derable force.

In thirteen days after raising the banner of revolt in favor of the
mikado he reached the vicinity of Kamakura, acting under the advice of
his brother, who counselled him to beard the lion in his den. The
tyranny of the Hojo had spread far and wide the spirit of rebellion, and
thousands flocked to the standard of the young general,--a long white
pennant, near whose top were two bars of black, and under them a circle
bisected with a zone of black.

On the eve of the day fixed for the attack on the city, Nitta stood on
the sea-shore in front of his army, before him the ocean with blue
islands visible afar, behind him lofty mountain peaks, chief among them
the lordly Fusiyama. Here, removing his helmet, he uttered the following
words:

"Our heavenly son [the mikado] has been deposed by his traitorous
subject, and is now an exile afar in the west. I have not been able to
look on this act unmoved, and have come to punish the traitors in yonder
city by the aid of these loyal troops. I humbly pray you, O god of the
ocean waves, to look into the purposes of my heart. If you favor me and
my cause, then bid the tide to ebb and open a path beside the sea."

With these words he drew his sword and cast it with all his strength
into the water. For a moment the golden hilt gleamed in the rays of the
setting sun, and then the blade sank from sight. But with the dawn of
the next day the soldiers saw with delight that there had been a great
ebb in the tide, and that the dry strand offered a wide high-road past
the rocky girdle that enclosed Kamakura. With triumphant shouts they
marched along this ocean path, following a leader whom they now believed
to be the chosen avenger of the gods.

From two other sides the city of the shogun was attacked. The defence
was as fierce as the assault, but everywhere victory rested upon the
white banner of loyalty. Nitta's army pressed resistlessly forward, and
the Hojo found themselves defeated and their army destroyed. Fire
completed what the sword had begun, destructive flames attacked the
frame dwellings of the city, and in a few hours the great capital of the
shoguns and their powerful regents was a waste of ashes.

Many of the vassals of the Hojo killed themselves rather than surrender,
among them a noble named Ando, whose niece was Nitta's wife. She wrote
him a letter begging him to surrender.

"My niece is the daughter of a samurai house," the old man indignantly
exclaimed