saku and Minokichi fastened the door, and lay down to
rest, with their straw rain-coats over them. At first they did not feel
very cold; and they thought that the storm would soon be over.

The old man almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Minokichi, lay
awake a long time, listening to the awful wind, and the continual
slashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring; and the
hut swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm; and
the air was every moment becoming colder; and Minokichi shivered under
his rain-coat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep.

He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut
had been forced open; and, by the snow-light (yuki-akari), he saw a
woman in the room,--a woman all in white. She was bending above Mosaku,
and blowing her breath upon him;--and her breath was like a bright
white smoke. Almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi, and
stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not
utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower,
until her face almost touched him; and he saw that she was very
beautiful,--though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she
continued to look at him;--then she smiled, and she whispered:--"I
intended to treat you like the other man. But I cannot help feeling
some pity for you,--because you are so young... You are a pretty boy,
Minokichi; and I will not hurt you now. But, if you ever tell
anybody--even your own mother--about what you have seen this night, I
shall know it; and then I will kill you... Remember what I say!"

With these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway.
Then he found himself able to move; and he sprang up, and looked out.
But the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving
furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door, and secured it by
fixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had
blown it open;--he thought that he might have been only dreaming, and
might have mistaken the gleam of the snow-light in the doorway for the
figure of a white woman: but he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku,
and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his
hand in the dark, and touched Mosaku's face, and found that it was ice!
Mosaku was stark and dead...

By dawn the storm was over; and when the ferryman returned to his
station, a little after sunrise,