and a great bundle of chopped wood. This woodcutter halted on seeing
Kwairyo lying down, and, after a moment of silent observation, said to him

in a tone of great surprise:--
"What kind of a man can you be, good Sir, that you dare to lie down alone

in such a place as this?... There are haunters about here,-- many of them.
are you not afraid of Hairy Things?"

"My friend," cheerfully answered Kwairyo, "I am only a wandering priest,--
a 'Cloud-and-Water-Guest,' as folks call it: Unsui-no-ryokaku. (2) And I am

not in the least afraid of Hairy Things,-- if you mean goblin-foxes, or
goblin-badgers, or any creatures of that kind. As for lonesome places, I

like them: they are suitable for meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in
the open air: and I have learned never to be anxious aboutmy life."

"You must be indeed a brave man, Sir Priest," the peasant responded, "to
lie down here! This place has a bad name,-- a very bad name. But, as the

proverb has it, Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu ['The superior man does not
needlessly expose himself to peril']; and I must assure you, Sir, that it

is very dangerous to sleep here. Therefore, although my house is only a
wretched thatched hut, let me beg of you to come home with me at once. In

the way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but there is a roof at least,
and you can sleep under it without risk."

He spoke earnestly" target="_blank" title="ad.认真地；急切地">earnestly; and Kwairyo, liking the kindly tone of the man,
accepted this modest offer. The woodcutter guided him along a narrow path,

leading up from the main road through mountain-forest. It was a rough and
dangerous path,-- sometimes skirting precipices,-- sometimes offering

nothing but a network of slippery roots for the foot to rest upon,--
sometimes winding over or between masses of jagged rock. But at last

Kwairyo found himself upon a cleared space at the top of a hill, with a
full moon shining overhead; and he saw before him a small thatched cottage,

cheerfully lighted from within. The woodcutter led him to a shed at the
back of the house, whither water had been conducted, through bamboo-pipes,

from some neighboringstream; and the two men washed their feet. Beyond the
shed was a vegetable garden, and a grove of cedars and bamboos; and beyond

the trees appeared the glimmer of a cascade, pouring from some loftier
height, and swaying in the moonshine like a long white robe.

As Kwairyo entered the cottage with his guide, he perceived four persons
-- men and women -- warming their hands at a little fire kindled in the ro

[1] of the principle apartment. They bowed low to the priest, and greeted
him in the most respectful manner. Kwairyo wondered that persons so poor,

and dwelling in such a solitude, should be aware of the polite forms of
greeting. "These are good people," he thought to himself; "and they must

have been taught by some one well acquainted with the rules of propriety."
Then turning to his host,-- the aruji, or house-master, as the others

called him,-- Kwairyo said:--
"From the kindness of your speech, and from the very politewelcome given

me by your household, I imagine that you have not always been a woodcutter.
Perhaps you formerly belonged to one of the upper classes?"

Smiling, the woodcutter answered:--
"Sir, you are not mistaken. Though now living as you find me, I was once a

person of some distinction. My story is the story of a ruined life --
ruined by my own fault. I used to be in the service of a daimyo; and my

rank in that service was not inconsiderable. But I loved women and wine too
well; and under the influence of passion I acted wickedly. My selfishness

brought about the ruin of our house, and caused the death of many persons.
Retribution followed me; and I long remained a fugitive in the land. Now I

often pray that I may be able to make some atonement for the evil which I
did, and to reestablish the ancestral home. But I fear that I shall never

find any way of so doing. Nevertheless, I try to overcome the karma of my
errors by sincererepentance, and by helping as afar as I can, those who

are unfortunate."
Kwairyo was pleased by this announcement of good resolve; and he said to

the aruji:--
"My friend, I have had occasion to observe that man, prone to folly in

their youth, may in after years become very earnest in right living. In the
holy sutras it is written that those strongest in wrong-doing can become,

by power of good resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I do not doubt
that you have a good heart; and I hope that better fortune will come to

you. To-night I shall recite the sutras for your sake, and pray that you
may obtain the force to overcome the karma of any past errors."

With these assurances, Kwairyo bade the aruji good-night; and his host
showed him to a very small side-room, where a bed had been made ready. Then

all went to sleep except the priest, who began to read the sutras by the
light of a paper lantern. Until a late hour he continued to read and pray:

then he opened a little window in his little sleeping-room, to take a last
look at the landscape before lying down. The night was beautiful: there

was no cloud in the sky: there was no wind; and the strong moonlight threw
down sharp black shadows of foliage, and glittered on the dews of the

garden. Shrillings of crickets and bell-insects (3) made a musical tumult;
and the sound of the neighboringcascade deepened with the night. Kwairyo

felt thirsty as he listened to the noise of the water; and, remembering the
bamboo aqueduct at the rear of the house, he thought that he could go there

and get a drink without disturbing the sleeping household. Very gently he
pushed apart the sliding-screens that separated his room from the main

apartment; and he saw, by the light of the lantern, five recumbent bodies
-- without heads!

For one instant he stood bewildered,-- imagining a crime. But in another
moment he perceived that there was no blood, and that the headless necks

did not look as if they had been cut. Then he thought to himself:-- "Either
this is an illusion made by goblins, or I have been lured into the dwelling

of a Rokuro-Kubi... (4) In the book Soshinki (5) it is written that if one
find the body of a Rokuro-Kubi without its head, and remove the body to

another place, the head will never be able to join itself again to the
neck. And the book further says that when the head comes back and finds

that its body has been moved, it will strike itself upon the floor three
times,-- bounding like a ball,-- and will pant as in great fear, and

presently die. Now, if these be Rokuro-Kubi, they mean me no good;-- so I
shall be justified in following the instructions of the book."...

He seized the body of the aruji by the feet, pulled it to the window, and
pushed it out. Then he went to the back-door, which he found barred; and he

surmised that the heads had made their exit through the smoke-hole in the
roof, which had been left open. Gently unbarring the door, he made his way

to the garden, and proceeded with all possible caution to the grove beyond
it. He heard voices talking in the grove; and he went in the direction of

the voices,-- stealing from shadow to shadow, until he reached a good
hiding-place. Then, from behind a trunk, he caught sight of the heads,--

all five of them,-- flitting about, and chatting as they flitted. They were
eating worms and insects which they found on the ground or among the trees.

Presently the head of the aruji stopped eating and said:--
"Ah, that traveling priest who came to-night!-- how fat all his body is!

When we shall have eaten him, our bellies will be well filled... I was
foolish to talk to him as I did;-- it only set him to reciting the sutras

on behalf of my soul! To go near him while he is reciting would be
difficult; and we cannot touch him so long as he is praying. But as it is

now nearly morning, perhaps he has gone to sleep... Some one of you go to
the house and see what the fellow is doing."

Another head -- the head of a young woman -- immediately rose up and
flitted to the house, lightly as a bat. After a few minutes it came back,

and cried out huskily, in a tone of great alarm:--
"That traveling priest is not in the house;-- he is gone! But that is not

the worst of the matter. He has taken the body of our aruji; and I do not
know where he has put it."

At this announcement the head of the aruji -- distinctlyvisible in the
moonlight -- assumed a frightfulaspect: its eyes opened monstrously; its

hair stood up bristling; and its teeth gnashed. Then a cry burst from its
lips; and -- weeping tears of rage -- it exclaimed:--

"Since my body has been moved, to rejoin it is not possible! Then I must
die!... And all through the work of that priest! Before I die I will get at

that priest! -- I will tear him! -- I will devour him!... AND THERE HE IS
-- behind that tree! -- hiding behind that tree! See him ! -- the fat

coward!"...
In the same moment the head of the aruji, followed by the other four

heads, sprang at Kwairyo. But the strong priest had already armed himself
by plucking up a young tree; and with that tree he struck the heads as they

came,-- knocking them from him with tremendous blows. Four of them fled
away. But the head of the aruji, though battered again and again,