to the blind youth; and looking attentively, he saw that the new-comer was Umanosuke.  Having thus discovered who was on his track, he went home and sought means of killing the two beggars; so he lay in wait and traced them to the poor hut where they dwelt, and one night, when he knew Umanosuke to be absent, he crept in.  Kosanza, being blind, thought that the footsteps were those of Umanosuke, and jumped up to welcome him; but he, in his heartless cruelty, which not even the boy’s piteous state could move, slew Kosanza as he helplessly stretched out his hands to feel for his friend.  The deed was yet unfinished when Umanosuke returned, and, hearing a scuffle inside the hut, drew the sword which was hidden in his staff and rushed in; but Banzayemon, profiting by the darkness, eluded him and fled from the hut.  Umanosuke followed swiftly after him; but just as he was on the point of catching him, Banzayemon, making a sweep backwards with his drawn sword, wounded Umanosuke in the thigh, so that he stumbled and fell, and the murderer, swift of foot, made good his escape.  The wounded youth tried to pursue him again, but being compelled by the pain of his wound to desist, returned home and found his blind companion lying dead, weltering in his own blood.  Cursing his unhappy fate, he called in the beggars of the fraternity to which he belonged, and between them they buried Kosanza, and he himself being too poor to procure a surgeon’s aid, or to buy healing medicaments for his wound, became a cripple.

[Footnote 29:  See Note at end of story.]

It was at this time that Shirai Gompachi, who was living under the protection of Chobei, the Father of the Otokodate, was in love with Komurasaki, the beautiful courtesan who lived at the sign of the Three Sea-shores, in the Yoshiwara.  He had long exhausted the scanty supplies which he possessed, and was now in the habit of feeding his purse by murder and robbery, that he might have means to pursue his wild and extravagant life.  One night, when he was out on his cutthroat business, his fellows, who had long suspected that he was after no good, sent one of their number, named Seibei, to watch him.  Gompachi, little dreaming that any one was following him, swaggered along the street until he fell in with a wardsman, whom he cut down and robbed; but the booty proving small, he waited for a second chance, and, seeing a light moving in the distance, hid himself in the shadow of a large tub for catching rain-water till the bearer of the lantern should come up.  When the man drew near, Gompachi saw that he was dressed as a traveller, and wore a long dirk; so he sprung out from his lurking-place and made to kill him; but the traveller nimbly jumped on one side, and proved no mean adversary, for he drew his dirk and fought stoutly for his life.  However, he was no match for so skilful a swordsman as Gompachi, who, after a sharp struggle, dispatched him, and carried off his purse, which contained two hundred riyos.