Mujina — книга для чтения (B1)

Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before him. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller,[2] who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any light and any human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself down at the feet of the soba-seller, crying out, “Aa!—aa!!—aa!!!”...

“Koré! koré!” roughly exclaimed the soba-man. “Here! what is the matter with you? Anybody hurt you?”

“No—nobody hurt me,” panted the other,—“only... Aa!—aa!”...

“—Only scared you?” queried the peddler, unsympathetically. “Robbers?”

“Not robbers,—not robbers,” gasped the terrified man.... “I saw... I saw a woman—by the moat;—and she showed me... Aa! I cannot tell you what she showed me!”...

“Hé! Was it anything like this that she showed you?” cried the soba-man, stroking his own face—which therewith became like unto an Egg.... And, simultaneously, the light went out.