sword lying on a sword-rack in the raised part of the room: so he
crawled stealthily along until he could reach it, and stuck it in his
girdle. Then, drawing near to Sanza, he bestrode his sleeping body,
and, brandishing the sword made a thrust at his throat; but in his
excitement his hand shook, so that he missed his aim, and only
scratched Sanza, who, waking with a start and trying to jump up, felt
himself held down by a man standing over him. Stretching out his
hands, he would have wrestled with his enemy; when Banzayémon, leaping
back, kicked over the night-lamp, and throwing open the shutters,
dashed into the garden. Snatching up his sword, Sanza rushed out after
him; and his wife, having lit a lantern and armed herself with a
halberd,[28] went out, with her son Kosanza, who carried a drawn dirk,
to help her husband. Then Banzayémon, who was hiding in the shadow of
a large pine-tree, seeing the lantern and dreading detection, seized a
stone and hurled it at the light, and, chancing to strike it, put it
out, and then scrambling over the fence unseen, fled into the
darkness. When Sanza had searched all over the garden in vain, he
returned to his room and examined his wound, which proving very
slight, he began to look about to see whether the thief had carried
off anything; but when his eye fell upon the place where the Muramasa
sword had lain, he saw that it was gone. He hunted everywhere, but it
was not to be found. The precious blade with which his Prince had
entrusted him had been stolen, and the blame would fall heavily upon
him. Filled with grief and shame at the loss, Sanza and his wife and
child remained in great anxiety until the morning broke, when he
reported the matter to one of the Prince's councillors, and waited in
seclusion until he should receive his lord's commands.

[Footnote 28: The halberd is the special arm of the Japanese woman of
gentle blood. That which was used by Kasa Gozen, one of the ladies of