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Updated: May 28, 2025
Now, he had scarce returned from Nangasaki, when he was sought out by a new inquirer, the most promising of all. This was a common soldier, of the Hemming class, a dyer by birth, who had heard vaguely of Yoshida's movements, and had become filled with wonder as to their design. This was a far different inquirer from Sákuma-Shozan, or the councillors of the Daimio of Choshu.
Should the proposed victim be a Daimio of importance, and sufficiently powerful to set the Tycoon at defiance, the delivery of the imperial mandate is likely to be attended with unpleasant results, as the bearers are sometimes waylaid and murdered by retainers of the doomed prince, and have frequently to resort to stratagem to accomplish their task.
The Daimio ordered that henceforth the old man should call himself by the name of Hana-Saka-Jijii, or "The Old Man who makes the Trees to Blossom," and that henceforth all were to recognize him by this name, and he sent him home with great honor.
"The daimio has ordered that there shall be a great hunt today for the heads of the sei-yo-jin who have landed upon Yoka," persisted the man. "He will be angry indeed if we do not call him in time to accomplish the task today. Let me speak with him, woman. I do not believe that Oda Yorimoto still sleeps. Why should I believe one of the sei-yo-jin?
While I pause a moment to inspect the stock of a curio-dealer, the proprietor, seated over a brazier of coals, smoking, bows politely and points, with a chuckle of amusement, at the fierce-looking effigy of a daimio in armor.
"Where is de Chink?" And, sure enough, Oda Iseka had disappeared! The youthful daimio had taken advantage of the preoccupation of his captors during the last moments of Theriere to gnaw in two the grass rope which bound him to the mucker, and with hands still fast bound behind him had slunk into the jungle path that led toward his village.
A council was held, and the prisoner was given over to the safeguard of a daimio, called Tamura Ukiyô no Daibu, who kept him in close custody in his own house, to the great grief of his wife and of his retainers; and when the deliberations of the council were completed, it was decided that, as he had committed an outrage and attacked another man within the precincts of the palace, he must perform hara-kiri, that is, commit suicide by disembowelling; his goods must be confiscated, and his family ruined.
His name will occur again in this story. At this time there lived in the province of Yamato a certain Daimio, called Honda Dainaiki, who one day, when surrounded by several of his retainers, produced a sword, and bade them look at it and say from what smith's workshop the blade had come. "I think this must be a Masamuné blade," said one Fuwa Banzayémon.
"It has no name, for there is none other in the world like it," said the fair weaver. "But I must have a name. I shall take it to the Daimio. He will not buy, if he does not know how it is called." "Then," said the wife, "tell him its name is 'White Crane's-down cloth." Quickly passed the snowy fabric into the hands of the lord of the castle, who sent it as a present to the Empress in Kioto.
The old man had not been waiting very long before he saw a cloud of dust in the far distance, and knew that it must be the procession of the Daimio. On they came, every man dressed in his finest clothes, and the crowd that was lining the road bowed their faces to the ground as they went by.
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