him; but just as he was on the point of catching him, Banzayémon,
making a sweep backwards with his drawn sword, wounded Umanosuké in
the thigh, so that he stumbled and fell, and the murderer, swift of
foot, made good his escape. The wounded youth tried to pursue him
again, but being compelled by the pain of his wound to desist,
returned home and found his blind companion lying dead, weltering in
his own blood. Cursing his unhappy fate, he called in the beggars of
the fraternity to which he belonged, and between them they buried
Kosanza, and he himself being too poor to procure a surgeon's aid, or
to buy healing medicaments for his wound, became a cripple.

[Footnote 29: See Note at end of story.]

It was at this time that Shirai Gompachi, who was living under the
protection of Chôbei, the Father of the Otokodaté, was in love with
Komurasaki, the beautiful courtesan who lived at the sign of the Three
Sea-shores, in the Yoshiwara. He had long exhausted the scanty
supplies which he possessed, and was now in the habit of feeding his
purse by murder and robbery, that he might have means to pursue his
wild and extravagant life. One night, when he was out on his cutthroat
business, his fellows, who had long suspected that he was after no
good, sent one of their number, named Seibei, to watch him. Gompachi,
little dreaming that any one was following him, swaggered along the
street until he fell in with a wardsman, whom he cut down and robbed;
but the booty proving small, he waited for a second chance, and,
seeing a light moving in the distance, hid himself in the shadow of a
large tub for catching rain-water till the bearer of the lantern
should come up. When the man drew near, Gompachi saw that he was
dressed as a traveller, and wore a long dirk; so he sprung out from
his lurking-place and made to kill him; but the traveller nimbly