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372 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
education in the sciences and literature of Christendom.
Yet Koba never lived to see Echizen leading in
the new era of Meiji, or peace under enlightened
civilization. Why ?
Alas, that we should have to write it, and again
tell the story of blood !
There were many men still
in Kyoto and the country bitterly opposed to reform,
to foreigners, and above all to Christianity. They
had marked for death any one suspected of being a
Christian, or, as they put it, of " holding evil opinions."
They argued that Koba must be a Christian,
or else he would not 'be bent upon so changing the
old order of rule by the sword, upon uplifting the
outcasts to citizenship, and upon treating aliens with
respect.
Going home in his palanquin one night in 1869
from the court where he had been all
day engaged,
his bearers had reached a certain street in Kyoto
when a pistol-shot was fired, the ball passing
through the palanquin. Koba at once knew he was
surrounded, and sprang out to defend himself. Six
men with their faces tied up with cloth-wrappers,
which concealed their features except their eyes,
attacked him with naked swords, and one of them
with a single blow cut off his head.
One of the assassins was an ex-priest and two
were of the class called goshi. All were arrested
and beheaded for their crime, but the loss of this
wise counselor was irreparable.
Mr. Rai, though often threatened, escaoed all dan-