“Be of good cheer, Magohachi; it is I, Matayemon, who have come to the rescue.  You are badly hurt; get out of harm’s way, and rest yourself.”

Then Magohachi, who until then had been kept up by his anxiety for Kazuma’s safety, gave in, and fell fainting from loss of blood; and Matayemon worsted and slew Gentan; and even then, although be had received two wounds, he was not exhausted, but drew near to Kazuma and said—­

“Courage, Kazuma!  The Ronins are all killed, and there now remains only Matagoro, your father’s murderer.  Fight and win!”

The youth, thus encouraged, redoubled his efforts; but Matagoro, losing heart, quailed and fell.  So Kazuma’s vengeance was fulfilled, and the desire of his heart was accomplished.

The two faithful retainers, who had died in their loyalty, were buried with great ceremony, and Kazuma carried the head of Matagoro and piously laid it upon his father’s tomb.

So ends the tale of Kazuma’s revenge.

I fear that stories of which killing and bloodshed form the principal features can hardly enlist much sympathy in these peaceful days.  Still, when such tales are based upon history, they are interesting to students of social phenomena.  The story of Kazuma’s revenge is mixed up with events which at the present time are peculiarly significant:  I mean the feud between the great Daimios and the Hatamotos.  Those who have followed the modern history of Japan will see that the recent struggle, which has ended in the ruin of the Tycoon’s power and the abolition of his office, was the outburst of a hidden fire which had been smouldering for centuries.  But the repressive might had been gradually weakened, and contact with Western powers had rendered still more odious a feudality which men felt to be out of date.  The revolution which has ended in the triumph of the Daimios over the Tycoon, is also the triumph of the vassal over his feudal lord, and is the harbinger of political life to the people at large.  In the time of Iyeyasu the burden might be hateful, but it had to be borne; and so it would have been to this day, had not circumstances from without broken the spell.  The Japanese Daimio, in advocating the isolation of his country, was hugging the very yoke which he hated.  Strange to say, however, there are still men who, while they embrace the new political creed, yet praise the past, and look back with regret upon the day when Japan stood alone, without part or share in the great family of nations.

NOTE.—­Hatamoto.  This word means “under the flag.”  The Hatamotos were men who, as their name implied, rallied round the standard of the Shogun, or Tycoon, in war-time.  They were eighty thousand in number.  When Iyeyasu left the Province of Mikawa and became Shogun, the retainers whom he ennobled, and who received from him grants of land yielding revenue to the amount of ten thousand kokus of rice a year, and from that down to one hundred kokus, were called Hatamoto.