Part 34

Just at that time the ship of a kidnapper happened to cast anchor in the harbor. Needless to say that Yorihime was secretly sold to this dealer in human flesh.

VIII. BECOMING A SERVANT

After this misfortune, the unhappy princess passed from one master to another as many as seventy-five times. Her last purchaser was one Yorodzuya Chobei, well known as the keeper of a large joroya(1) in the province of Mino.

When Terute-Hime was first brought before this new master, she spoke meekly to him, and begged him to excuse her ignorance of all refinements and of deportment. And Chobei then asked her to tell him all about herself, her native place, and her family. But Terute-Hime thought it would not be wise to mention even the name of her native province, lest she might possibly be forced to speak of the poisoning of her husband by her own father.

So she resolved to answer only that she was born in Hitachi; feeling a sad pleasure in saying that she belonged to the same province in which the lord Hangwan, her lover, used to live.

"I was born," she said, "in the province of Hitachi; but I am of too low birth to have a family name. Therefore may I beseech you to bestow some suitable name upon me?"

Then Terute-Hime was named Kohagi of Hitachi, and she was told that she would have to serve her master very faithfully in his business.

But this order she refused to obey, and said that she would perform with pleasure any work given her to do, however mean or hard, but that she would never follow the business of a joro.

"Then," cried Chobei in anger, "your daily tasks shall be these:--

"To feed all the horses, one hundred in number, that are kept in the stables, and to wait upon all other persons in the house when they take their meals.

"To dress the hair of the thirty-six joro belonging to this house, dressing the hair of each in the style that best becomes her; and also to fill seven boxes with threads of twisted hemp.

"Also to make the fire daily in seven furnaces, and to draw water from a spring in the mountains, half a mile from here."

Terute knew that neither she nor any other being alive could possibly fulfill all the tasks thus laid upon her by this cruel master; and she wept over her misfortune.

But she soon felt that to weep could avail her nothing. So wiping away her tears, she bravely resolved to try what she could do, and then putting on an apron, and tying back her sleeves, she set to work feeding the horses.

The great mercy of the gods cannot be understood; but it is certain that as she fed the first horse, all the others, through divine influence, were fully fed at the same time.

And the same wonderful thing happened when she waited upon the people of the house at mealtime, and when she dressed the hair of the girls, and when she twisted the threads of hemp, and when she went to kindle the fire in the furnaces.

But saddest of all it was to see Terute-Hime bearing the water-buckets upon her shoulders, taking her way to the distant spring to draw water.

And when she saw the reflection of her much-changed face in the water with which she filled her buckets, then indeed she wept very bitterly.

But the sudden remembrance of the cruel Chobei filled her with exceeding fear, and urged her back in haste to her terrible abode.

But soon the master of the joroya began to see that his new servant was no common woman, and to treat her with a great show of kindness.

(1)A house of prostitution.

IX. DRAWING THE CART

And now we shall tell what became of Kane-uji.

The far-famed Yugyo Shonin, of the temple of Fujisawa in Kagami, who traveled constantly in Japan to preach the law of Buddha in all the provinces, chanced to be passing over the moor Uwanogahara.

There he saw many crows and kites flitting about a grave. Drawing nearer, he wondered much to see a nameless thing, seemingly without arms or legs, moving between the pieces of a broken tombstone.

Then he remembered the old tradition, that those who are put to death before having completed the number of years allotted to them in this world reappear or revive in the form called gaki-ami.

And he thought that the shape before him must be one of those unhappy spirits; and the desire arose in his kindly heart to have the monster taken to the hot springs belonging to the temple of Kumano, and thereby enable it to return to its former human state.

So he had a cart made for the gaki-ami, and he placed the nameless shape in it, and fastened to its breast a wooden tablet, inscribed with large characters.