“I have fallen into great trouble among pirates:  pray rescue me.”

“Who and what are you?” shouted an officer, some forty years of age.

“My name is Funakoshi Jiuyemon, and I have unwittingly fallen in with pirates this night.  I have escaped so far:  I pray you save me, lest I die.”

“Hold on to this, and come up,” replied the other, holding out the butt end of a spear to him, which he caught hold of and clambered up the ship’s side.  When the officer saw before him a handsome gentleman, naked all but his loincloth, and with his hair all in disorder, he called to his servants to bring some of his own clothes, and, having dressed him in them, said—­

“What clan do you belong to, sir?”

“Sir, I am a Ronin, and was on my way to Osaka; but the sailors of the ship on which I had embarked were pirates;” and so he told the whole story of the fight and of his escape.

“Well done, sir!” replied the other, astonished at his prowess.  “My name is Kajiki Tozayemon, at your service.  I am an officer attached to the governor of Osaka.  Pray, have you any friends in that city?”

“No, sir, I have no friends there; but as in two years I shall be able to return to my own country, and re-enter my lord’s service, I thought during that time to engage in trade and live as a common wardsman.”

“Indeed, that’s a poor prospect!  However, if you will allow me, I will do all that is in my power to assist you.  Pray excuse the liberty I am taking in making such a proposal.”

Jiuyemon warmly thanked Kajiki Tozayemon for his kindness; and so they reached Osaka without further adventures.

Jiuyemon, who had secreted in his girdle the two hundred and fifty ounces which he had brought with him from home, bought a small house, and started in trade as a vendor of perfumes, tooth-powder, combs, and other toilet articles; and Kajiki Tozayemon, who treated him with great kindness, and rendered him many services, prompted him, as he was a single man, to take to himself a wife.  Acting upon this advice, he married a singing-girl, called O Hiyaku.[42]

[Footnote 42:  The O before women’s names signifies “Imperial,” and is simply an honorific.]

Now this O Hiyaku, although at first she seemed very affectionately disposed towards Jiuyemon, had been, during the time that she was a singer, a woman of bad and profligate character; and at this time there was in Osaka a certain wrestler, named Takasegawa Kurobei, a very handsome man, with whom O Hiyaku fell desperately in love; so that at last, being by nature a passionate woman, she became unfaithful to Jiuyemon.  The latter, little suspecting that anything was amiss, was in the habit of spending his evenings at the house of his patron Kajiki Tozayemon, whose son, a youth of eighteen, named Tonoshin, conceived a great friendship for Jiuyemon, and used constantly to invite him to play a game at checkers; and it was on these occasions that O Hiyaku, profiting by her husband’s absence, used to arrange her meetings with the wrestler Takasegawa.