Matagoro in the meanwhile had made his way, with the old man Sakurai Jiuzayemon and his thirty Ronins, to Osaka.  But, strong as they were in numbers, they travelled in great secrecy.  The reason for this was that the old man’s younger brother, Sakurai Jinsuke, a fencing-master by profession, had once had a fencing-match with Matayemon, Kazuma’s brother-in-law, and had been shamefully beaten; so that the party were greatly afraid of Matayemon, and felt that, since he was taking up Kazuma’s cause and acting as his guardian, they might be worsted in spite of their numbers:  so they went on their way with great caution, and, having reached Osaka, put up at an inn in a quarter called Ikutama, and hid from Kazuma and Matayemon.

The latter also in good time reached Osaka, and spared no pains to seek out Matagoro.  One evening towards dusk, as Matayemon was walking in the quarter where the enemy were staying, he saw a man, dressed as a gentleman’s servant, enter a cook-shop and order some buckwheat porridge for thirty-six men, and looking attentively at the man, he recognized him as the servant of Sakurai Jiuzayemon; so he hid himself in a dark place and watched, and heard the fellow say—­

“My master, Sakurai Jiuzayemon, is about to start for Sagara to-morrow morning, to return thanks to the gods for his recovery from a sickness from which he has been suffering; so I am in a great hurry.”

With these words the servant hastened away; and Matayemon, entering the shop, called for some porridge, and as he ate it, made some inquiries as to the man who had just given so large an order for buckwheat porridge.  The master of the shop answered that he was the attendant of a party of thirty-six gentlemen who were staying at such and such an inn.  Then Matayemon, having found out all that he wanted to know, went home and told Kazuma, who was delighted at the prospect of carrying his revenge into execution on the morrow.  That same evening Matayemon sent one of his two faithful retainers as a spy to the inn, to find out at what hour Matagoro was to set out on the following morning; and he ascertained from the servants of the inn, that the party was to start at daybreak for Sagara, stopping at Ise to worship at the shrine of Tersho Daijin.[19]

[Footnote 19:  Goddess of the sun, and ancestress of the Mikados.]

Matayemon made his preparations accordingly, and, with Kazuma and his two retainers, started before dawn.  Beyond Uyeno, in the province of Iga, the castle-town of the Daimio Todo Idzumi no Kami, there is a wide and lonely moor; and this was the place upon which they fixed for the attack upon the enemy.  When they had arrived at the spot, Matayemon went into a tea-house by the roadside, and wrote a petition to the governor of the Daimio’s castle-town for permission to carry out the vendetta within its precincts;[20] then he addressed Kazuma, and said—­