Читать книгу Kibun Daizin; Or, From Shark-Boy to Merchant Prince онлайн

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Bunkichi, who was much delighted at having gained his wish, said: “Then, sir, please let an apothecary prepare a lot of drugs which are likely to be the best poison for a wanizame, and I will go and have a lookout for the appearance of the monster.”

As he was about to start, the girl asked him, in a little voice of remonstrance, “But when will you make a dragon-fly for me, Bunkichi?”

“When I come back, miss,” was his reply.

“Come, come; he can’t be bothered about such a trifle now,” said her mother.

Meanwhile the two lads, Bunkichi and Sadakichi, hand in hand, went up to the Sumiyoshi bluff, which stood just outside the town on the eastern side of Kumano Bay. The mountain rose precipitously from the sea, whose fathomless water washed its southern base. A thick forest of pines covered the mountain, and the vibrating of their needle foliage in the breeze added a strange harp-like accompaniment to the perpetual roaring of the waves below. On reaching the summit, Bunkichi threw himself down on a knotty root of pine near the edge of a precipice and gazed out on the broad expanse of Kumano Bay. As far as his view reached, no shore could be descried; only the line where the dome of the azure sky circled the deep blue of the ocean.