Unconscious of all this, Kono Musashi-no-Kami Moronao, who has been put off his guard by Yuranosuke’s dissipation, is drinking in fancied security and making women of pleasure dance and sing. With Yakushiji as his chief guest, he is carousing ignorant of his fate, and in the end he and his guests grow so lax in their behaviour as to lie down in the hall all together and are now fast asleep. Only the night-watchman is left awake, and all is silence except the sound of his clappers as he goes his round. The parties at the front and rear settle their plans, and the two fearless men, Yazama and Senzaki, creep to the front gate and listen attentively. They hear only the distant sound of the night watchman’s clappers; they see their opportunity, and tacking on the high wall the rope-ladder in the use of which they are expert, they climb upon the roof of the wall like spiders with an energy which might take them even to the clouds. The sound of the clappers is now nigh at hand, and as they jump down, the watchman discovers them and rushes upon them to see who they are; but they catch him and throw him down on the ground; they bind him fast and, seeing in him a good guide, they gag him and, tying to their own sashes the ends of the cord that binds him, they take up his clappers and strike them as they daringly go round with him to the offices in the mansion. The whistle is soon heard from the back-gate and as the time has come, the two men cry “Ama Kawa,” beating time with the clappers, and drawing out the cross-bar, they fling open the front gate. Rikiya, Sugino, Kimura, Mimura, and their company rush in, but find the shutters securely shut. Chikara tells his comrades that they must now make use of his father’s precept of the snow-laden bamboo; and putting the round bamboos bent with bow-strings between the upper and lower grooves of the shutters, they cry, “one, two, three,” and all at once cut at a stroke the bow-strings. The lintel rises and the sill sinks; and the shutters fall down one after another. “Now, run in,” they call, and with shouts of “Ama” and “Kawa,” they break into the house. “It is a night-attack,” exclaim the inmates, coming out with torches and lanterns. The comrades from the back-gate have entered, and Yuranosuke on the one side and Goemon on the other sit on camp-stools and [Illustration: Several men in battle] direct their men. The attacking party, though small in number, are this night valiant men who are prepared for death and fight with all their strength. YURANOSUKE. Do not look to others. Aim only at Moronao. RECITATIVE. He gives this command, together with Goemon, to all around them. The impetuous young men rush about and clash their swords. Next door to Moronao on the north lives Nikki Harima-no-Kami and on the south Ishido Umanojo. Both these neighbours, hearing the noise, send samurai on housetops with lanterns which look like stars in the distance.