hidden and secret! Do not tell Schippeitaro!' Then, the midnight
hour having passed, they all vanished, and the youth was left
alone. Exhausted by all that had been going on round him, he
flung himself on the ground and slept till the sun rose.

The moment he woke he felt very hungry, and began to think how he
could get something to eat. So he got up and walked on, and
before he had gone very far was lucky enough to find a little
side-path, where he could trace men's footsteps. He followed the
track, and by-and-by came on some scattered huts, beyond which
lay a village. Delighted at this discovery, he was about to
hasten to the village when he heard a woman's voice weeping and
lamenting, and calling on the men to take pity on her and help
her. The sound of her distress made him forget he was hungry,
and he strode into the hut to find out for himself what was
wrong. But the men whom he asked only shook their heads and told
him it was not a matter in which he could give any help, for all
this sorrow was caused by the Spirit of the Mountain, to whom
every year they were bound to furnish a maiden for him to eat.

'To-morrow night,' said they, 'the horrible creature will come
for his dinner, and the cries you have heard were uttered by the
girl before you, upon whom the lot has fallen.'

And when the young man asked if the girl was carried off straight
from her home, they answered no, but that a large cask was set in
the forest chapel, and into this she was fastened.

As he listened to this story, the young man was filled with a
great longing to rescue the maiden from her dreadful fate. The