Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

have not so much money by me at present, I will go to Genzaburô's
house and fetch it. It's getting dark now, but it's not very late; so I'll
trouble you to come with me, and then I can give you the money tonight."
Chokichi consenting to this, the pair left the house together.
Now Sazen, who as a Rônin wore a long dirk in his girdle, kept looking
out for a moment when Chokichi should be off his guard, in order to
kill him; but Chokichi kept his eyes open, and did not give Sazen a
chance. At last Chokichi, as ill-luck would have it, stumbled against a
stone and fell; and Sazen, profiting by the chance, drew his dirk and
stabbed him in the side; and as Chokichi, taken by surprise, tried to get
up, he cut him severely over the head, until at last he fell dead. Sazen
then looking around him, and seeing, to his great delight, that there was
no one near, returned home. The following day, Chokichi's body was
found by the police; and when they examined it, they found nothing
upon it save a paper, which they read, and which proved to be the very
letter which Sazen had sent to Kihachi, and which Chokichi had picked
up. The matter was immediately reported to the governor, and, Sazen
having been summoned, an investigation was held. Sazen, cunning and
bold murderer as he was, lost his self-possession when he saw what a
fool he had been not to get back from Chokichi the letter which he had
written, and, when he was put to a rigid examination under torture, confessed
that he had hidden O Koyo at Genzaburô's instigation, and then
killed Chokichi, who had found out the secret. Upon this the governor,
after consulting about Genzaburô's case, decided that, as he had disgraced
his position as a Hatamoto by contracting an alliance with the
daughter of an Eta, his property should be confiscated, his family blotted
out, and himself banished. As for Kihachi, the Eta chief, and his daughter
O Koyo, they were handed over for punishment to the chief of the Etas,
and by him they too were banished; while Sazen, against whom the
murder of Chokichi had been fully proved, was executed according to
law.
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