dead were burning, like
candles. Never before had so great a host of Oni-bi appeared in the
sight of mortal man...

"Hoichi San!--Hoichi San!" the servants cried,--"you are bewitched!...
Hoichi San!"

But the blind man did not seem to hear. Strenuously he made his biwa to
rattle and ring and clang;--more and more wildly he chanted the chant
of the battle of Dan-no-ura. They caught hold of him;--they shouted
into his ear,--

"Hoichi San!--Hoichi San!--come home with us at once!"

Reprovingly he spoke to them:--

"To interrupt me in such a manner, before this august assembly, will
not be tolerated."

Whereat, in spite of the weirdness of the thing, the servants could not
help laughing. Sure that he had been bewitched, they now seized him,
and pulled him up on his feet, and by main force hurried him back to
the temple,--where he was immediately relieved of his wet clothes, by
order of the priest. Then the priest insisted upon a full explanation
of his friend's astonishing behavior.

Hoichi long hesitated to speak. But at last, finding that his conduct
had really alarmed and angered the good priest, he decided to abandon
his reserve; and he related everything that had happened from the time
of first visit of the samurai.

The priest said:--

"Hoichi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate
that you did not tell me all this before! Your wonderful skill in music
has indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be
aware that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been
passing your nights in the cemetery, among the tombs of the Heike;--and
it was before the memorial-tomb of Antoku Tenno that our people
to-night found you, sitting in the rain. All that you have been
imagining was illusion--except the calling of the dead. By once obeying
them, you have put yourself in their power. If you obey them again,
after what has already occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they
would have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any event... Now I shall
not be able to remain with you to-night: I am called away to perform
another service. But, before I go, it will be necessary to protect your
body by writing holy texts upon it."

Before sundown the priest and his acolyte stripped Hoichi: then, with
their writing-brushes, they traced upon his breast and back, head and
face and neck, limbs and hands and feet,--even upon the soles of his
feet, and upon all parts of his b