to a jelly. He
clung to his denial, so important was the issue. At the next appearance
he was seized and dragged to a post fixed in the ground not far from the
judge's seat. His knees were pressed down on the edges of the triangular
bars. These formed a sort of grid, the edges of the bars being just
enough blunted to avoid cutting the skin. None of the pain was spared,
yet the prisoner remained fit for early future torture. The granite
slabs were then piled on his knees. Each one weighed thirteen _kwan_
(107 lbs.). As the fifth slab was placed on the body of Iemon, the flesh
assumed a reddish tint from the impeded circulation. Froth stained his
mouth, mucus ran from his nose. A sixth, a seventh stone, were placed.
"How now! How now!" The men pressed heavily on the stones. A _do[u]shin_
bent over him, listening and waiting for sign of the important
confession. The criminal was the one important witness of Tokugawa penal
law. Without confession he was innocent beyond all other proof. As the
eighth stone was placed Iemon began to vomit blood. The doctor raised
his hand. The feet were showing signs of blackness, which rapidly spread
upward. The man was in a dead faint. No confession had been secured.

Perhaps the examination was thus conducted out of some severity. Days
passed. Whether or not the report of the physician was unfavourable,
influenced by some means Homma had fear the man might die before a
public retribution was secured. When Iemon again was dragged before his
judges he had a terrible object lesson before him. A man was undergoing
the torture of the lobster. Hands drawn up behind to the shoulders, the
feet tightly bound across the chest, he was propped up on a mat.
Properly conducted this "effort to persuade" took place in the jail.
Homma wished to try the effect of anticipation on Iemon. The prisoner
looked quickly at the man under torture, then hung down his head. His
lips were twitching with uncertainty. Homma struck hard--"Why deny the
plain fact? Is justice so ignorant of the doings and whereabouts of a
scamp. Kichitaro[u], or Kazuma the diviner, as he called himself,
murders Cho[u]bei the pimp; a deed carried out before witnesses." A
_do[u]shin_ placed the document of the confession of the whores so that
Iemon had no difficulty in ascertaining its title. "And why? Because of
the agreement with Cho[u]bei to sell the woman he dared to call his
wife. The proof? The seal of Tamiya, the document itself." At l