Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/118

“Sadayū! Be it sword or spear, unless it is a real sword or a real spear we can never know our true skills. Combats with leather-capped practice spears are fake combats. It we can lose without suffering injury, then we may, perhaps, permit ourselves to lose too easily! Tadanao is tired of false battles. I propose to use the spear which served me so well at the seige of Osaka. And it is my wish that you, too, shall this time face me with a naked weapon in your hands. You are not to think of me as your lord. If you see an opening, strike without hesitation!”

Lord Tadanao’s eyes smouldered with rage and his voice trembled as he spoke these last few words. Sadayū paled. Onoda Ukon, too, standing a little to Sadayū’s rear, grew pale.

The family retainers in the spectators’ seats were completely at a loss to understand what possessed Lord Tadanao. Many were seized with a sudden fear that their master had lost his reason.

Lord Tadanao had had his fits of temper before this. He was, by nature, highly strung, and there were times when he was excessively rude. But he had never, in the slightest degree, shown himself tyrannical or cruel. Observing Lord Tadanao’s behaviour today his retainers were, not unnaturally, aghast.

But, although it was true that in calling for the use of real weapons Lord Tadanao was activated by a consuming hatred of Sadayū and Ukon, he was moved also by the hope that at last he might discover what were his true capabilities. If obliged to face up to a real spear, even these two might not so readily suffer defeat. They would use every art they knew to defend themselves. And then he would know the truth about his own skill. He might, of course, have himself to admit defeat. But even that, he felt, was infinitely better and cleaner than foolishly exulting over a pre-arranged victory.

“Ho there! Get ready a spear!” At Lord Tadanao’s order—so promptly that it seemed they must have been well prepared in advance—two small page boys brought forward a great spear, seemingly no easy weight for them to carry, and laid it between Lord Tadanao and his retainer.