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O-fune-sama could have to do with a bailiff. Isaku’s father and mother seldom talked about village affairs, but in Sahei’s family his grandfather and parents discussed all manner of topics; soit was only natural that Sahei would come to learn a great deal. Sahei’s knowledge was another reason Isaku felt a little intimidated by the boy.
    â€˜A bailiff?’ he whispered suspiciously.
    â€˜You didn’t know? You mean you started working the salt cauldrons without knowing about it?’ sneered Sahei.
    Isaku was irritated by Sahei’s attitude, as well as somewhat uneasy. He had never seen a bailiff but certainly had heard that they were to be feared – stories of how bailiffs would arrest people, tie them up, and cut off their heads or burn them alive on a crucifix or impale them on a pike. Isaku felt crushed by Sahei’s hints of a connection between O- fune- sama and the bailiff, and he thought his ignorance made him unfit to work the salt cauldrons.
    â€˜Tell me, then. What about the bailiff?’ he said.
    Sahei didn’t reply. He was watching the women on the beach carry the salt away.
    â€˜I heard the story from my grandfather,’ Sahei began. He explained that it had happened when O- fune- sama came one winter, some time before his grandfather was born. That night, too, in heavy seas a ship had had its bottom smashed open on the reef after being lured to the cauldron fires lit on the shore. It was a ship of considerable size, and though the crew had jettisoned some of the cargo there was still a large amount left.
    â€˜The people in the village were ecstatic, but they were shocked when they saw the crest on the sail,’ said Sahei, grim-faced.
    The sails had been taken down, but the large insignia on them indicated that it was a clan ship. The cargo on board was government property, and stealing it would of course invite harsh retribution. Terror-stricken, the villagers put out boats and rescued the captain and crew clinging to the wrecked ship. They waited for the sea to calm before they unloaded the cargo onto the beach and pulled the sails and the smashed pieces of ship’s timber up onto the shore. Also, they retrieved the bodies of two drowned clansmen, one crewman, and a galley boy who had been washed overboard and found at the foot of the cape.

    A messenger was sent to the next village over the ridge, and seven days later a young bailiff appeared, accompanied by two attendants. The village chief and the other people in the village prostrated themselves on the ground in the chief’s courtyard to greet the bailiff.
    The villagers were afraid that the bailiff would suspect that the fires under the salt cauldrons were for luring passing ships onto the rocks. Trembling with fear, the chief had kept his forehead to the ground, muttering simple replies to the bailiff’s questions.
    Fortunately the official did not catch on to the villagers’ secret. He thought it only natural that they should be making salt on the beach and saw nothing strange in the fact that the sailors might mistake the fires for houses and turn their ship towards the treacherous rocks lining the coast. On the contrary, upon hearing the testimony of the rescued sailors, the bailiff was pleased at how the villagers had handled the clan ship. Everyone in the village helped to lay out the cargo and broken pieces of wood from the ship to dry in the sun, or piled them inside the village chief’s house or in the yard. Also, the four bodies that had been recovered were temporarily interred in one corner of the yard, and a black flag of mourning was put up.
    The bailiff seemed to think that the villagers were blameless, and left with the ship’s survivors. In due course, he appeared in the village again, this time with some men leading several oxen. They collected the ship’s cargo that had been stored at the village chief’s house, lashed it onto the oxen, and carried it away.