state. The ill-meant efforts of the jail authorities, the
strengthening of the criminal in order better to endure the torture to
the confession point, were somewhat baffled by the nightly visions of
the wretched man. The two hags, O'Iwa and O'Mino; Cho[u]bei in his final
stage of purple bloatedness; these were his nightly companions, to
torment and harass him. Sleep! If he could but close his eyes to shut
out these horrors! Instead they became more vivid. The jailors put him
at the farthest corner of their ample premises. His fellow prisoners,
such as were allowed daily exit to the yard, visited him with blows and
foul insults for the disturbance he created in the night. But he was
cunning withal. Trapped as he was, in his lucid moments he realized that
there could be but little against him. O'Iwa? Not even in Tokugawa times
was the supernatural cause of prosecution except at the hands of the
vulgar. Nor in those days, any more than in these of Taisho[u] _nengo_,
was a wife legally protected against abuse of husband or parents-in-law.
As for Cho[u]bei--he was dead. His own presence on the scene was no
evidence against him as murderer. His only misgivings on that point lay
in the confusion of mind as to the few days then covered. But who would
blame a _samurai_ for testing his blade on a beggar? What were beggars
for? He knew nothing of the evidence given by Yoemon and Kondo[u]; of
the vile proof in the hands of Katada Dono. He had wholly forgotten the
nurse who had listened to the wild ravings of O'Hana in her illness,
broken sentences bearing so heavily and dove-tailing so nicely into the
completed case. Owing to this woman Tatewaki Dono had not waited the
appearance of Iemon at morning. Iemon also left out of account the
characters of the two men before whom he appeared. Iga no Kami sat as
judge in the case. Close beside him, a little in the rear, sat Katada
Tatewaki, in whose jurisdiction the case had originated, and who was
familiar with every stage. The four _do[u]shin_ sat to one side and the
other of these two men.

Homma and Katada were typical of their caste. Cold, callous, cruel,
devoted rigidly to the formulae; of the _samurai_ code, with strange
exceptions granted to the virtues required of the common people--filial
conduct and unswerving obedience to a superior--they were not men likely
to regard with favour this intruder into their class. The name of
_samurai_ had been brought into contempt. Hence the serio