resolution like that of the Epicurean
monarch of Assyria, the famed Sardanapalus. He gave a grand feast in the
palace, to which all the captains and notables of his party were
invited, and at which all present danced and made merry as though
victory hung over their banners. Yet it was their funeral feast, to be
followed by a carnival of death.

In the midst of the banquet, Shibata, rising cup in hand, said to his
wife,--

"We are men, and will die. You are a woman, and have the right to live.
You may gain safety by leaving the castle, and are at liberty to marry
again."

The brave woman, the sister of Nobunaga, was too high in spirit to
accept this offer. Her eyes filled with tears, she thanked her lord for
his kindness, but declared that the world held no other husband for her,
and that it was her sole wish to die with him. Then, reciting a farewell
stanza of poetry, she calmly stood while her husband thrust his dirk
into her heart.

All the women and children present, nerved by this brave example,
welcomed the same fate, and then the men committed _hara-kiri_, the
Japanese method of suicide, Shibata having first set fire to the castle.
Soon the flames curled upward round the dead and the dying, and the
conqueror found nothing but the ashes of a funeral pile upon which to
lay hand.

Hideyoshi, all resistance to his rule being now at an end, set himself
to tranquillize and develop Japan. Iyeyasu, one of Nobunaga's favorite
generals, became his friend and married his sister; Mori, lord of the
West, came to the capital and became his vassal, and no man in the
empire dared question his power. His enemies, proud nobles who were
furious at having to bend their haughty heads before a peasant,
privately called him Sava Kuan ja ("crowned monkey"), but were wise
enough not to be too open in their satire. Their anger was especially
aroused by the fact that the mikado had conferred upon this parvenu the
lofty office of kuambaku, or prime minister of the empire, a title which
had never before been borne by any one not a noble of the Fujiwara clan,
for whom it had been expressly reserved. He was also ennobled under the
family name of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The new premier showed as great an activity in the works of peace as he
had shown in those of war, putting his soldiers to work to keep their
minds employed. Kioto was improved by his orders, splendid palaces being
built, and the bed of the river Kamo paved with flat stones