blot out the miserable life of this wretched magician who has presumed to issue orders in Your Imperial pres-ence.
Ming Huang smiled inwardly but his face was bland.
"Your plea for a fellow man is noteworthy/' he said. "Proceed with your reply to the verbal challenge of the brave Ch'i-ch'i."
Li Po bowed low. From his sleeve, he extracted a small slip of paper. It was perfectly blank but no one knew that.
"I have here a purple clay document," he said:
"'You ask what my soul does away in the sky,
I inwardly smile, but cannot reply;
Like the peach-blossoms carried away by the stream,
I soar to a world of which you cannot dream.'"
He folded the paper up and handed it to Ch'i-ch'i. "I submit this," he said, "as a poem that cannot be destroyed."
Ch'i-ch'i closed one eye and looked at him shrewdly. Li Po was bluffing, of that there could be no doubt.
To a eunuch, he said, "Bring me a lighted taper."
When one had been brought, he touched the paper to the flame. It lighted readily. In a few seconds it was burned to ashes.
Ch'i-ch'i turned to Li Po. "So much for your fireproof poem."
"I did not say it was fire-proof, only indestructible."
"I have burned it. Is it not destroyed?"
226
