“Indeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while
you were napping. A little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your
face for a moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the
ground beside you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted
there, a big, big ant came out of a hole and seized it and pulled it
down into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly
come out of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And
then it suddenly disappeared: we do not know where it went.”
“Perhaps it was Akinosuké’s soul,” the other gōshi said;—“certainly I
thought I saw it fly into his mouth... But, even if that butterfly
_was_ Akinosuké’s soul, the fact would not explain his dream.”
“The ants might explain it,” returned the first speaker. “Ants are
queer beings—possibly goblins... Anyhow, there is a big ant’s nest
under that cedar-tree.”...
“Let us look!” cried Akinosuké, greatly moved by this suggestion. And
he went for a spade.
The ground about and beneath the cedar-tree proved to have been
excavated, in a most surprising way, by a prodigious colony of ants.
The ants had furthermore built inside their excavations; and their tiny
constructions of straw, clay, and stems bore an odd resemblance to
miniature towns. In the middle of a structure considerably larger than
the rest there was a marvelous swarming of small ants around the body
of one very big ant, which had yellowish wings and a long black head.
“Why, there is the King of my dream!” cried Akinosuké; “and there is
the palace of Tokoyo!... How extraordinary!... Raishū ought to lie
somewhere southwest of it—to the left of that big root... Yes!—here it
is!... How very strange! Now I am sure that I can find the mountain of
Hanryōkō, and the grave of the princess.”...
In the wreck of the nest he searched and searched, and at last
discovered a tiny mound, on the top of which was fixed a water-worn
pebble, in shape resembling a Buddhist monument. Underneath it he
found—embedded in clay—the dead body of a female ant.