Here, then, is the scape-goat!—­The rest of the narrative may be briefly told.—­On the day appointed, arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth.  Will he be deceived by the false head?  The poor Genzo’s hand is on the hilt of the sword, ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself, should the examination defeat his scheme.  The officer takes up the gruesome object before him, goes calmly over each feature, and in a deliberate, business-like tone, pronounces it genuine.—­That evening in a lonely home awaits the mother we saw in the school.  Does she know the fate of her child?  It is not for his return that she watches with eagerness for the opening of the wicket.  Her father-in-law has been for a long time a recipient of Michizane’s bounties, but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his family’s benefactor.  He himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master; but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire’s lord.  As one acquainted with the exile’s family, it was he who had been entrusted with the task of identifying the boy’s head.  Now the day’s—­yea, the life’s—­hard work is done, he returns home and as he crosses its threshold, he accosts his wife, saying:  “Rejoice, my wife, our darling son has proved of service to his lord!”

“What an atrocious story!” I hear my readers exclaim,—­“Parents deliberately sacrificing their own innocent child to save the life of another man’s.”  But this child was a conscious and willing victim:  it is a story of vicarious death—­as significant as, and not more revolting than, the story of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Isaac.  In both cases it was obedience to the call of duty, utter submission to the command of a higher voice, whether given by a visible or an invisible angel, or heard by an outward or an inward ear;—­but I abstain from preaching.

The individualism of the West, which recognizes separate interests for father and son, husband and wife, necessarily brings into strong relief the duties owed by one to the other; but Bushido held that the interest of the family and of the members thereof is intact,—­one and inseparable.  This interest it bound up with affection—­natural, instinctive, irresistible; hence, if we die for one we love with natural love (which animals themselves possess), what is that?  “For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye?  Do not even the publicans the same?”

In his great history, Sanyo relates in touching language the heart struggle of Shigemori concerning his father’s rebellious conduct.  “If I be loyal, my father must be undone; if I obey my father, my duty to my sovereign must go amiss.”  Poor Shigemori!  We see him afterward praying with all his soul that kind Heaven may visit him with death, that he may be released from this world where it is hard for purity and righteousness to dwell.