Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/232

 “I have my wish!” she cried—“I have my wish for the cherry-bloom, —but not the cherry-bloom of the garden! … I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!—oh, what a delight!”

And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died.

The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko’s shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But—strange to say!—this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl,—appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain.

Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim;—they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: