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302 Kurohime, saying:—"What bells are these?" She answered and said:—"Are they not the bells which thou didst bring last night? Wherefore dost thou ask thy handmaiden any more about them?" The Heir naturally concluded that the Imperial Prince Nakatsu had assumed his name and by this means seduced Kurohime, so he retired in silence.

Now the Imperial Prince Nakatsu, fearing that trouble would come of this, was about to kill the Heir to the Throne, and secretly raising a force, surrounded his Palace. Then Heguri no Tsuka no Sukune, Mononobe no Ohomahe no Sukune, and Achi no Omi, the ancestor of the Aya no Atahe, these three men, gave information to the Heir, but he would not believe them.

One version says:—"The Heir was drunk and would not get up."

Therefore the three men assisted the Heir, and making him mount on horseback, caused him to escape.

One account says:—"Ohomahe no Sukune took the Heir to the Throne in his arms and mounted him on a horse."

The Imperial Prince Nakatsu, not knowing that he was absent, set fire to his Palace. The fire lasted all night without being extinguished. When the Heir arrived at the Hanifu Hill in the Province of Kahachi he became sober, and looking back to Naniha, he saw the blaze of fire. He was greatly alarmed, and fled hastily by way of Ohosaka in the direction of Yamato. When he got as far as Mount Asuka, he met a girl at the entrance of the mountain, of whom he inquired, saying:—"Are there any men on this mountain?" She answered and said:—"This mountain is full of many armed men. Thou hadst better go round and cross over by the Tagima road." Hereupon the Heir thought to himself:—"By listening to the words of this girl I have been enabled to escape calamity." So he made a song, saying:—