in some noble household; but he could not imagine to what place he had been
conducted. Little time was allowed him for conjecture. After he had been

helped to mount several stone steps, upon the last of which he was told to
leave his sandals, a woman's hand guided him along interminable reaches of

polished planking, and round pillared angles too many to remember, and over
widths amazing of matted floor,-- into the middle of some vast apartment.

There he thought that many great people were assembled: the sound of the
rustling of silk was like the sound of leaves in a forest. He heard also a

great humming of voices,-- talking in undertones; and the speech was the
speech of courts.

Hoichi was told to put himself at ease, and he found a kneeling-cushion
ready for him. After having taken his place upon it, and tuned his

instrument, the voice of a woman -- whom he divined to be the Rojo, or
matron in charge of the female service -- addressed him, saying,--

"It is now required that the history of the Heike be recited, to the
accompaniment of the biwa."

Now the entire recital would have required a time of many nights:
therefore Hoichi ventured a question:--

"As the whole of the story is not soon told, what portion is it augustly
desired that I now recite?"

The woman's voice made answer:--
"Recite the story of the battle at Dan-no-ura,-- for the pity of it is the

most deep." [5]
Then Hoichi lifted up his voice, and chanted the chant of the fight on the

bitter sea,-- wonderfully making his biwa to sound like the straining of
oars and the rushing of ships, the whirr and the hissing of arrows, the

shouting and trampling of men, the crashing of steel upon helmets, the
plunging of slain in the flood. And to left and right of him, in the pauses

of his playing, he could hear voices murmuring praise: "How marvelous an
artist!" -- "Never in our own province was playing heard like this!" --

"Not in all the empire is there another singer like Hoichi!" Then fresh
courage came to him, and he played and sang yet better than before; and a

hush of wonder deepened about him. But when at last he came to tell the
fate of the fair and helpless,-- the piteous perishing of the women and

children,-- and the death-leap of Nii-no-Ama, with the imperialinfant in
her arms,-- then all the listeners uttered together one long, long

shuddering cry of anguish; and thereafter they wept and wailed so loudly
and so wildly that the blind man was frightened by the violence and grief

that he had made. For much time the sobbing and the wailing continued. But
gradually the sounds of lamentation died away; and again, in the great

stillness that followed, Hoichi heard the voice of the woman whom he
supposed to be the Rojo.

She said:--
"Although we had been assured that you were a very skillfulplayer upon

the biwa, and without an equal in recitative, we did not know that any one
could be so skillful as you have proved yourself to-night. Our lord has

been pleased to say that he intends to bestow upon you a fitting reward.
But he desires that you shall perform before him once every night for the

next six nights -- after which time he will probably make his august
return-journey. To-morrow night, therefore, you are to come here at the

same hour. The retainer who to-night conducted you will be sent for you...
There is another matter about which I have been ordered to inform you. It

is required that you shall speak to no one of your visits here, during the
time of our lord's augustsojourn at Akamagaseki. As he is traveling

incognito, [6] he commands that no mention of these things be made... You
are now free to go back to your temple."

After Hoichi had duly expressed his thanks, a woman's hand conducted him
to the entrance of the house, where the same retainer, who had before

guided him, was waiting to take him home. The retainer led him to the
verandah at the rear of the temple, and there bade him farewell.

It was almost dawn when Hoichi returned; but his absence from the temple
had not been observed,-- as the priest, coming back at a very late hour,

had supposed him asleep. During the day Hoichi was able to take some rest;
and he said nothing about his strange adventure. In the middle of the

following night the samurai again came for him, and led him to the august
assembly, where he gave another recitation with the same success that had

attended his previousperformance. But during this second visit his absence
from the temple was accidentally discovered; and after his return in the

morning he was summoned to the presence of the priest, who said to him, in
a tone of kindly reproach:--

"We have been very anxious about you, friend Hoichi. To go out, blind and
alone, at so late an hour, is dangerous. Why did you go without telling us?

I could have ordered a servant to accompany you. And where have you been?"
Hoichi answered, evasively,--

"Pardon me kind friend! I had to attend to some private business; and I
could not arrange the matter at any other hour."

The priest was surprised, rather than pained, by Hoichi's reticence: he
felt it to be unnatural, and suspected something wrong. He feared that the

blind lad had been bewitched or deluded by some evil spirits. He did not
ask any more questions; but he privately instructed the men-servants of the

temple to keep watch upon Hoichi's movements, and to follow him in case
that he should again leave the temple after dark.

On the very next night, Hoichi was seen to leave the temple; and the
servants immediately lighted their lanterns, and followed after him. But it

was a rainy night, and very dark; and before the temple-folks could get to
the roadway, Hoichi had disappeared. Evidently he had walked very fast,-- a

strange thing, considering his blindness; for the road was in a bad
condition. The men hurried through the streets, making inquiries at every

house which Hoichi was accustomed to visit; but nobody could give them any
news of him. At last, as they were returning to the temple by way of the

shore, they were startled by the sound of a biwa, furiously played, in the
cemetery of the Amidaji. Except for some ghostly fires -- such as usually

flitted there on dark nights -- all was blackness in that direction. But
the men at once hastened to the cemetery; and there, by the help of their

lanterns, they discovered Hoichi,-- sitting alone in the rain before the
memorial tomb of Antoku Tenno, making his biwa resound, and loudly chanting

the chant of the battle of Dan-no-ura. And behind him, and about him, and
everywhere above the tombs, the fires of the dead were burning, like

candles. Never before had so great a host of Oni-bi appeared in the sight
of mortal man...

"Hoichi San! -- Hoichi San!" the servants cried,-- "you are bewitched!...
Hoichi San!"

But the blind man did not seem to hear. Strenuously he made his biwa to
rattle and ring and clang; -- more and more wildly he chanted the chant of

the battle of Dan-no-ura. They caught hold of him; -- they shouted into his
ear,--

"Hoichi San! -- Hoichi San! -- come home with us at once!"
Reprovingly he spoke to them:--

"To interrupt me in such a manner, before this augustassembly, will not
be tolerated."

Whereat, in spite of the weirdness of the thing, the servants could not
help laughing. Sure that he had been bewitched, they now seized him, and

pulled him up on his feet, and by main force hurried him back to the
temple,-- where he was immediately relieved of his wet clothes, by order of

the priest. Then the priest insisted upon a full explanation of his
friend's astonishing behavior.

Hoichi long hesitated to speak. But at last, finding that his conduct had
really alarmed and angered the good priest, he decided to abandon his

reserve; and he related everything that had happened from the time of first
visit of the samurai.

The priest said:--
"Hoichi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate that

you did not tell me all this before! Your wonderful skill in music has
indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be aware

that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been passing
your nights in the cemetery, among the tombs of the Heike; -- and it was