Taiko enters. He asks for a night's rest in the pagoda, and is told that Mitsou-Fide has just arrived with his wife and mother. They are travelling, and have stopped here. Taiko starts violently. "My enemy so near!" he exclaims. "Shall I fly? No; I must disguise myself." He calls for a razor, shaves his head, and slips on the dress of a bonze. He has scarcely fastened it, when Mitsou-Fide enters, and casts a suspicious glance at Taiko; the latter, to appear at his ease and quite calm, begins to sing a simple air, popular throughout the kingdom:-- [Illustration: music bars] "From the mountain top I gaze down into the valley. The cucumbers and the hawthorn, hope of the harvest, are in bloom." "Come here, bonze," says Mitsou-Fide. "My mother is tired after her journey; you may prepare a bath for her." "Who would have thought that I came here to play the part of servant?" cries Taiko, turning towards the audience with most wonderful facial expression. "I obey," he adds aloud. The bath-room was only divided from the apartment which occupied the stage by a screen covered with oiled paper. Taiko prepares the bath; amusing the audience meantime by a thousand comical remarks, accompanied by appropriate grimaces. Mitsou-Fide's mother, enters, and asks if the bath is ready. On the affirmative reply of the false bonze, she disappears behind the screen. But Mitsou-Fide learns that Taiko is in the pagoda, and now rushes up in a rage, shouting loudly for his enemy. "He is in the bath," says a priest. "He shall not escape me." Taiko, during this scene, creeps off. Mitsou-Fide cuts a long stock of bamboo in the garden, sharpens one end of it, and hardens it over the coals in a bronze chafing-dish. Then marching up to the dividing-screen, he pierces the paper with this impromptu spear, and thinking to slay his enemy, kills his mother. "What have I done?" he exclaims in alarm, on hearing a woman's shriek. "You have killed your mother!" says his young wife, entering, pale with horror, and trembling like a leaf. "Repent! repent while she expires!" she cries, in a monotonous chant. "This cruel murder, committed by your hand, is the vengeance of Heaven! Did I not bid you beware of betraying your master? You usurped the power. See to what ambition leads you; you have killed your mother! At least repent while she expires." "Alas! alas!" howls the murderer; "let us leave this accursed spot, let us fly! Remorse rends my heart! For three days I possessed the power: my punishment is terrible. My mother slain by my own hand! I cannot believe it!" He bursts into the bath-room; then comes out, with all the signs of despair bordering on madness.