seem to have cast their shadows before. According to the well-known tradition, the slumbers of the prospective recipient had been visited by a strange dream, in which she had beheld herself toiling up a mountainside with the sun and moon shining from her long sleeves, and holding on high an orange-bough laden with ripe fruit (tachibana). The shrewd Masako was well versed in legendary lore, signs, bodings, and portents. At once deeming this incident of an auspicious nature she coveted it for herself, and worked upon the credulity of the younger girl by pronouncing it an evil omen: moreover should a dream of good luck be related before seven years, or one of sinister portent before seven days had elapsed, the good results would be neutralized and the evil intensified.
To her alarmed sister Masako proposed a solution of the difficulty—she would buy the dream herself. "But how can one buy or sell what can neither be seen nor handled?" inquired the reluctant possessor of the dream. Masako fixed her sister with a searching gaze and overruled her objections as to the ill effects of such a transaction upon the purchaser: "I will buy it!" she proclaimed. As the price of her intangible bargain she paid to the younger girl a set of silken robes and a silver mirror. It is recorded that the latter was a valuable family heirloom which Tokimasa had given into the keeping of his eldest child owing to his affection and admiration for the character of Masako.
This strange barter seems to have exercised some occult influence upon its purchaser, for the same night Masako dreamed that a white dove* approached her, offering a golden box containing a letter. The next morning this prophetic omen was realized, and Yoritomo's message was delivered: from that time it was not long before relations of a romantic and illicit nature were established.
Meanwhile Tokimasa was absent, being engaged in the execution of his duties as guard in Kyoto. He returned from the distant capital in company with Taira no Kanetaka, a relative of Kiyomori and governor of the province of Izu, and moreover to whom Tokimasa promised the hand of his eldest daughter in marriage.
But after his arrival, when tidings of this liaison that had flourished during his absence reached his ears, he was placed in a difficult position, and one that required delicate handling. However exalted might be his opinion of Yoritomo's talents and probabilities of a brilliant future, he hardly cared to risk incurring the odium of the whole Taira faction—including Kanetaka, the governor and prospective bridegroom—by uniting his daughter with their deadly enemy, the exiled scion of the hated Minamoto!
But the crafty Tokimasa proved equal of the occasion. Ostensibly ignoring the amour, he caused all preparations to be made for the celebration of the marriage with the governor, according to the original arrangement, but meanwhile there is no doubt that he was secretly conniving at his daughter's disappearance with her lover.
The nuptial festivities were celebrated with all due ceremony. But the same evening, under cover of the darkness and a convenient storm of wind and rain, the bride disappeared into the mountains, in which congenial retreat she was joined by the partner of her affection—the pair lying concealed until the father's pardon was accorded, and which was not long withheld.
From this time, assisted by Tokimasa, Yoritomo began to communicate in secret with the clansmen round about, and the military families in sympathy with his part. Meanwhile, a rising against the Taira was gathering strength in the south, under the auspices of Prince Mochihito, second son of the Emperor Go-Shirakawa. An order from this prince was dispatched to Yoritomo, requesting him to call to arms the Minamoto adherents, and to deliver the imperial family, as well as the country at large, from the selfish arrogance and tyrannous misrule of the Taira. This appeal was delivered to Yoritomo in the late spring of 1180; but while engaged in his preparations to comply, the fatal news arrived announcing the defeat and death of the prince in the battle on the Uji. Elated with this victory, the Taira were plotting to follow it up by exterminating the whole remainder of the Minamoto faction.
Yoritomo, being warned of this prospect, determined to take the field without loss of time, and as an initial attempt the stronghold of the governor Kanetaka—his former rival in the arts of love—was attacked. The fort was stormed, set on fire, and the unfortunate governor was beheaded.
This preliminary success decided the wavering adherents of the districts to rally around their new leader with contributions of men and arms, and war was soon declared. Supported by his little force of three hundred warriors, and bearing the prince's mandate attached to his standard, Yoritomo marched upon the foe at the historic hill of Ishibashi—a wooded eminence on the northern outskirts of the Hakone mountains. However, this valiant but premature attempt was doomed to failure. Woefully outnumbered by the enemy—who were encamped three thousand strong, and who attacked simultaneously from the front and from the rear—the Minamoto band suffered a crushing defeat and were almost annihilated, their leader only escaping from death by a hair's-breadth.
When Yoritomo was able to take cover in a grove of trees, his supporters had dwindled to the sorry remnant of six men. Acting upon their leader's advice these took refuge in flight: Yoritomo, with a single attendant, concealed himself in the hollow trunk of a tree. In this predicament signal service was rendered by Kajiwara Kagetoki—a secret sympathizer with the Minamoto cause—who indicated to the pursuers that their quarry had taken an opposite route. However the Taira commander, Oba Kagechika, in riding past the hollow tree thrust his spear into the aperture, according to some accounts actually grazing the sleeve of Yoritomo's armor! At this dramatic moment the god Hachiman did not desert his protege: two woodpigeons fluttered out from the tree—deluding the enemy into the assumption that no human being could be sheltering within—and the life of the fugitive was saved.
After this complete defeat at Ishibashi-yama Yoritomo became almost a solitary figure, leading a precarious existence concealed in the forests of that mountainous district. After some time he reached the seacoast, where he boarded a ship at Manazurugasaki and crossed over into the province of Awa. Here the tide of fortune speedily turned. Undaunted by the late fiasco, he was met and welcomed with utmost enthusiasm by crowds of followers, both old and new rallying to the white banner of their chief. The latter included the Taira clansman Hirotsune, who offered his allegiance to Yoritomo with an army of twenty thousand troops.
Before the arrival of the Minamoto scion, Hirotsune had been in a state of indecision whether to join forces with the newcomer, or whether to oppose and seize him. But again the force of Yoritomo's magnetic personality rescued him in the crucial hour. The Taira commander succumbed to the spell of the young hero, placing his forces at his disposal and becoming himself one of Yoritomo's loyal and important retainers. Throughout the eight provinces of the Kanto region manifestoes were circulated, to which the Minamoto adherents responded with alacrity, flocking to the standard in such large numbers that before long their chief found himself at the head of a mighty army. For strategic as well as political reasons he was advised to decide on establishing his military headquarters at Kamakura, and there he lost no time in propitiating the guardian deity of his ancestors by the erection of an imposing shrine to the war god Hachiman.
Naturally these demonstrations had not escaped the notice of Kiyomori. By this time, from his advancing age and the condition of his health, the crafty old Taira chief was unable to conduct an expedition in person to quell the foe; however, his nearest relatives were appointed for the undertaking, and they proved anything but efficient substitutes. On October 20,1180, a body of fifty thousand troops was dispatched from Kyoto under the leadership of Tadamori, Kiyomori's youngest brother, and his grandson Koremori, to attack the upstart Yoritomo, scatter his followers, and dislodge him from Kamakura, his newly established stronghold. Yoritomo, at the head of a vast army two hundred thousand strong, went forth to meet the foe, whom early in November they confronted, encamped upon the southern bank of the Fujikawa—the broad and rapidly flowing torrent that rushes down to the sea from the slopes of the great mountain, and whose crossing presented so many obstacles in ancient times.
Now the Taira generals, in addition to being ill fitted for the campaign by their effete and luxurious manner of living in Kyoto, were alarmed and thrown into a state of consternation by the sudden notoriety of the newly arisen champion of the Minamoto cause; moreover, the unexpectedly imposing scale of the host that was drawn up upon the opposite bank of the river was ill calculated to allay their apprehensions. Yoritomo