d been
taught as her first and highest duty to guard and revere? In this
dilemma she conceived a plan. Her beauty was all she possessed; but by
its aid she might soften the hard heart of Kiyomori and save both her
mother and her children.

[Illustration: Reproduced by permission of The Philadelphia Museums.
FARMERS PLANTING RICE SPROUTS. JAPAN.]

Success followed her devoted effort. Reaching the capital, Tokiwa
obtained an audience with the tyrant, who was so struck with her great
beauty that he wished to make her his mistress. At first she refused,
but her mother begged her with tears to consent, and she finally yielded
on Kiyomori's promise that her children should be spared. This mercy did
not please the friends of the tyrant, who insisted that the boys should
be put to death, fearing to let any one live who bore the hated name of
Minamoto. But the beauty of the mother and her tearful pleadings won
the tyrant's consent, and her sacrifice for her children was not in
vain.

The youngest of the three, the babe whom Tokiwa had borne in her arms in
her flight, grew up to be a healthy, ruddy-cheeked boy, small of
stature, but fiery and impetuous in spirit. Kiyomori had no intention,
however, that these boys should be left at liberty to cause him trouble
in the future. When of proper age he sent them to a monastery, ordering
that they should be brought up as priests.

The elder boys consented to this, suffering their black hair to be
shaved off and the robes of Buddhist neophytes to be put on them. But
Yoshitsune, the youngest, had no fancy for the life of a monk, and
refused to let the razor come near his hair. Though dwelling in the
monastery, he was so merry and self-willed that his pranks caused much
scandal, and the pious bonzes knew not what to do with this young ox, as
they called the irrepressible boy.

As Yoshitsune grew older, his distaste at the dulness of his life in the
cloister increased. The wars in the north, word of which penetrated even
those holy walls, inspired his ambition, and he determined in some way
to escape. The opportunity to do so soon arose. Traders from the outer
world made their way within the monastery gates for purposes of
business, and among these was an iron-merchant, who was used to making
frequent journeys to the north of the island of Hondo to obtain the fine
iron of the celebrated mines of that region. The youth begged this
iron-merchant to take him on one of his journeys, a req