two hundred ounces of silver, and sorrowfully bade him farewell.

[Illustration: GOMPACHI AWAKENED BY THE MAIDEN IN THE ROBBERS' DEN.]

But alas for the grief of the maiden, who sat sobbing her heart out
and mourning over her lover's departure! He, all the while thinking
more of ambition than of love, went to her and comforted her, and
said: "Dry your eyes, sweetheart, and weep no more, for I shall soon
come back to you. Do you, in the meanwhile, be faithful and true to
me, and tend your parents with filial piety."

So she wiped away her tears and smiled again, when she heard him
promise that he would soon return to her. And Gompachi went his way,
and in due time came near to Yedo.

But his dangers were not yet over; for late one night, arriving at a
place called Suzugamori, in the neighbourhood of Yedo, he fell in with
six highwaymen, who attacked him, thinking to make short work of
killing and robbing him. Nothing daunted, he drew his sword, and
dispatched two out of the six; but, being weary and worn out with his
long journey, he was sorely pressed, and the struggle was going hard
with him, when a wardsman,[12] who happened to pass that way riding in
a chair, seeing the affray, jumped down from his chair and drawing his
dirk came to the rescue, and between them they put the robbers to
flight.

[Footnote 12: Japanese cities are divided into wards, and every
tradesman and artisan is under the authority of the chief of the ward
in which he resides. The word _chônin_, or wardsman, is generally used
in contradistinction to the word _samurai_, which has already been