was able to see;--but therewith an icy trembling seized him; and
the hair of his head stood up.

For the face was the face of a woman long dead,--and the fingers
caressing were fingers of naked bone,--and of the body below the
waist there was not anything: it melted off into thinnest
trailing shadow. Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth
and grace and beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher
horror only, and the emptiness of death. Simultaneously another
woman's figure, and a weirder, rose up from within the chamber,
and swiftly made toward the watcher, as if discerning his
presence. Then, in uttermost terror, he fled to the dwelling of
Hakuodo Yusai, and, knocking frantically at the doors, succeeded
in arousing him.

1 The color and form of the dress, and the style of wearing the
hair, are by Japanese custom regulated accord-big to the age of
the woman.

2 The forms of speech used by the samurai, and other superior
classes, differed considerably from those of the popular idiom;
but these differences could not be effectively rendered into
English.

V

Hakuodo Yusai, the ninsomi, was a very old man; but in his time
he had travelled much, and he had heard and seen so many things
that he could not be easily surprised. Yet the story of the
terrified Tomozo both alarmed and amazed him. He had read in