It neared him; but as it did so it ascended and gave place to the musical reverberation of a thousand peachwood temple bells.
At this, the grave-mound, with a great detonation, burst asunder. Perhaps the roar was a thunderclap, for the fields an instant before had been suddenly ash-colored, drenched in a great flood of lightning.
Moh-chien threw up his hands and ran back into the court.
There, all was still. A silence that pained his temples, like the sharp prickle of a hundred needles, then like the pressure of a gigantic vise. Black.
Ten minutes, perhaps it was an hour of this, moved lethargically, when the chuckle of a woman was heard. A senile chuckle, cracked and wavering. He gasped. That whirling sound had been filled with awful mystery; but this eery laughter was appalling.
Again that dancing cobalt light. It fused itself into the night, making the darkness transparent. The pupils of Moh-chien's eyes dilated.
In the courtyard appeared a woman, old, and dressed in somber black. Her face was pallid. Gold trinkets in her ears and hair glittered in that weird, unearthly light. Her step was soundless; she seemed to float rather than walk. Apparently without seeing Moh-chien she crossed the open space and entered the door at the left of the room in which the young wife was still sobbing.
Curiosity overwhelmed the scholar. He followed and stood at that door. The room she had entered housed the family shrine—a small Buddha, in red and gold lacquer.
Before the image was a long, carved table of teak; on this stood a pair of candlesticks, and between them a bronze incense jar, a hyang-loo.
The woman dropped upon her knees, with seeming reverence. She kowtowed three times, touching her forehead to the stone flagging. Rising, she picked up the hyang-loo. Furtively she took something from a pocket in her gown and tucked it under the jar, whose blackwood base offered room for concealment. Assuring herself that the object was concealed, she turned and vanished. The scholar rubbed his eyes. Gone! With her disappeared the cobalt light.
Frowning, Moh-chien stood at the door. He wondered, debated, then decided to investigate. He felt his way cautiously into the room. He groped for the incense jar. The roughness of its bronze cover met his fingers. He reached underneath, and felt something—coiled, inanimate, cold, repulsive.
He snatched up the object and thrust it into the pocket of his robe. Then he stopped and stood still, in wonderment. For the thought was flooding over him, with all the insistence of a mania, that he must not part with that slippery coil. He must give up his life, first. But he must never lose it. . . .
"Why do you look so downhearted, my child?"
A voice came suddenly out of the adjacent chamber, the room of the young wife. The tone of the questioner was singularly hollow and feeble.
"Why do you weep so bitterly?"
"It's unfair of my husband!" answered the young girl. "The 'flower' bed of our marriage will be deserted."
"He would take another wife?"
Moh-chien recognized it as the voice of the old woman who had chuckled.
There was a moment of silence.
"Y-yes. And then my life will be a mockery. Death were preferable."
"Good," replied the old woman. "It is fortunate for you that I am here. I am Vaung-tsan. I have the
