Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/300

 IV

, after stealing out of her father's house, ran in blind haste, staggering and stumbling in continual fear of pursuit and capture. But as she ran she was so unlucky as to be overtaken by two reprobates who were fain to kidnap her. With some difficulty she made shift to escape from their toils, and at last found herself on the bank of the Osé River. The winter moon, like "an old bepainted carline," was shedding on the stream its weird beams, and the leafless branches of the willow-trees on the bank were trembling in the wind.

This river the girl had chosen to be her grave. Taking hold of one of the willow-boughs, she was just in act to leap into the stream, when suddenly she felt herself firmly grasped and held. Her captor was an old woman. Miyuki struggled hard to shake her off, crying: "I pray you, let me go." But the old crone grasped her only the more firmly and said in ingratiating tones: "My dear young lady, you seem to be travelling alone. It is 230