A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

Of a Promise Broken 2$
The head was nowhere to be seen;— and the
hideous wound showed that it had not been cut
off, but torn off. A trail of blood led from the
chamber to an angle of the outer gallery, where
the storm-doors appeared to have been riven
apart. The three men followed that trail into the
garden, — over reaches of grass, — over spaces of
sand, — along the bank of an iris- bordered pond,
— under heavy shadowings of cedar and bamboo.
And suddenly, at a turn, they found themselves
face to face with a nightmare-thing that chippered
like a bat :
the figure of the long-buried woman,
erect before her tomb, — in one hand clutching
a bell, in the other the dripping head. . . . For a
moment the three stood numbed. Then one of the
men-at-arms, uttering a Buddhist invocation, drew,
and struck at the shape. Instantly it crumbled
down upon the soil, — an empty scattering of
grave-rags, bones, and hair ; — and the bell rolled
clanking out of the ruin. But the fleshless right
hand, though parted from the wrist, still writhed
— and its fingers still gripped at the bleeding head,
— and tore, and mangled, — as the claws of the
yellow crab cling fast to a fallen fruit. . . .
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