ei's wife, driven half wild by her husband's sickness, lost not a
moment in sending for the priest, and taking him into the sick man's
room.

But no sooner did Tokubei see the priest than he yelled out, "Help!
help! Here is the wandering priest come to torment me again. Forgive!
forgive!" and hiding his head under the coverlet, he lay quivering all
over. Then the priest turned all present out of the room, put his
mouth to the affrighted man's ear, and whispered--

"Three years ago, at the Kuana ferry, you flung me into the water; and
well you remember it."

But Tokubei was speechless, and could only quake with fear.

"Happily," continued the priest, "I had learned to swim and to dive as
a boy; so I reached the shore, and, after wandering through many
provinces, succeeded in setting up a bronze figure to Buddha, thus
fulfilling the wish of my heart. On my journey homewards, I took a
lodging in the next street, and there heard of your marvellous
ailment. Thinking I could divine its cause, I came to see you, and am
glad to find I was not mistaken. You have done a hateful deed; but am
I not a priest, and have I not forsaken the things of this world? and
would it not ill become me to bear malice? Repent, therefore, and
abandon your evil ways. To see you do so I should esteem the height of
happiness. Be of good cheer, now, and look me in the face, and you
will see that I am really a living man, and no vengeful goblin come
to torment you."

Seeing he had no ghost to deal with, and overwhelmed by the priest's
kindness, Tokubei burst into tears, and answered, "Indeed, indeed, I
don't know what to say. In a fit of madness I was tempted to kill and
rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the
more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that
my victim's vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this
thought, I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and
from that time forth fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are
still alive, is more than I can understand."

"A guilty man," said the priest, with a smile, "shudders at the
rustling of the wind or the chattering of a stork's beak: a murderer's
conscience preys upon his mind till he sees what is not. Poverty
drives a man to crimes which he repents of in his wealth. How true is
the doctrine of Moshi,[73] that the heart of man, pure by nature, is
corrupted by circumstances."

[Footnote 73: Mencius.]

Thu