r. Jaws dripping red with blood, a broad
white flat face with bulging brow, two tiny piercing dots flashing from
amid the thick swollen eyelids, it was the face of O'Iwa glowering at
her. "Kiya!" The scream resounded far and wide. Incontinently the old
woman tumbled backward down the steep steps, to land below on head and
buttocks.

Some neighbours, people passing, came rushing in. A crowd began to
gather. "Baba! Baba San! What is wrong?" She could not speak; only point
upward and shudder as does one with heavy chills. As they moved toward
the stair a roar went up from the crowd in the street. O'Taki had
appeared at the window, her face smeared with blood and almost
unrecognizable. She waved a limb of the dismembered infant. The crowd
were frozen with horror. As some shouted to those within to hasten the
woman brandished the bloody knife. Thrusting it deep into her throat she
ripped and tore at the handle, spattering the incautious below with the
blood spurting from the wound. Then she fell backward into the room.
When the foremost to interfere rushed in they drew back in fear at what
they saw. The child's head was half knawed from the body; its limbs lay
scattered to this place and that. The body of O'Taki lay where she had
fallen. It was as if the head had been gnawed from the trunk, but the
head itself was missing. Search as they would, it was not to be found.
Meanwhile the news of these happenings spread rapidly. In the next block
it was shouted that the wife of the pimp Cho[u]bei had gone mad and
killed and eaten five children. A block further the number had risen to
twenty-five. At the guardhouse of the Adzumabashi she had killed and
gnawed a hundred adults.

These rumours were mingled with the strange tale of the old woman as to
O'Iwa San. In time there were many who had witnessed the suicide of
O'Taki, who were ready to swear they had seen the fearful lady of
Tamiya. Cho[u]bei first learned of the affair by being dragged from the
grog shop to the guardhouse of the Adzumabashi. Here he was put under
arrest. Distressed and discomforted he stood before the ruin in his
home, under the eyes of his neighbours. These stood loyally by him. As
happens in ward affairs in Nippon the aspect of the affair not
immediately on the surface was slow to reach official ears. Thus it was
as to the Tamiya phase involved. Cho[u]bei had suffered much, and was in
to suffer more. His fellow wardsmen were silent as to all but the actual