![YODOGIMA IN FEUDALISTIC JAPAN BY I. WILLIAM ADAMS AUTHOR OF SHIBUSAWA, THE PASSING OF OLD JAPAN, ETC. [Illustration] NEW YORK THE MIKILOSCH PRESS 1911](https://oldbook.b-cdn.net/kitaplar/7/pg62919-h/images/i_title.jpg "YODOGIMA IN FEUDALISTIC JAPAN BY I. WILLIAM ADAMS AUTHOR OF SHIBUSAWA, THE PASSING OF OLD JAPAN, ETC. [Illustration] NEW YORK THE MIKILOSCH PRESS 1911")
Copyright, 1911
By I. William Adams
Manufactured by
L. H. Jenkins, Richmond, Va.
YODOGIMA
CHAPTER I
Japan lay sweltering with uncertainty. Four centuriesof unbridled warfare had reduced her oncesturdy, centralized government to little more than arevered impotency; the country had become the propertyor the booty of its daimyos—those knights-errant,the pride of a nation.
It was an age of military prowess, of unlicensedchivalry, and to the victor belonged the spoils—tillwrested from him, by another more powerful or lessnice about the taking.
Shibata, grizzled and fair, sat upon the veranda,looking out, over the ramparts, across the moats,along the busied streets, to the mellowed hillsidesbeyond. It was all his: gained by lifes devoted, loyalservice, not to self, but to a chosen, rising superior.It had now come time for him to assert his ownsupremacy; the lord he served had met his doom,gone the self same way that ambition for ages haddecreed—lay shrouded in state, with his good richblood dripping cold at the daggers point.
Nobunaga conceived well, mused he, half aloud,the tears fast welling in his great dark eyes, but[pg 2]Shibata, his oldest captain, alone shall finish whatthe master undertook—Japan must be subdued.
The skies darkened and the land-tempered breezecalmed, as the big lord rested back upon the soft-mattedfloor, gazing now afar over the hill topstoward the starry vaulted space in the distance. Alittle maiden, tender and eager, with black eyes anddarker, massive hair, stealing near, sat at his side.
Perhaps she, too, dreamed of the future, for she hadlearned to love.
Learned to love as the Taira maidens, her ancestors,of a half thousand years ago, had not attempted todo. The deeds of daring and flights of fancy throughall those tumultuous centuries had not only given toman the privileges of individuality, but wrestedwoman from the thraldom of the ages and securedto her a place and choice worthy her being.
Once again she might love and be loved—thoughthe fathers command, the shoguns decree, or themikados will stood over her, in fact, as law, and atheart, both materially and spiritually.
Shibata did not at once turn to her, nor did he takehis eyes from the vision conjured within. Consciousof her presence, the very thought burned and seareddeeper and firmer his ready-made if rigorous anticipations.Fortune had given him a child in whom theblood of Taira made possible the connection. Hisown efforts had carved out a place and privilege.Their chieftains death afforded the opportunity. By[pg 3]