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Updated: May 7, 2025
The work was necessarily slow because of the fact that it must proceed with utter noiselessness. For an hour she worked, and then again came an interruption at the door. This time it was a man. "Oda Yorimoto still sleeps," whispered the girl. "Go away and do not disturb him. He will be very angry if you awaken him." But the man would not be put off so easily as had the woman. He still insisted.
Here Divine scratched at the piece of sail cloth which served as a door until he had succeeded in awakening the sleeper within. And from above Oda Yorimoto watched the activity in the little cove with intent and unwavering eyes. The girl, roused from a fitful slumber, came to the doorway of her primitive abode, alarmed by this nocturnal summons. "It is I, Larry," whispered the man.
That would be easier than a fight, he argued, and so he led the girl toward the doorway that she had indicated. Within the room all was dark, but the daimio moved as one accustomed to the place, and as he moved through the blackness the girl at his side felt with stealthy fingers at the man's belt. At last Oda Yorimoto reached the far side of the long chamber.
He knew that a direct question as to the whereabouts of the girl would call forth either a clever oriental evasion or an equally clever oriental lie. "Does Oda Yorimoto intend slaying the white woman that was brought to his house last night?" asked Theriere. "How should the son know the intentions of his father?" replied the boy. "Is she still alive?" continued Theriere.
"Here!" he said, and took her by the shoulders. "Here!" answered the girl in a low, tense voice, and at the instant that she spoke Oda Yorimoto, Lord of Yoka, felt a quick tug at his belt, and before he guessed what was to happen his own short sword had pierced his breast.
What should she do? With but a little respite she might enlarge the window sufficiently to permit her to escape into the forest, but the woman at the door evidently would not be denied. Suddenly an inspiration came to her. It was a forlorn hope, but well worth putting to the test. "Hush!" she hissed through the closed door. "Oda Yorimoto sleeps. It is his wish that he be not disturbed."
Without a sound he lunged to the floor, dead; but the women without had caught a fleeting glimpse of what had taken place within the little chamber, even before Barbara Harding could slam the door again, and with shrieks of rage and fright they rushed into the main street of the village shouting at the tops of their voices that Oda Yorimoto and Hawa Nisho had been slain by the woman of the sei-yo-jin.
Billy recalled the yelling samurai with their keen swords and terrible spears. He saw the little room in the "palace" of Oda Yorimoto, and again he faced the brown devils who had hacked and hewed and stabbed at him that day as he fought to save the woman he loved. Coward!
Where had this white girl learned to speak his tongue? "I am the daimio, Oda Yorimoto," he said. "These are my wives. Now you are one of them. Come!" "Not yet not here!" cried the girl clutching at a straw. "Wait. Give me time to think. If you do not harm me my father will reward you fabulously. Ten thousand koku he would gladly give to have me returned to him safely."
Instantly, the village swarmed with samurai, women, children, and dogs. They rushed toward the hut of Oda Yorimoto, filling the outer chamber where they jabbered excitedly for several minutes, the warriors attempting to obtain a coherent story from the moaning women of the daimio's household. Barbara Harding crouched close to the door, listening.
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