Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 2.pdf/85

Rh ears were the faint sighs of the other tortured sinners. Those who had been condemned to Hell were all so completely exhausted with its nameless sufferings and tortures that they had long since lost all power of crying. So even this great robber, Kandatta, choked and struggled in this awful Pond of Blood, and all his struggles were quite hopeless.

But one morning he feebly raised his poor head, and looking upward towards the darkened sky which spread itself like a pall over the Bloody Pond, his eyes discerned the silvery line of a fine cobweb shining in the silent darkness. As he watched, it gradually got lower and lower, as if it were ashamed of being noticed by anyone, for it came from the far, far Paradise in the skies. He noticed that it ceased moving, and suspended itself just above his head.

Kandatta clapped his hands for joy. If he clung to it, and if he could climb to the top of it, he might perhaps be able to free himself from the agonies of Hell, he thought. If luck favoured him he might even be able to reach Paradise. Then he would never have to be driven again over the Hill of Needles, nor have to struggle in the depths of the Pond of Blood.

With these thoughts surging in his agonised brain, he quickly seized the web firmly with both his hands, and carefully began to climb upwards. This was not such a difficult feat for him because he had once been a great robber.

But the distance between Hell and Paradise was hundreds of thousands of miles, and however hard he