you." (He really meant what he said; for he was a very kind man.) But she
continued to weep,-- hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves.
"O-jochu," he said again, as gently as he could,-- "please, please listen
to me!... This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I implore
you! -- only tell me how I may be of some help to you!" Slowly she rose up,
but turned her back to him, and continued to moan and sob behind her
sleeve. He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder, and pleaded:--
"O-jochu! -- O-jochu! -- O-jochu!... Listen to me, just for one little
moment!... O-jochu! -- O-jochu!"... Then that O-jochu turned around, and
dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand; -- and the man saw
that she had no eyes or nose or mouth,-- and he screamed and ran away. (2)


Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before
him. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a
lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he
made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller,
[2] who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any light and any
human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself
down at the feet of the soba-seller, crying out, "Ah! -- aa!! -- aa!!!"...


"Kore! kore!" (3) roughly exclaimed the soba-man. "Here! what is the
matter with you? Anybody hurt you?"


"No -- nobody hurt me," panted the other,-- "only... Ah! -- aa!"


"-- Only scared you?" queried the peddler, unsympathetically. "Robbers?"