“I have my wish!” she cried—“I have my wish for the cherry-bloom,[3]—but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!… I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!—oh, what a delight!” [3] In Japanese poetry and proverbial phraseology, the physical beauty of a woman is compared to the cherry-flower; while feminine moral beauty is compared to the plum-flower. And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died. The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko’s shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But—strange to say!—this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl,—appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain. Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim;—they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts! At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner,—a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands’ were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up,—like the hands of a person long dead. Yet this was only the beginning of the horror. Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir—stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly thereafter,—beginning always at the Hour of the Ox,[4]—they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease. [4] In ancient Japanese time, the Hour of the Ox was the special hour of ghosts. It began at 2 A.M., and lasted until 4 A.M.—for the old Japanese hour was double the length of the modern hour. The Hour of the Tiger began at 4 A.M.