“Pray do not mention it, my lord,” said Chobei, smiling rather scornfully.  “I know that my poor skill is not to be measured with that of a noble Samurai; and if these two good gentlemen had the worst of it just now, it was mere luck—­that’s all.”

So, after the usual compliments had been exchanged, Chobei sat down by Jiurozayemon, and the attendants brought in wine and condiments.  Before they began to drink, however, Jiurozayemon said—­

“You must be tired and exhausted with your walk this hot day, Master Chobei.  I thought that perhaps a bath might refresh you, so I ordered my men to get it ready for you.  Would you not like to bathe and make yourself comfortable?”

Chobei suspected that this was a trick to strip him, and take him unawares when he should have laid aside his dirk.  However, he answered cheerfully—­

“Your lordship is very good.  I shall be glad to avail myself of your kind offer.  Pray excuse me for a few moments.”

So he went to the bath-room, and, leaving his clothes outside, he got into the bath, with the full conviction that it would be the place of his death.  Yet he never trembled nor quailed, determined that, if he needs must die, no man should say he had been a coward.  Then Jiurozayemon, calling to his attendants, said—­

“Quick! lock the door of the bath-room!  We hold him fast now.  If he gets out, more than one life will pay the price of his.  He’s a match for any six of you in fair fight.  Lock the door, I say, and light up the fire under the bath;[32] and we’ll boil him to death, and be rid of him.  Quick, men, quick!”

[Footnote 32:  This sort of bath, in which the water is heated by the fire of a furnace which is lighted from outside, is called Goyemon-buro, or Goyemon’s bath, after a notorious robber named Goyemon, who attempted the life of Taiko Sama, the famous general and ruler of the sixteenth century, and suffered for his crimes by being boiled to death in oil—­a form of execution which is now obsolete.]

So they locked the door, and fed the fire until the water hissed and bubbled within; and Chobei, in his agony, tried to burst open the door, but Jiurozayemon ordered his men to thrust their spears through the partition wall and dispatch him.  Two of the spears Chobei clutched and broke short off; but at last he was struck by a mortal blow under the ribs, and died a brave man by the hands of cowards.

[Illustration:  THE DEATH OF CHOBEI OF BANDZUIN.]

That evening Token Gombei, who, to the astonishment of Chobei’s wife, had bought a burying-tub, came, with seven other apprentices, to fetch the Father of the Otokodate from Jiurozayemon’s house; and when the retainers saw them, they mocked at them, and said—­

“What, have you come to fetch your drunken master home in a litter?”

“Nay,” answered Gombei, “but we have brought a coffin for his dead body, as he bade us.”