ttle to Waku
Handaiyu, but could not hold his ground, and backing by degrees, was
driven out into the garden, where he missed his footing and slipped
into a pond, but as Handaiyu, thinking to kill him, looked down into
the pond, Chikara cut his enemy in the leg and caused him to fall, and
then, crawling out of the water dispatched him. In the meanwhile
Kobayashi Hehachi and Shimidzu Ikkaku had been killed by the other
Ronins, and of all Kotsuke no Suke's retainers not one fighting man
remained. Chikara, seeing this, went with his bloody sword in his hand
into a back room to search for Kotsuke no Suke, but he only found the
son of the latter, a young lord named Kira Sahioye, who, carrying a
halberd, attacked him, but was soon wounded and fled. Thus the whole
of Kotsuke no Suke's men having been killed, there was an end of the
fighting; but as yet there was no trace of Kotsuke no Suke to be
found.

Then Kuranosuke divided his men into several parties and searched the
whole house, but all in vain; women and children weeping were alone to
be seen. At this the forty-seven men began to lose heart in regret,
that after all their toil they had allowed their enemy to escape them,
and there was a moment when in their despair they agreed to commit
suicide together upon the spot; but they determined to make one more
effort. So Kuranosuke went into Kotsuke no Suke's sleeping-room, and
touching the quilt with his hands, exclaimed, "I have just felt the
bed-clothes and they are yet warm, and so methinks that our enemy is
not far off. He must certainly be hidden somewhere in the house."
Greatly excited by this, the Ronins renewed their search. Now in the
raised part of the room, near the place of honour, there was a picture
hanging; taking down this picture, they saw that there was a large
hole in the plastered wall, and on thrusting a spear in they could
feel nothing beyond it. So one of the Ronins, called Yazama Jiutaro,
got into the hole, and found that on the other side there was a little
courtyard, in which there stood an outhouse for holding charcoal and
firewood. Looking into the outhouse, he spied something white at the
further end, at which he struck with his spear, when two armed men
sprang out upon him and tried to cut him down, but he kept them back
until one of his comrades came up and killed one of the two men and
engaged the other, while Jiutaro entered the outhouse and felt about
with his spear. Again seeing something