now, had held only the sad voices of insects, the voices of men sounded. There were two people, it seemed, and as they talked they drew closer and closer to the pavilion.

Lord Tadanao was loth to have the pleasant serenity of his feelings at this moment shattered by casual intruders. But he could not, on this particular night, summon up sufficient indignation to have his page order the men away. Gradually, still talking, they drew nearer. The interior of the pavilion was in darkness, untouched by the light of the moon, and the two men could have had no idea that their lord was standing there.

He felt no curiosity to know who these intruders were. But as they came slowly nearer he could hardly help recognizing their voices. The man who sounded a little the worse for drink was Onoda Ukon, the White commander in today’s tournament. The other, the one with the sharp, nervous voice, was the deputy-commander, Ōshima Sadayū, who had been so quickly beaten to submission this day by Lord Tadanao. The two of them seemed to have been talking for some time about the battle of the Reds and Whites.

This was Lord Tadanao’s first experience, since being born