he could do was to send Shinzaburo to the high-priest Ryoseki, of
Shin-Banzui-In, with a letter praying for immediate religious
help.


VII

The high-priest Ryoseki was a learned and a holy man. By
spiritual vision he was able to know the secret of any sorrow,
and the nature of the karma that had caused it. He heard unmoved
the story of Shinzaburo, and said to him:--

"A very great danger now threatens you, because of an error
committed in one of your former states of existence. The karma
that binds you to the dead is very strong; but if I tried to
explain its character, you would not be able to understand. I
shall therefore tell you only this,--that the dead person has no
desire to injure you out of hate, feels no enmity towards you:
she is influenced, on the contrary, by the most passionate
affection for you. Probably the girl has been in love with you
from a time long preceding your present life,--from a time of not
less than three or four past existences; and it would seem that,
although necessarily changing her form and condition at each
succeeding birth, she has not been able to cease from following
after you. Therefore it will not be an easy thing to escape from
her influence.... But now I am going to lend you this powerful
mamoni.(1) It is a pure gold image of that Buddha called the Sea-
Sounding Tathagata--Kai-On-Nyorai,--because his preaching of the
Law sounds through the world like the sound of the sea. And this
little image is especially a shiryo-yoke,(2)--which protects the