The night, was frosty, but clear. Down the empty street O-Katsu hurried; and she saw that all the house fronts were tightly closed, because of the piercing cold. Out of the village, and along the high road she ran--_pichà-pichà_--with the great silence of frozen rice-fields on either hand, and only the stars to light her. Half an hour she followed the open road; then she turned down a narrower way, winding under cliffs. Darker and rougher the path became as she proceeded; but she knew it well, and she soon heard the dull roar of the water. A few minutes more, and the way widened into a glen,--and the dull roar suddenly became a loud clamor,--and before her she saw, looming against a mass of blackness, the long glimmering of the fall. Dimly she perceived the shrine,--the money-box. She rushed forward,--put out her hand....
"_Oi!_ O-Katsu-San!"[1] suddenly called a warning voice above the crash of the water.
O-Katsu stood motionless,--stupefied by terror.
"_Oi!_ O-Katsu-San!" again pealed the voice,--this time with more of menace in its tone.
But O-Katsu was really a bold woman. At once recovering from her stupefaction, she snatched up the money-box and ran. She neither heard nor saw anything more to alarm her until she reached the highroad, where she stopped a moment to take breath. Then she ran on steadily,--_pichà-pichà_,--till she got to Kurosaka, and thumped at the door of the _asa-toriba_.
How the women and the girls cried out as she entered, panting, with the money-box of the god in her hand! Breathlessly they heard her story; sympathetically they screeched when she told them of the Voice that had called her name, twice, out of the haunted water.... What a woman! Brave O-Katsu!--well had she earned the hemp!... "But your boy must be cold, O-Katsu!" cried the Obaa-San, "let us have him here by the fire!"
"He ought to be hungry," exclaimed the mother; "I must give him his milk presently."... "Poor O-Katsu!" said the Obaa-San, helping to remove the wraps in which the boy had been carried,--"why, you are all wet behind!" Then, with a husky scream, the helper vociferated, "_Arà! it is blood!_"
And out of the wrappings unfastened there fell to the floor a blood-soaked bundle of baby clothes that left exposed two very small brown feet, and two very small brown hands--nothing more. The child's head had been torn off!...