urpose. O Hiyaku! come and make a hearty meal. I
will eat some presently."

At this the pair looked very foolish, and knew not what to answer; at
last the wrestler got up and said--

"I do not feel quite well. I must beg to take my leave; and, if you
will allow me, I will come and accept your hospitality to-morrow
instead."

"Dear me! I am sorry to hear you are not well. However, O Hiyaku,
there will be all the more macaroni for you."

As for O Hiyaku, she put a bold face upon the matter, and replied that
she had supped already, and had no appetite for any more.

Then Jiuyemon, looking at them both with a scornful smile, said--

"It seems that you, neither of you, care to eat this macaroni;
however, as you, Takasegawa, are unwell, I will give you some
excellent medicine;" and going to the cupboard, he drew out the
letter, and laid it before the wrestler. When O Hiyaku and the
wrestler saw that their wicked schemes had been brought to light, they
were struck dumb with shame.

Takasegawa, seeing that denial was useless, drew his dirk and cut at
Jiuyemon; but he, being nimble and quick, dived under the wrestler's
arm, and seizing his right hand from behind, tightened his grasp upon
it until it became numbed, and the dirk fell to the ground; for,
powerful man as the wrestler was, he was no match for Jiuyemon, who
held him in so fast a grip that he could not move. Then Jiuyemon took
the dirk which had fallen to the ground, and said:--

"Oh! I thought that you, being a wrestler, would at least be a strong
man, and that there would be some pleasure in fighting you; but I see
that you are but a poor feckless creature, after all. It would have
defiled my sword to have killed such an ungrateful hound with it; but
luckily here is your own dirk, and I will slay you with that."

Takasegawa struggled to escape, but in vain; and O Hiyaku, seizing a
large kitchen knife, attacked Jiuyemon; but he, furious, kicked her in
the loins so violently that she fell powerless, then brandishing the
dirk, he cleft the wrestler from the shoulder down to the nipple of
his breast, and the big man fell in his agony. O Hiyaku, seeing this,
tried to fly; but Jiuyemon, seizing her by the hair of the head,
stabbed her in the bosom, and, placing her by her lover's side, gave
her the death-blow.

[Illustration: JIUYEMON PUNISHES HIS WIFE AND THE WRESTLER.]

On the following day, he sent in a report of what he had done to the
governor of Osaka,