dog's howling. All the other dogs rushed to the spot in excitement to see what made him go on yelping so. Meanwhile a scavenger-woman of the Palace came to us running. 'Oh! how terrible!' exclaimed she. 'Two of the chamberlains are beating a dog till he is nearly dead. They say they are chastising him for having come back after he was banished.' My heart told me that it was Okinamaro who was being beaten by Tadataka and Sanefusa. I was just sending to stop them when the howling ceased. I was then told that he was dead, and that his body had been flung away outside the gate. At sundown, when we were all pitying his fate, a wretched-looking dog, trembling all over, walked in, his body fearfully and amazingly swollen. 'Can this be Okinamaro?' we said. 'No such dog has been seen about here recently.' We called to him by his name, but he took no notice. Some said it was he, others that it was not. The Empress sent for a lady who knew him well. 'Is this Okinamaro?' she said, pointing to him. 'It is like him,' replied she, 'but is too utterly loathsome to be our dog. Besides, when one called to Okinamaro by name, he came joyfully; but this animal won't come. It cannot be Okinamaro. And then Okinamaro was killed and his body thrown away. He can't possibly be alive after the beating he got from the two chamberlains.' When it got dark he was offered something to eat, but he refused it, so we made up our minds that it could not be our friend. The next morning when I went to attend the Empress at her toilet, and had served her wash-hand basin and her mirror, a dog came to the foot of one of the pillars. 'Alas!' cried the Empress, 'what a terrible beating Okinamaro seems to have got last night. I am so sorry that he is dead. I suppose he now looks some-
