prayer and stood upon the chessboard, and disrobed himself, and changed
his body suddenly into the body of a woman.

9

As we travel on, the road curves and narrows between higher elevations,
and becomes more sombre. 'Oi! mat!' my Buddhist guide calls softly to
the runners; and our two vehicles halt in a band of sunshine,
descending, through an opening in the foliage of immense trees, over a
flight of ancient mossy steps. 'Here,' says my friend, 'is the temple of
the King of Death; it is called Emma-Do; and it is a temple of the Zen
sect--Zen-Oji. And it is more than seven hundred years old, and there
is a famous statue in it.'

We ascend to a small, narrow court in which the edifice stands. At the
head of the steps, to the right, is a stone tablet, very old, with
characters cut at least an inch deep into the granite of it, Chinese
characters signifying, 'This is the Temple of Emma, King.'

The temple resembles outwardly and inwardly the others we have visited,
and, like those of Shaka and of the colossal Jizo of Kamakura, has a
paved floor, so that we are not obliged to remove our shoes on entering.
Everything is worn, dim, vaguely grey; there is a pungent scent of
mouldiness; the paint has long ago peeled away from the naked wood of
the pillars. Throned to right and left against the high walls tower nine
grim figures--five on one side, four on the other--wearing strange
crowns with trumpet-shapen ornaments; figures hoary with centuries, and
so like to the icon of Emma, which I saw at Kuboyama, that I ask, 'Are
all these Emma?' 'Oh, no!' my guide answers; 'these are his attendants
only--the Jiu-O, the Ten Kings.' 'But there are only nine?' I query.