perceived him at the back-door all screamed, "The priest! the priest!" --
and fled, through the other doorway, out into the woods.


Eastward the sky was brightening; day was about to dawn; and Kwairyo knew
that the power of the goblins was limited to the hours of darkness. He
looked at the head clinging to his sleeve,-- its face all fouled with blood
and foam and clay; and he laughed aloud as he thought to himself: "What a
miyage! [4] -- the head of a goblin!" After which he gathered together his
few belongings, and leisurely descended the mountain to continue his
journey.


Right on he journeyed, until he came to Suwa in Shinano; (6) and into the
main street of Suwa he solemnly strode, with the head dangling at his
elbow. Then woman fainted, and children screamed and ran away; and there
was a great crowding and clamoring until the torite (as the police in those
days were called) seized the priest, and took him to jail. For they
supposed the head to be the head of a murdered man who, in the moment of
being killed, had caught the murderer's sleeve in his teeth. As the
Kwairyo, he only smiled and said nothing when they questioned him. So,
after having passed a night in prison, he was brought before the
magistrates of the district. Then he was ordered to explain how he, a
priest, had been found with the head of a man fastened to his sleeve, and
why he had dared thus shamelessly to parade his crime in the sight of
people.


Kwairyo laughed long and loudly at these questions; and then he said: --