before, in order that we might first inspect them. This we now did to our satisfaction. They were, one and all, old samurai blades, as sharp as one would care to handle—from the hilt—and much sharper than he would care to handle in any less legitimate manner. They certainly did not seem adapted to treading on, even tentatively. There were twelve of them, all loans from the neighborhood, and heirlooms, every one, from knightly times—not so great an antiquity as it sounds, since the middle ages were but twenty years ago. But I should never have imagined so many retired knights or their heirs in so very retired a hamlet. The blades themselves bore evidence, however, of having been possessed and probably used for quite an indefinite time by their owners; and this touch of local domesticity imparted a certain sincerity to the act artistically convincing in itself.
The swords were then lashed in place. But as the divine archery was to precede the divine climb, and there were twelve sets of notches in the ladder and but twelve blades in all, those destined for its two lower rungs were lashed first upon the shooting-
