Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/117

along its walls. Lord Tadanao, as before, occupied the seat of honour, but throughout the proceedings he gnawed ceaselessly at his lower lip, and his eyes blazed.

There was little difference in the results of the contests. But, with yesterday’s victory or defeat still fresh in the memory of each contestant, most of the bouts were, for one of the parties, battles to redeem lost honour, and a far fiercer note was detectable in the shouting and challenges.

The Reds fared, if anything, even worse than they had on the previous day. When their commander, Lord Tadanao, took the field, there remained six members of the White team, including the commander and deputy-commander, who had not yet been called upon to fight.

Lord Tadanao displayed a curious tension which at once puzzled the spectators. He seemed almost delirious with excitement as he stood there whirling his great leather-tipped spear wildly about his head. His first two opponents approached him as gingerly as if they were feeling the region of an ulcer, but were quickly dealt savage blows which sent them reeling to the floor. The next two were no less overawed by their lord’s terrible ardour, and offered only a formal show of resistance.

The fifth to appear was Ōshima Sadayū. Sadayū entertained certain private misgivings, slight though they were, as to the causes which underlay Lord Tadanao’s seemingly eccentric behaviour this day. Of course, he did not imagine for one moment that it might have been his lord himself who had been standing nearby the previous night, listening to that conversation. But he did wonder, a little anxiously, whether the owner of that cough, which had sounded last night in the darkness of the garden, might not have reported what he had heard. It was with a bow of even more than usual solemnity that he now saluted his lord.

“So it’s you, Sadayū!” Lord Tadanao gave the impression of a man striving to sound unconcerned. But his voice was strangely shrill.