Perhaps the Daimio of Nara was right in his prognostications of the probable. Although the lives of a few peasants are to Japanese patricians of but small account, there had been considerable excitement among the daimios over Hojo's high-handed treatment of the village elders, a tornado of lamentation among the lower and unarmed classes. Had the action of the despot been voted orthodox, had he unwaveringly pursued his course, the other lords would have done the same as he with joy, to wring out additional sums for pleasant uses; but as No-Kami gave way with little pressing, and thereby stultified his action, there was a general chorus of disapproval. If, excited and cruel, he were now to inflict signal vengeance on the unfortunate farmer, there would be still further uproar; and each fresh demonstration tended to a universal rising, for the destruction of the terrible octopus. Nara was old enough to have learned that the waiting game is generally best in the end, and preached sage wisdom to his master, who wept, being foolish, and young, and also uneasy in his mind. No-Kami was frantic with wrath when he considered Koshiu's sin. What a deplorable precedent was this! A petty farmer, little better than the common labourer, who strews the paddy field with filth, and grubs on hands on knees like a pig in the mud when the young rice begins to sprout; this abject, well-nigh four-footed, grovelling creature had absolutely, erect upon hind legs, dared to approach the head of the state--the nominal head--with a writing wherein he, the reignina Hojo--the real head of the state--was impeached and accused of misdemeanours,--even of deeds called CRIMES! Such audacity to the most nimble imagination was all but inconceivable. It was no less preposterous and ludicrous than if the brisk and too sprightly flea were, with his tiny mandibles, to assault the elephant. As he revolved the circumstance, the Daimio was so tickled that, as he paced a path in his garden outside Ki[^y]oto, he laughed a hard and grating cachination, that was half a snort, and shouted for a cup of warm saké, the which was brought, with the humblest of genuflections; for my lord's laugh clanked like rusty chains, and was precursor usually of bloodshed. But this was really too amusing, or would have been, if not so impudent. As he drained cup after cup of wine, my lord's mind became more active, the heat of his resentment more whitely glowing. What punishment was severe enough for such a caitiff? What was mere death, even the slowest, with ingeniously long-drawn agonies, but absurdly insufficient. The doom of the farmer must be something calculated to appal,--to spread terror broadcast, or his pestilent example might be followed by other swine. He would be a good riddance, this Koshiu, for he had always been a dangerous character,--one who dared to think for himself, actually to think, and frame views and theories of an independent and subversive kind. Oh for some brilliant