rats. It entered the palaces of the rich; and the gods remained as ineffably unmoved by the implorations of the powerful as they had been by the wailings of the weak.
"The little daughter of Heaven commanded her palace gates to be barred against Death, and she ordered one thousand guardsmen outside the gates to forbid his entrance. But not even the thousand guardsmen had power against that day when Hasaki lay heedless of his princess, when the agonized prayers of the daughter of Heaven fell back against her lips unanswered.
"Just before death, Hasaki spoke to O-Miyuku-san, bidding her cherish the beautiful Unfinished Buddha. 'Nirvana is profitless without you,' he whispered. 'I shall dwell beside you in the image of the god until death sets you free; thus we shall never be parted cither in life or in death or in Paradise which we shall enter together.'
"In this promise the princess found comfort after her lord's body was taken from her; and the story of the incarnation of the artist, Hasaki, in the form of the Unfinished Buddha became the wonder of the Eastern world.
"Now there was a famous collector of antiques in those days, a European with a palace on the river Rhine. This man had traveled even into Asia and the islands farthest cast and south in search of ancient and precious beauty. While journeying in the Orient, it happened that the tale of this marvelous incarnation readied his ears, and he was filled with an insatiable desire to possess the Unfinished Buddha. He did possess it. After incurring the sentence of death for insolently offering money in exchange for the sacred treasure, he escaped from prison, and stole the god from the royal treasury at night, after slaying the guard. He succeeded in fleeing the kingdom unscathed; although a terrible price was set on his head. But the daughter of Heaven, learning that the robber had his palace on the other side of the world, followed him secretly, taking with her two faithful servants.
"The palace of Brasswell, the collector, was a mediæval castle, filled with ancient storied riches of the past. It stood on a high hill overlooking a city, with the river Rhine flowing so near the base of its walls that the collector, from the turret of his castle, could see the waves of the river creaming on the beach beneath him. Here, remote from the garish life of the world, he dwelt in Oriental splendor, dreaming that he was the imperial emperor of an ancient, exotic world.
"Everything surrounding him was foreign; the tapestries on the walls, the treasures in the treasury room at the top of the castle—even the servants were foreign. A score had been imported from the ends of the earth for the sake of his pleasure. Among them were Egyptians, Nubians, Arabs and Malays; and there were also two Chinese who had lately come into his service.
"These Chinese pleased him inordinately. Their ceremonial deference to him and their noble pedigree, their ancestors having been servants of emperors for centuries, made him prize them above all his servants. He even came to honor these two with his confidence, made them his trusted counselors, and in time, showed them his priceless treasures—took them into his holy of holies at the top of the castle, into the dim religious light of that vast room whose entrance was guarded on either side by the colossal statue of a ferocious Deva king. Within that chamber gilded statues gleamed solemnly in the spacious obscurity. Colors, like tongues of flame, flared out from the shadowy places; colors of the mysterious East; lapis
