was only too true, but he intended, however, to
make prisoners of the envoys from the moon, and to do all he could to
prevent the Princess from being carried back.

The men returned and told His Majesty all that had passed. On the
fifteenth day of that month the Emperor sent a guard of two thousand
warriors to watch the house. One thousand stationed themselves on the
roof, another thousand kept watch round all the entrances of the house.
All were well trained archers, with bows and arrows. The bamboo-cutter
and his wife hid Princess Moonlight in an inner room.

The old man gave orders that no one was to sleep that night, all in the
house were to keep a strict watch, and be ready to protect the
Princess. With these precautions, and the help of the Emperor's
men-at-arms, he hoped to withstand the moon-messengers, but the
Princess told him that all these measures to keep her would be useless,
and that when her people came for her nothing whatever could prevent
them from carrying out their purpose. Even the Emperors men would be
powerless. Then she added with tears that she was very, very sorry to
leave him and his wife, whom she had learned to love as her parents,
that if she could do as she liked she would stay with them in their old
age, and try to make some return for all the love and kindness they had
showered upon her during all her earthly life.

The night wore on! The yellow harvest moon rose high in the heavens,
flooding the world asleep with her golden light. Silence reigned over
the pine and the bamboo forests, and on the roof where the thousand
men-at-arms waited.

Then the night grew gray towards the dawn and all hoped that the danger
was over--that Princess Moonlight would not have to leave them after
all. Then suddenly the watchers saw a cloud form round the moon--and
while they looked this cloud began to roll earthwards. Nearer and
nearer it came, and every one saw with dismay that its course lay
towards the house.

In a short time the sky was entirely obscured, till at last the cloud
lay over the dwelling only ten feet off the ground. In the midst of the
cloud there stood a flying chariot, and in the chariot a band of
luminous beings. One amongst them who looked like a king and appeared
to be the chief stepped out of the chariot, and, poised in air, called
to the old man to come out.

"The time has come," he said, "for Princess Moonlight to return to the
moon from whence she came. She committed a gra