“Pardon me kind friend! I had to attend to some private business; and I
could not arrange the matter at any other hour.”
The priest was surprised, rather than pained, by Hōïchi’s reticence: he
felt it to be unnatural, and suspected something wrong. He feared that
the blind lad had been bewitched or deluded by some evil spirits. He
did not ask any more questions; but he privately instructed the
men-servants of the temple to keep watch upon Hōïchi’s movements, and
to follow him in case that he should again leave the temple after dark.
On the very next night, Hōïchi was seen to leave the temple; and the
servants immediately lighted their lanterns, and followed after him.
But it was a rainy night, and very dark; and before the temple-folks
could get to the roadway, Hōïchi had disappeared. Evidently he had
walked very fast,—a strange thing, considering his blindness; for the
road was in a bad condition. The men hurried through the streets,
making inquiries at every house which Hōïchi was accustomed to visit;
but nobody could give them any news of him. At last, as they were
returning to the temple by way of the shore, they were startled by the
sound of a biwa, furiously played, in the cemetery of the Amidaji.
Except for some ghostly fires—such as usually flitted there on dark
nights—all was blackness in that direction. But the men at once
hastened to the cemetery; and there, by the help of their lanterns,
they discovered Hōïchi,—sitting alone in the rain before the memorial
tomb of Antoku Tennō, making his biwa resound, and loudly chanting the
chant of the battle of Dan-no-ura. And behind him, and about him, and
everywhere above the tombs, the fires of the dead were burning, like
candles. Never before had so great a host of _Oni-bi_ appeared in the
sight of mortal man...
“Hōïchi San!—Hōïchi San!” the servants cried,—“you are bewitched!...
Hōïchi 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,—
“Hōïchi San!—Hōïchi San!—come home with us at once!”