breasts, bedewed with milk. And the people called it Ubazakura, the
Cherry-tree of the Milk-Nurse.




DIPLOMACY



It had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden of
the yashiki (1). So the man was taken there, and made to kneel down in a
wide sanded space crossed by a line of tobi-ishi, or stepping-stones, such
as you may still see in Japanese landscape-gardens. His arms were bound
behind him. Retainers brought water in buckets, and rice-bags filled with
pebbles; and they packed the rice-bags round the kneeling man,-- so wedging
him in that he could not move. The master came, and observed the
arrangements. He found them satisfactory, and made no remarks.


Suddenly the condemned man cried out to him:--


"Honored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not wittingly
commit. It was only my very great stupidity which caused the fault. Having
been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not always help making
mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is wrong,-- and that wrong
will be repaid. So surely as you kill me, so surely shall I be avenged; --
out of the resentment that you provoke will come the vengeance; and evil
will be rendered for evil."...