Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/136

120 an hour or so, as the cold night wind from the high mountains began to penetrate his clothes, a ringing voice came from the sky. It shouted suddenly down upon him, and its tone was rough:

“Who is it that sits there?”

Tu Tzuchun remained silent as the old man had told him to do. Then again the same menacing voice called sternly:

“If you will not answer, prepare to die instantly!”

But Tu Tzuchun still remained silent.

All of a sudden a tiger with very bright eyes appeared from somewhere, and leaping upon the rock on which Tu Tzuchun sat, began glaring and roaring at him very fiercely. At the same time the pine-tree on the cliff just behind him shook violently, and a huge white snake with a big head, as big as a barrel, came wriggling down the precipice toward him, and stopped before him waving its fiery tongue.

Tu Tzuchun, however, remained still and silent, and did not move so much as an eyebrow.

The tiger and the snake glared at each other, as if gloating over their chances of getting their victim first. Presently, and almost at the same instant, both of them sprang upon Tu Tzuchun. He was prepared to feel the sharp teeth of the tiger embedded in his throat, or to be swallowed by the snake, but just as they both almost touched his body, they disappeared suddenly, dissolving like mist, or losing their substance like the night wind. Only the pine-tree on the cliff moaned as before.