on the bamboo stake. At the moment there was a violent peal
of thunder rolling off into a crash and rattle. The landscape was lit up
by the vivid lightning. People uneasily turned over on their beds.

Shortly after dawn Iemon woke with a start. Don-don-don, don-don-don.
There was a tremendous rapping at his door. O'Hana could hear but a
whispered consultation going on without the _amado_. Iemon returned to
the room. His face was white; his step tottered. Hastily he donned an
outer robe. To her question he made scant reply, so agitated was he. His
one idea was to keep from her what he had just heard. In the garden he
found his wardsmen assembled. All were dumbfounded and aghast. They
looked at each other and then at the broken bamboo tube. Close by lay
the body of the man who had done the deed. Brains and blood had oozed
from the hole in the skull in which yet stuck the pointed end of the
mattock sunk deep within. Evidently the instrument had rebounded from
the resilient surface of the bamboo. A by-stander pointed to the tiny
fracture near the hard knot of the staff. It was a small thing, but
enough to destroy all the past labours. Iemon went up to look at the
body. "Why! 'Tis Goemon." To their questioning he told how Kamimura had
called on the previous night, his rage at the inability of Iemon to aid
him in distress. With hanging heads, eyes on the ground, and wagging
tongues, all departed to their homes. Later the body of Goemon was borne
to his house by neighbours. Iemon picked up the bamboo staff. Carrying
it within he placed it in a closet. It was as costly an object as the
house had ever held. He was in despair.

It was on that very day, at the seventh hour (3 P.M.), that O'Hana
heard a call at the door. "A request to make! A request to make!" She
recoiled from the sight presented. A beggar stood at the entrance of
Tamiya. A dirty mat wrapped around his body, feet and arms emerging from
bandages, making him like to some hideous insect with its carapace, his
face wrapped in a towel, the effects of leprosy were hideously
patent.--"What do you here? There is naught to be had. Pray depart at
once." The answer was in tones the very harshness of which seemed to
cause pain to the utterer--"The request is to Iemon Dono. Condescend to
notify him." With fearful glance O'Hana shrank within, Iemon noted her
nervous quivering. Promptly he was on his feet--"A beggar has frightened
Hana? Such are to be severely dealt with." He w