to them, saying—­“This man is a retainer of Ikeda Kunaishoyu, who, having cause of hatred against a man named Watanabe Yukiye, has slain him, and has fled to me for protection; this man’s mother suckled me when I was an infant, and, right or wrong, I will befriend him.  If, therefore, Ikeda Kunaishoyu should send to require me to deliver him up, I trust that you will one and all put forth your strength and help me to defend him.”

“Ay! that will we, with pleasure!” replied Kondo Noborinosuke.  “We have for some time had cause to complain of the scorn with which the Daimios have treated us.  Let Ikeda Kunaishoyu send to claim this man, and we will show him the power of the Hatamotos.”

All the other Hatamotos, with one accord, applauded this determination, and made ready their force for an armed resistance, should my Lord Kunaishoyu send to demand the surrender of Matugoro.  But the latter remained as a welcome guest in the house of Abe Shirogoro.

[Illustration:  MATAGORO KILLS YUKIYE.]

Now when Watanabe Kazuma saw that, as the night advanced, his father Yukiye did not return home, he became anxious, and went to the house of Matagoro to seek for him, and finding to his horror that he was murdered, fell upon the corpse and, embraced it, weeping.  On a sudden, it flashed across him that this must assuredly be the handiwork of Matagoro; so he rushed furiously into the house, determined to kill his father’s murderer upon the spot.  But Matagoro had already fled, and he found only the mother, who was making her preparations for following her son to the house of Abe Shirogoro:  so he bound the old woman, and searched all over the house for her son; but, seeing that his search was fruitless, he carried off the mother, and handed her over to one of the elders of the clan, at the same time laying information against Matagoro as his father’s murderer.  When the affair was reported to the Prince, he was very angry, and ordered that the old woman should remain bound and be cast into prison until the whereabouts of her son should be discovered.  Then Kazuma buried his father’s corpse with great pomp, and the widow and the orphan mourned over their loss.

It soon became known amongst the people of Abe Shirogoro that the mother of Matagoro had been imprisoned for her son’s crime, and they immediately set about planning her rescue; so they sent to the palace of my Lord Kunaishoyu a messenger, who, when he was introduced to the councillor of the Prince, said—­

“We have heard that, in consequence of the murder of Yukiye, my lord has been pleased to imprison the mother of Matagoro.  Our master Shirogoro has arrested the criminal, and will deliver him up to you.  But the mother has committed no crime, so we pray that she may be released from a cruel imprisonment:  she was the foster-mother of our master, and he would fain intercede to save her life.  Should you consent to this, we, on our side, will give up the murderer, and hand him over to you in front of our master’s gate to-morrow.”