had followed after. Though a child, he was a born soldier, and when he saw his father slain he too fell lighting on the same battlefield, leaving a name behind. Alas, the pity of it!
"When Kaitō's retainers saw this, they felt that after having their chieftain and his son killed before their eyes, and, what was still worse, their heads taken by the enemy, none of them ought to return home alive. Thirty-six of them, bridle to bridle, made an onrush, each more eager than the other to fall fighting, and make a pillow of his lord's dead body. Kwaijitsu, seeing this, laughed out, 'Ha! ha! There is no understanding you fellows,' he exclaimed. 'You ought to be thinking of taking the heads of enemies instead of guarding the heads of your own people. This is an omen of the ruin of the military power. If you want the head you can have it.' So saying, he flung the head of Kaitō into the midst of the foe, and with downward-sweeping blows in the Okamoto style, cleared a space in all directions."
The next specimen of Kojima's style is from an account of the arrest of Toshimoto, one of the Mikado Go Daigo's principal advisers, on a charge of conspiracy against the Shōgunate.
"On the 11th day of the seventh month he was arrested and taken to Rokuwara [the residence of the Shōgun's representative at Kiōto], and was despatched thence to the eastern provinces. He set out on his journey, well knowing that the law allowed no pardon for a second offence of this kind, and that whatever he might plead in his defence he would not be released. Either he would be done away with on the journey, or he would be executed at Kamakura. No other end was possible."
