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128 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
battle began. With oar and sail the fleets gathered
to the work of war. The seven hundred war-junks of
the Genji fleet came gayly on, seeming to rise like
white mountains to the sky. The archers ranged
along the deck opened on the enemy at long range.
The scullers, singing wild war-songs in chorus with
measured rise and fall of sculls, drove their long,
sharp-bowed boats into and through the broadsides of
their opponents, sinking them by the score ; or, sweep-
ing up alongside, the decks were boarded. Then
the swords crossed. Hand-to-hand fights with the
spear swept the decks, while even the scullers joined
in the battle with sculls. The Genji men, with huge
iron forks like meat-hooks, having long handles,
raked the sea as a farmer harrows his field, and drew
in their struggling or drowning enemies, and put
them to death, saving only the nobles as prisoners.
In the thick of the fight, the mother of Kiyomori,
with the young Mikado, Antoku, leaped into the sea,
and both were drowned.
" On that bloody day the fleet and host of the Taira
were sunk or destroyed. The red flag, the butterfly
crest, and the great family passed out of existence.
Shortly after Yoshitsun^ and his army entered Kyoto
in triumph with their prisoners and spoils, and in
the ' Blossom Capital '
rested after the toils of war."
"Why, my daughter, what are you crying for?"
asked Mr. Rai of Kine*, whose face was wet as she
eagerly listened.
" To think of a Son of Heaven being drowned !
I felt sad to think of the ladies of the court dying in