“Sayo, most honourable high minister,” answered the doughty keeper as he came trudging forward, bowing and attesting.

“Have the prisoners confessed?” asked the mighty, speaking purposely in the plural.

“No; your most honourable perfectness, they have not had—they have not.”

“Then proceed with the ordeal; the court cannot be so trifled with.”

The tormentor withdrew. He knew where to begin his awful work, for Ikamon had long before told him that, and cautioned him about the victims. He groped his way below and fumbled at the keyhole. The great iron lock creaked as he threw back the rusty bolt. He hauled and shoved at the grimy door, and the filthy den belched its nasty air. Two vile lubbers fell upon the faint and helpless daimyo, roughly dragging him out. He made no resistance, nor did he cry aloud. They hurried him through the long, dark, narrow passage to a muffled exit. The door closed behind them, and Jigokumon thrust a lighted torch in Maido’s face, and snarled:

“What now, you hinin?”[[19]]

Maido did not speak; he was beyond that. The light blinded him and terror overcame him. He glanced pitifully at Ikamon’s ruffians, then sank back unable to comprehend. His torturer sneered as he snuffed the light and hissed:

“To the torments!”

Throwing open the outer, or last door, the two flunkeys thrust the lord daimyo forward upon the hot cinders covering the earthen floor. Jigokumon remained outside; it was too awful in there, even for him. They hustled Maido to the centre of the room and lashed his hands at his back with one end of a cord which hung loosely from a beam overhead. After securely tying his feet together the two heavy men slowly pulled at the loose end of the cord from above; whereat the victim’s arms fairly twisted in the sockets and, with downcast face, his limbs hung limp. Maido groaned, then nerved himself to the ordeal.

Having raised him a trifle from the ground, the monsters slid beneath his bare feet a pot of burning coals from which the lid was stripped. The sulphur pots were lit, and the red light flashed—the fiends disappeared, and the fumes rose, enveloping the suffering patriot. He uttered no sound, but looked upon the hellish scene with stoic indifference. Perhaps he thought of man’s sphere as compared with God’s. Possibly he contrasted the good with the evil of life, as lived on earth; and he may have glimpsed at a truer way, the one that heaven foretells.