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Rh not entirely on account of me that she, a court lady, had been put to a pitiless sword before she was twenty? Imagine if you can what feelings tormented me! If I had known of the danger to her, no demons could have frightened me. I would have charged alone into three hundred, five hundred, enemy, so little did I value my life. But the deed had occurred without my knowing of it, and I had been powerless. That very night I shaved my head and became a priest. It is now some twenty years that I have lived on this mountain, praying for the repose of her soul.”

When he had finished speaking the other two priests wetted with tears the sleeves of their dark robes.

The next priest to speak was a man about fifty. He stood six feet tall, had a jutting collarbone, angular chin, high cheekbones, thick lips, and a prominent nose. He was dark of complexion and very powerfully built. Above his tattered robes he also wore a stole thrust in at the breast. As he spoke he fingered a large rosary. “I should like to be the next to tell my story,” he said. The others urged him to do so. He began, “Strange to relate, it was I who killed the lady!” Kasuya started up at the words; his color changed, and an attitude of determination came over him.

The second priest said, “Please remain calm for a little while, and I shall tell you in detail what happened.” Kasuya composed his feelings and asked him to begin at once. The second priest said, “Since you gentlemen are from Kyoto, I believe that you may have heard of me. My name is Aragorō of the Third Ward. I began my career of robbery at the age of eight, and first killed a man at twelve. That lady was about the three hundred eightieth person I had killed. I always prided myself on my skill at burglary with violence, but, perhaps because of accumulated sins, from the tenth month of that year I had not been able to carry off a single successful robbery. I tried my hand at mountain banditry, but failed at that too. Every time I thought that I had at last found a way to make a living, it would suddenly come to nothing. I fell on difficult times, and there was often nothing in the house to eat. My wife and children were