So he went to the bath-room, and, leaving his clothes outside, he got
into the bath, with the full conviction that it would be the place of
his death. Yet he never trembled nor quailed, determined that, if he
needs must die, no man should say he had been a coward. Then
Jiurozayémon, calling to his attendants, said--

"Quick! lock the door of the bath-room! We hold him fast now. If he
gets out, more than one life will pay the price of his. He's a match
for any six of you in fair fight. Lock the door, I say, and light up
the fire under the bath;[32] and we'll boil him to death, and be rid
of him. Quick, men, quick!"

[Footnote 32: This sort of bath, in which the water is heated by the
fire of a furnace which is lighted from outside, is called
_Goyémon-buro,_ or Goyémon's bath, after a notorious robber named
Goyémon, who attempted the life of Taiko Sama, the famous general and
ruler of the sixteenth century, and suffered for his crimes by being
boiled to death in oil--a form of execution which is now obsolete.]

So they locked the door, and fed the fire until the water hissed and
bubbled within; and Chôbei, in his agony, tried to burst open the
door, but Jiurozayémon ordered his men to thrust their spears through
the partition wall and dispatch him. Two of the spears Chôbei clutched
and broke short off; but at last he was struck by a mortal blow under
the ribs, and died a brave man by the hands of cowards.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF CHÔBEI OF BANDZUIN.]

That evening Tôken Gombei, who, to the astonishment of Chôbei's wife,
had bought a burying-tub, came, with seven other apprentices, to fetch