BUNKICHI PLANS TO KILL THE SHARK
THE master and his wife were engaged in conversation, but on seeing
Bunkichi the merchant said, “Well, have you been to see the garden?”
“Thank you, I have enjoyed it very much,” answered Bunkichi, politely.
“Why, bless me, he has all the manners of a little _samurai_[12]!”
exclaimed the master to his wife. “There is no comparison between him
and the other boys. But dancing attendance on a little girl is not the
sort of employment for a lad who has the ambition to become the leading
merchant in Japan. No, no; he wants to get into the shop as soon as he
can and learn the ways of business—eh, my boy?”
Footnote 12:
Pronounced sahm’oo-rye. The _samurai_ were the military class of
Japan, corresponding to the knights of the middle ages in European
countries.
The master exactly interpreted Bunkichi’s wishes, and Bunkichi felt very
grateful to him, but he only answered: “I shall esteem it a great favor
to be allowed to serve you in any way. But, master, with your leave, I
would ask you: Is it true, as I hear, that there is a _wanizame_ lately
come into this bay, and that people are suffering a lot of harm from
it?”
“Ah, me! Yes, it’s a sore trouble, that _wanizame_; our fishermen are
doing nothing, our boat traffic is stopped, and if things go on in this
way the place will be ruined. All sorts of attempts have been made to
kill it, but, alas! all to no purpose.”
Then respectfully, in a kneeling posture, approaching nearer, Bunkichi
thus addressed his master: “Master, in the request I am now going to
make of you, I fear you will put me down as a child with a vain,
childish notion of doing great things; none the less, I am bold to ask
you, in all seriousness, will you give me leave to attempt the
destruction of this _wanizame_?”
The master exclaimed in astonishment: “What! You think that you are
going to kill the _wanizame_? It would be the greatest thing in the
world if you could, but already every means has been tried. Whaling-men
have tried to kill it with their harpoons, the hunters of wild game on
the mountains have tried to shoot it with their guns; but the _wanizame_
has defeated all their schemes, and, to say nothing of the money it has
cost, several men have lost their lives in their attempts to kill it,
and our citizens have given it up as hopeless. Son of a _samurai_ though
you may be, this is no task for a boy of thirteen or fourteen. No; you
may have seen in the seas around Kada-no-Ura sharks of four or five feet
in length, but just go out to the hill above the town and look over the
bay until you catch sight of our monster. The very sight of it is enough
to terrify most people.”
“You mistake me, master,” said Bunkichi, sitting up straight. “I have no
thought of trying my strength against the _wanizame_. But I have a trick
in my mind I should like to play, if you would allow me.”
“Oh, it’s a trick, is it? And what is the trick our crafty youngster is
going to propose for killing the _wanizame_, I should like to know?”
said the master, smiling.
“The plan I have is simply this: First, to make a straw figure and to
fill up the inside with poison. Then I shall dress it in a man’s clothes
and take it out into the bay, and, when we see the shark coming, throw
it out to him to eat. Sharks are senseless creatures and ready to eat
anything, so he is sure to swallow the straw man, and if he does the
poison will at once take effect and kill him. That’s my plan; what do
you think of it?”
“Yes; I think your plan of making a straw man is not at all a bad one,
and I have little doubt, as you say, that the shark would swallow it. In
that case it would certainly die and we should be free at last from our
great calamity. But wait a minute; I am afraid, when the doll is made,
there is nobody who will venture to take it out to the sea. People have
had so many bitter lessons from trying to kill this shark that, however
much money you offer, no one, I fear, will agree to take it out into the
bay.”
Bunkichi without any hesitation replied: “I will undertake the task of
taking the doll out for the shark to swallow. As I grew up by the
seaside at Kada-no-Ura, I can row a boat well and can swim better than
most people. I saw a boat just now fastened at the jetty in your garden.
Please lend it to me and I will go out alone upon the bay.”
Astonished by the audaciousness of the lad, the master said: “It is too
wild an idea, my boy. What if the shark upsets your boat? He will
swallow you up in an instant.”
“As to what you say about drowning, that doesn’t disturb me at all.
Suppose I have no luck and lose my life, there is nothing to be
regretted if by my death I succeed in removing the great calamity under
which many are now suffering. And, as I said before, it is my
determination to become the leading merchant of Japan; but if I am to
realize my ambition I must be prepared to run many risks. If fortune
favors me I shall come safe through them and attain my object; if,
however, this first venture goes against me, and I go out to sea and
fall a prey to the _wanizame_, it simply means that I must accept it as
the decree of fate, and, as far as my life is concerned, I am quite
ready to risk it.”
The master, who was much struck by his fearless determination, worthy of
the boy’s descent, said to him, “Indeed, your magnanimity is greater
than ours, but for that very reason we should be all the more sorry to
lose you.”
Saying this, he turned round to his wife, who whispered in his ear: “I
quite agree with you: if he be swallowed up by the shark, we couldn’t
possibly get another like him; send some other one instead!”
Just then in came the girl, attended by Sadakichi, who had long been
waiting for the boy, and said, “Bunkichi, please be quick and make me
another dragon-fly.”
Her mother, however, at once stopped the girl, saying: “Come, come;
Bunkichi has something else to think about besides dragon-flies: he’s
just saying that he wants to go out to sea and kill the _wanizame_.”
The girl was startled, for she was only a child. “Does he go alone?”
“Yes, that is what he says he will do.”
“Don’t, please, mother; I don’t like your sending him to sea.”
“Why, my child?”
“I want him to make me a bamboo dragon-fly.”
His curiosity aroused at hearing the little girl speak of the
dragon-fly, the father said, “What do you wish him to make for you?”
“Oh, father, it’s a bamboo dragon-fly—an amusing toy which flies up
high, whizzing,” was her confident answer.
“Ah, I see,” he remarked, as he understood the girl’s request; “that
flying bamboo thing I often see when I go out on the streets. The toy, I
remember, was first made by a boy of great filial virtue in a certain
country district, and even here they talk about him; it is clever of
you, Bunkichi, to have learned how to make them.”
Then Sadakichi interrupted, saying: “No wonder! Why, he was the hawker
of the toy; I know all about it, as I saw him selling it at
Kada-no-Ura.”
“Are you, then, the inventor of the toy?” asked the master, to whom the
boy at once replied in the affirmative. The master, who was more than
ever struck by the boy’s character, said, “Are you, then, the same boy
whom all the people talk about and praise for his devotion to his
parent?”
Then the girl, who remembered what had been told her a little while
before, said: “Father, his family was very poor, and, as his father was
laid up on his sick-bed, he sold those dragon-flies and bought medicine
or a little rice for the family. He told me so.”
As she was listening to this conversation, tears stood in the mother’s
eyes, and she said: “He is really a model boy, is he not? I can’t
possibly let him go to sea.”
The master, who was much of the same way of thinking as his wife,
answered, “Of course, I have been persuading him to give up his idea”;
and, turning to Bunkichi, said, “Yes, do give it up, my boy.”
And the girl, seemingly with the intention of inspiring the boy with
dread and deterring him from his purpose, remarked solemnly, “Oh, it is
dreadful to be swallowed by the shark on going to sea!”
Bunkichi, having once determined, was immovable. “Sir, trading to a
merchant is the same that fighting is to a knight. It has been ever
regarded honorable in a knight that he should hazard his life many a
time, even in his early youth. If fate be against him, he will be put to
death by his enemy. The knights of old faced the dangerous issues of
life or death as often as they went out to battle. As they attained to
renown by passing through these ordeals, so, too, must the merchant who
aspires after a leading position not shrink from braving many dangers in
his life. Sir, methinks the present is the opportunity given me to try
my hand; and if fate sides with me and I succeed in killing the
_wanizame_, in future I shall have courage to venture out on other great
undertakings. If one begins to be nervous at the outset, one will go on
being nervous forever; but there is no fear, I think, for a man who is
ready to sacrifice even his own life.”
The master, meeting with such unflinching determination, knew not how to
stop him, but said: “I must confess you have more in you than I thought.
I am ashamed of myself to be thus taught by you the secret of success in
trade when I should be in a position to teach you. Well said, my boy;
trading is to a business man what fighting is to a knight. If you begin
by being weak and timid, you will never be capable of bold enterprise.
If you have a mind to divine your future by embarking on this exploit,
go in for it with all your might. As to the preparations for making the
straw man, as far as buying the poison is concerned, I will do it all
for you. You had better go up to the mountain yonder, and ascertain the
place where the shark is generally to be seen coming up to the surface.
You, Sadakichi, had better take him up to the Sumiyoshi[13] bluff, and
point him out the monster if it should come up and show itself on the
surface of the water in the mouth of the harbor.”
Footnote 13:
Pronounced Soo-mee-yo’shee.
Bunkichi, who was much delighted at having gained his wish, said: “Then,
sir, please let an apothecary prepare a lot of drugs which are likely to
be the best poison for a _wanizame_, and I will go and have a lookout
for the appearance of the monster.”
As he was about to start, the girl asked him, in a little voice of
remonstrance, “But when will you make a dragon-fly for me, Bunkichi?”
“When I come back, miss,” was his reply.
“Come, come; he can’t be bothered about such a trifle now,” said her
mother.
Meanwhile the two lads, Bunkichi and Sadakichi, hand in hand, went up to
the Sumiyoshi bluff, which stood just outside the town on the eastern
side of Kumano Bay. The mountain rose precipitously from the sea, whose
fathomless water washed its southern base. A thick forest of pines
covered the mountain, and the vibrating of their needle foliage in the
breeze added a strange harp-like accompaniment to the perpetual roaring
of the waves below. On reaching the summit, Bunkichi threw himself down
on a knotty root of pine near the edge of a precipice and gazed out on
the broad expanse of Kumano Bay. As far as his view reached, no shore
could be descried; only the line where the dome of the azure sky circled
the deep blue of the ocean.
After sitting thus in silent contemplation for a few minutes, Bunkichi
suddenly turned round and said to Sadakichi: “Sea scenery is always fine
to look at, isn’t it? I am fond of this sort of rough sea. I should like
to have a swim in it.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense; you would no sooner get into it than you
would be swamped,” was the reply.
“That’s just what I like. I should dive deep down into the water and get
out of the whirlpool. And now, tell me where it is the _wanizame_
generally pops out its head.”
“It generally comes out just below this headland,” the other answered,
“at the mouth of the harbor.”
As the two boys were steadily gazing on the surface of the water, sure
enough, up came the shark, and startled Sadakichi by cleaving the water
with its back. Whether it was in frolic or in quest of prey, the monster
swam to and fro, now showing its head and now its tail. Its rock-like
back and its iron-like fins were horrible enough to inspire even men
with awe.
Sadakichi, feeling nervous at the sight, said to his companion,
“Bunkichi San, now you see the monster, you will be for giving up your
grand job, I fancy.”
“What! You don’t suppose I’m frightened, do you,” was his scornful
retort, “at the sight of such a little fish?”
“What do you say?” said the other.
“Well, if the chance came in my way, I might even kill a leviathan or a
crocodile!”
As these two were thus talking, a gust of wind from the high Nachi
Mountain swept down on the forest of Sumiyoshi and awakened the myriad
tiny harps of the pines, while the waves rolled one after another
against the rocks below. These sounds combined to drown the voices of
the lads, one of whom seemed to be persuading the other that it was time
to go back, while the other seemed to be insisting on staying a little
longer to enjoy the wild scenery and to think over the issues of his
scheme.
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