Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/423

Rh The boatman's name was Rokuzō, and he was as greedy a knave as his master.

Tombei was fat, heavily built, red-faced, and he had a demoniacal expression.

His daughter O-Funé was a striking contrast to him. She was a peerlessly beautiful maiden of eighteen summers, with a sweet disposition and graceful manner. The villagers were loud in her praise and called her, "a peacock born of a crow."

The avaricious Tombei was not content with his condition. He decorated his tokonoma or alcove with a scull and a straw waterproof, as mementos of the means by which he had bettered his circumstances. It was his burning ambition to "pile up a mountain of gold" by another mean artifice.

Kemmotsu had given him orders, that if he came across any Nitta fugitives, particularly Yoshiminé, he was to arrest them, and bring them to him. It had been arranged that, on his finding a refugee, Tombei should fire a rocket as a signal. On catching sight of the signal, trumpets should be blown in the neighbouring villages, and the villagers were to be on the alert not to let the