The Specimen Case/Ming Tseuen and the Emergency
THE SPECIMEN CASE
i
Ming Tseuen and the Emergency
It was the custom of Ming Tseuen to take his stand at an early hour each day in the open Market of Nang-kau, partly because he was industrious by nature and also since he had thereby occasionally found objects of inconspicuous value which others had carelessly left unprotected over-night. Enterprise such as this deserved to prosper, but so far, owing to some apathy on the part of the fostering deities, silver had only come to Ming Tseuen in dreams and gold in visions. Yet with frugality, and by acquiring the art of doing without whatever he was unable to procure, he had supported himself from the earliest time he could remember up to the age of four short of a score of years. In mind he was alert and not devoid of courage, the expression of his face mild and unconcerned, but in stature he lacked the appearance of his age, doubtless owing to the privations he had frequently endured.
Next to Ming Tseuen on the one side was the stall of Lieu, the dog-butcher, on the other that of a person who removed corroding teeth for the afflicted. This he did with his right hand while at the same time he beat upon a large iron gong with his left, so that others in a like plight who might be approaching should not be distressed by hearing anything of a not absolutely encouraging strain. About his neck he wore a lengthy string of massive teeth to indicate his vigour and tenacity, but to Ming he privately disclosed that these were the fangs of suitable domestic animals which he had obtained to enlarge himself in the eyes of the passer-by. Ming in return told him certain things about his own traffic which were not generally understood.
Across the Way a barber was accustomed to take his stand, his neighbours being a melon-seller to the east, and to the west a caster of nativities and lucky day diviner. Also near at hand a bamboo worker plied his useful trade, an incense vendor extolled his sacred wares, a money-changer besought men to enrich themselves at his expense, and a fan-maker sang a song about the approaching heat and oppression of the day. From time to time the abrupt explosion of a firework announced the completion of an important bargain, proclaimed a ceremony, or indicated some protective rite, while the occasional passage of a high official whose rank required a chariot wider than the Way it traversed, afforded an agreeable break in the routine of those who found themselves involved. At convenient angles beggars pointed out their unsightliness to attract the benevolently inclined, story-tellers and minstrels spread their mats and raised their enticing chants, the respective merits of contending crickets engaged the interest of the speculative, and a number of ingenious contrivances offered chances that could not fail—so far as the external appearance went—to be profitable even to the inexperienced if they but persisted long enough. It will thus be seen that almost all the simpler requirements of an ordinary person could be satisfied about the spot.
Ming Tseuen's venture differed essentially from all these occupations. In Nang-kau, as elsewhere, there might be found a variety of persons—chiefly the aged and infirm—who were suddenly inspired by a definite craving to perform a reasonable number of meritorious actions before they Passed Beyond. The mode of benevolence most esteemed consisted in preserving life or in releasing the innocent out of captivity, down even to the humblest creatures of their kind; for all the Sages and religious essayists of the past have approved these deeds of virtue as assured of celestial recognition. As it would manifestly be unwise for the aged and infirm to engage upon so ambiguous a quest haphazard—even if it did not actually bring them into conflict with the established law—those who were of Ming Tseuen's way of commerce had sought to provide an easy and mutually beneficial system by which so humane an impulse should be capable of wide and innocuous expression. This took the form of snaring alive a diversity of birds and lesser beings of the wild and offering them for sale, with a persuasive placard, attractively embellished with wise and appropriate sayings from the lips of the Philosophers, inviting those who were at all doubtful of their record in the Above World to acquire merit, while there was still time, by freeing a victim from its bondage; and so convincing were the arguments employed and so moderate the outlay involved when compared with the ultimate benefits to be received, that few who were feeling in any way unwell at the time were able to resist the allurement.
Owing to the poverty of his circumstances, Ming Tseuen was only able to furnish his stall with a few small birds of the less expensive sorts, but, to balance this deficiency, he could always traffic at a certain profit, for so devoted to his cause were the little creatures he displayed, as a result of his zealous attention to their natural wants, that when released they invariably returned after a judicious interval and took up their accustomed stations within the cage again. In such a manner the mornings became evenings and the days passed into moons, but though Ming sustained existence he could add little or nothing to his store.
Among the crowd that passed along the Way there were many who stopped from time to time before Ming Tseuen's stall to admire the plumage of his company of birds or to read the notice he exposed without any real intention of benefiting by the prospect he held out, and by long practice the one concerned could immediately detect their insincerity and avoid entering into a conversation which would inevitably be wasted. Thus imperceptibly the narration leads up to the appearance of Hya, an exceptionally graceful maiden of the house of Tai, whose willowy charm is only crudely indicated by the name of Orange Blossom then already bestowed upon her. Admittedly the part she had to play in this stage of Ming Tseuen's destiny was neither intricate nor deep, but by adding to the firmness of his purpose when the emergency arose she unwittingly supplied a final wedge. No less pointed than when he first fashioned it is the retort of the shrewd Tso-yan: "Not what he is but how he became it concerns the adjudicating gods."
Orange Blossom had more than once passed the stall of Ming Tseuen before the day when they encountered, and she had paused to observe the engaging movements of the band of feathered prisoners there, but for the reason already indicated he had not turned aside from whatever task he was then engaged on to importune her. When she spoke it was as though Ming for the first time then beheld her, and thenceforward his eyes did not forsake her face while she remained.
"How comes it, keeper of the cage, that your stall is destitute of custom," she inquired melodiously; "seeing that it is by far the most delightful of them all, while less than an arrow's flight away so gross a commerce as the baked extremities of pigs attracts a clamorous throng?"
"The explanation is twofold, gracious being," answered Ming, resolving for the future to abstain from the food she thus disparaged, though it was, indeed, his favourite dish. "In the first place it is as the destinies ordain; in the second it is still too early after daybreak for the elderly and weak to venture forth."
"Yet why should only the venerable and decrepit seek uprightness?" demanded the maiden, with a sympathetic gesture of reproach towards so illiberal an outlook. "Cannot the immature and stalwart equally aspire?"
"Your words are ropes of truth," assented Ming admiringly, "but none the less has it appropriately been written, 'At seventeen one may defy demons; at seventy he trembles merely at the smell of burning sulphur.' Doubtless, then, it is your humane purpose?" and partly from a wish to detain so incomparable a vision, and also because there was no reason why the encounter should not at the same time assume a remunerative bend, he directed her unfathomable eyes towards that detail of the scroll where the very moderate rates at which merit could be acquired were prominently displayed.
"Alas," exclaimed Hya no less resourcefully, "she who bears the purse is by now a distance to the west. Haply some other time"
"Perchance your venerated father or revered grandsire might be rejoiced to grasp the opportunity" he urged, but in the meanwhile the maiden had passed beyond his voice along the Way.
Ming would have remained in a high-minded contemplation, somewhat repaid to see, if not her distant outline, at least the direction in which she would progress, but almost at once the oleose Lieu was at his elbow.
"If," remarked that earthly-souled person with a cunning look, "you should happen to possess influence with the one who has just resumed her path, it might mean an appreciable stream of cash towards your threadbare sleeve. The amount of meat that she and her leisurely and opulent connection must require cannot be slight, and there is no reason why we should not secure the contract and divide the actual profit equally among us."
"So far from that being the case," replied Ming, in a markedly absent voice, "she to whom you quite gratuitously refer cannot even think of the obscene exhibits of your sordid industry without a refined shudder of polished loathing, and those of her house, though necessarily more robust, are doubtless similarly inclined. Reserve your carnivorous schemes for the gluttonous and trite, thou cloven-lipped, opaque-eyed puppy-snatcher."
Instead of directing a stream of like abuse in turn, as he might logically have done, the artless-minded Lieu flung his arms about the other's neck, and despite that one's unceasing protests embraced him repeatedly.
"Thus and thus was it with this person also, in the days of his own perfervid youth," declared the sympathetic dog-butcher when he ceased from the exertion. "She was the swan-like daughter of a lesser underling, and it was my custom to press into her expectant hand a skewer of meat when we encountered in the stress around the great door of the Temple. . . . But that was in the days before a mountain dragon altered the river’s course: doubtless by now she is the mother of a prolific race of grandsons and my name and bounty are forgotten."
"There is no possible similitude between the two," declared Ming Tseuen indignantly. "The refinement of this one is so excessive that she shivers at the very thought of food, and the offer of a skewer of meat would certainly throw her into a protracted torpor."
"How can that be maintained unless you have first made the essay?" demanded Lieu with undiminished confidence. "In these affairs it is often the least likely that respond phenomenally. Were it not that a notorious huckster is at this moment turning over my stock with widespread disparagement, I could astonish you out of the storehouse of my adventurous past. In the meanwhile, apply this salutary plaster to your rising ardour: could I have but shown five taels of silver, she whom I coveted was mine, and yet in the event she slipped hence from me; but this one of thine is by my certain information a daughter of the affluent house of Tai, and a golden chain and shackle would not bridge the space between her father's views and your own lowly station."
"Her place is set among the more brilliant stars," agreed Ming briefly. "Nevertheless," he added with a new-born note of hope, "is it not written within the Books, 'However far the heaven, the eye can reach it'?"
"Assuredly," replied Lieu, pausing in his departure to return a step, "the eye, Ming Tseuen—but not likewise the hand." And endeavouring to impart an added meaning to his words by a rapid movement of the nearer eyelid, the genial-witted dog-butcher went on his way, leaving Ming with an inward conviction that he was not a person of delicate perception or one with whom it would be well to associate too freely in the future.
It is aptly said, "After the lightning comes the thunder," and events of a momentous trend were by no means lagging behind Ming's steps that day. Even while he contended with the self-opinionated Lieu, in a distant quarter of the city a wealthy lacquer merchant, Kwok Shen by name, was seeking to shape afresh this obscure and unknown youth's immediate fate, urged by the pressing mould of his own insistent need. "It is easier for a gnat to bend a marble tower than for a man to turn destiny aside,” pronounced the Venerable, the Sagacious One, in the days when knowledge was, but how many now, in the moment of their test, acquiescently kowtow? Be that as it may, having perfected and rehearsed his crafty plans, Kwok Shen set out.
It was becoming dusk, and Ming Tseuen would shortly erect a barrier, when Kwok Shen drew near. As he approached the other glanced round, and seeing close at hand an elderly and not too vigorous merchant of the richer sort, he bowed obsequiously, for it was among these that his readiest custom lay. At the same time he recognised in Kwok Shen a stranger whom he had noticed observing him from a distance more than once on recent days, and undoubtedly this incident stirred an element of caution in his mind.
"May your ever-welcome shadow come to rest upon this ill-made stall," remarked Ming Tseuen auspiciously, and looking at him keenly Kwok Shen halted there. "It only remains for my sadly concave ears to drink in the music of your excessive orders," continued Ming. "Seven times seven felicities, esteemed."
"Greeting," replied Kwok Shen more concisely, though as an afterthought he passed the formal salutation, "Do your in-and-out taels overlap sufficiently?"
"'A shop can be opened on pretension, but ability alone can keep it open,'" quoted Ming Tseuen in reply, although, not to create the impression of negligent prosperity, he added, "Yet the shrub one waters is ever more attractive than the forest cedar."
"Admittedly," agreed the merchant politely, for not having applied the leisure of his youth to an assimilation of the Classics, he felt himself becoming immersed in a stream beyond his depth and one that was carrying him away from the not too straightforward object of his quest. "Your literary versatility is worthy of all praise, but for the moment let us confine ourselves to the precise if less resonant terms of commercial usage," he suggested. "Here is a piece of silver for your immediate profit. Thus our meeting cannot involve you in loss and it may quickly tend to your incredible advancement."
"Proceed, munificence, proceed," exclaimed the delighted Ming. "You speak a tongue that both the scholar and the witless can grasp at once," and he transferred the money to his inner sleeve.
"Is there about this spot a tea-house of moderate repute, one affected neither by the keepers of the stalls nor by the most successful class of traders, where we can talk unheard and at our leisure?"
"Almost within sight the tea-house of the Transitory Virtues offers what you describe. Had the invitation come from me, a somewhat less pretentious one might have been chosen, but doubtless to a person of your transparent wealth"
"Lead on," said Kwok Shen consequentially. "The one beside you is not accustomed to divide a mouse among four guests," and having thus plainly put beyond all question that the settlement did not affect himself, Ming was content to show the way.
The conversation that ensued was necessarily a slow and dignified proceeding. Kwok Shen had so much to conceal, and Ming Tseuen had so much to learn before he knew what it was prudent to admit, that for an appreciable period their intercourse was confined to pressing an interminable succession of cups of tea upon each other. Ming, however, had the advantage of his literary abilities, which enabled him to converse for an indefinite time upon a subject without expressing himself in any way about it, while Kwok Shen laboured under the necessity of having to achieve a specific issue.
The position, as presently outlined by the merchant, stood thus at its essential angles. He was, as he dedared, a trader in gums and resins, and by a system of the judicious blending of his several wares at that stage his fortunes were assured. Being of an easy-going and abstemious nature, one wife alone had satisfied his needs, and she in turn had lavished all her care upon an only son, to whom the name of San had been applied. Stricken by an obscure malady this one had languished, and in spite of what every healing art could do had lately Passed Above.
Kwok Shen suitably indicated by means of his facecloth and a discarded plate that the effect of the blow upon himself had been calamitous, but when he spoke of the despair of the lesser one of his inner chamber his voice practically ceased to have any sound attached to it. Very soon every interest in life forsook her; she sank into an unnatural langour and not even the cry of a passing comb vendor or the sound of earthenware being shattered by the household slaves moved her to action. The investigation of skilled exorcists, those who had made the malignant humours their especial lore, all tended to one end: without delay another should be found to take the lost one's place and thereby restore the Immortal principles of equilibrity whose disturbance had unbalanced the afflicted mind. To this project she who was most concerned had at last agreed, stipulating, however, that the substitute should bear an exact resemblance to the departed San.
Beyond this point there could be no feasible concealment of the part that Ming Tseuen would be called upon to play, and that person's alert mind began to prepare itself for the arrangement. He had already composed the set terms of his aged father's anguish and chosen a suitable apophthegm to describe his broken-down mother's tears when the words of Kwok Shen's persuasive voice recalled him.
"At the moment of abandoning the search as hopeless, chance led this one's dejected feet into the market here. When these misguided eyes first rested on your noble outward form, for a highly involved moment it was as though some ambiguous Force must have conveyed there the one we mourned, for his living presentment seemed to stand revealed. So complicated became the emotions that this person returned home at once, unable for the time to arrange his sequences adequately. Since then he has more than once come secretly and stood apart, observing from a distance, and each occasion has added a more imperviable lacquer to the surface of his first impression. In, the meanwhile, not from any want of confidence let it be freely stated, but solely in order to enlarge our knowledge of one so precious in our sight, a series of discreet inquiries have been made. Rest assured, therefore, Ming Tseuen, that everything connected with your orphaned life and necessitous circumstances is known. Lo, I have bared the recesses of my private mind; let your answering word be likewise free from guile."
"How shall the drooping lotus bargain with the sender of the rain?" replied Ming Tseuen becomingly. "I put myself implicitly within your large and open hand. . . . Any slight details of adjustment can be more suitably proposed after hearing the exact terms of your princely liberality."
By this sudden and miraculous arisement it came to pass that Ming Tseuen was at once received into Kwok Shen's sumptuously appointed house as his adopted son. No less enchanted than bewildered by the incredible resemblance was she of the inner chamber when the moment came, and together the merchant and his wife sought to mould Ming's habits to an even closer fiction of the one whose name he now assumed.
"At such a rebuke from menial lips he whom we indicate unnamed was wont to extend a contumacious tongue," perchance it might on one occasion be, and, "His manner of pronouncing 'tsze' was thus," upon another. All San's toys and possessions accrued to Ming's unquestioned use and he occupied the sleeping chamber of the one whose robes he daily wore. While kindly and indulgent on every other point, Kwok Shen imposed one close restraint.
"It is not seemly that a merchant having this and that to his position should be compelled to traffic for an heir among the garbage of the market stalls, though necessity, as it is said, can make a blind beggar see," observed the one concerned. "It would be still more lamentable that this abasement should be known to those around. For that reason we shall shortly go hence into another place, where our past will be obscured; meanwhile let the four outer walls of this not incommodious hovel mark the limits of your discovering feet and within them hold no word of converse with any from outside whom you chance to meet. In this respect I speak along an iron rule that shall measure the thickness of a single hair of deviation."
"Your richly mellow voice stays with me when your truly graceful form is absent on a journey," replied Ming submissively. "As the renowned Hung Wu is stated to have said"
"He who is wanting from our midst was not prone to express himself in terms of classical analogy," corrected Kwok Shen graciously, and Ming dutifully refrained.
It was not long before Ming Tseuen had occasion to recall this charge, but as he was then in his own chamber with none other by, its obligation was not so rigorous as it might otherwise have seemed. He had drawn aside a stool that he might open a small shutter and look out, but the Way beneath was austere and void of entertainmerit, so that he would have retired again, when one somewhat younger than himself went by, propelling along his path an empty can.
"Ae ya, image-face!" he exclaimed, seeing Ming there and stopping to regard him acrimoniously. "So thou art still among us despite the pursuing demon, art thou? Where is the kite in the form of a vampire with outstretched wings for which I bargained with thee?"
"There is no kite such as you describe, nor have I ever bargained with you for it," retorted Ming, who might require the kite for his own future use. "Further, it is not permitted that I should hold converse with another."
"There is the kite, for these deficient hands have held the cord that stayed it, and touching the bargain we together ate the bag of dragon's-eyes that were the price of its surrender. Haply you think, O crafty son of the ever two-faced house of Kwok, because you are fated shortly to Pass Hence, thus to avoid your just engagements?"
A breath of mistrust stirred certain doubts that lingered in Ming's mind. He looked east and west along the Way and saw that none approached; from the house behind no disturbing sound arose.
"What air have you lately breathed," he ventured amicably, "in that for some time past you have been absent from the city?"
"What pungent fish is this that you thus trail?" demanded the other scornfully. "Never was I beyond Nangkau since the day my mother had me. Doubtless you hope to lead my mind away from the matter of the vampire kite—may the dragon's-eyes lie cankerous on thy ill-nurtured stomach!"
"Nay, but my heart is clear of any guile," protested Ming resourcefully, "in token whereof here is a cake of honey, freely to thy hand. Yet how comes it that you know of the destiny awaiting this untimely one?"
"Why, it is the great talk among the inner chambers of this quarter of the city, and there is much concern as to the means by which the supple paint-peddler within will strive to avert the doom."
"What do men say?" asked Ming, veiling his misgivings.
"They say little; but their lesser ones industriously supply that lack."
"And to what end?" demanded Ming more urgently.
"The general trend is that the Fates will in due course prevail," replied the one outside, speaking with an air of agreeable anticipation despite the honey cake he fed on, "for it is recalled that when the wily mastic-monger had you adopted to the Temple banyan tree, to secure for you a powerful advocate, the hostile Ones were strong enough by a lightning flash to cleave it to the ground and leave you shieldless. Glad am I, Kwok San, that for me the geomancers foretold the threefold happiness. . . . To whom will go your bow and golden arrows, O estimable San?"
"To thee, without doubt, out of deep mutual friendship," Ming made reply in haste. "Touching this fate—when is the day"
"I cannot stay—one stronger than myself draws nigh and the fair remnant of this cake"
"But the bow and golden arrows"
"Another day perchance" came back the lessening voice, and pursuing feet sped by.
Ming Tseuen replaced the shutter and sat down. A variety of noteworthy sayings from the lips of Sages of the past occurred to his retentive mind, but although many of these were of gem-like lustre, none seemed at the moment to offer him the exact solution that his position called for. What outline that position took he was now perfectly assured—the chance encounter with that one outside had moulded vaporous doubt into a compact certainty. Kwok Shen had played a double part throughout. His son had not Passed Hence at all, but the foretellers had divined that he lived beneath the influence of some malignant spirit and that at a predicted hour its vengeance would be wrought. Driven from one protection to another, accident, in the form of his own peculiar likeness, had given into a distracted father's hand a final and decisive means to baffle its perceptions. The device was one of high classical authority and in like case Ming Tseuen would himself have hastened to adopt it, but, as the adage rightly says, "What is defence to Ho-ping is to Ping-ho defiance."
There was still time doubtless to turn his knowledge into flight; the outer door might now be barred, but he could at a stress project his body through the shutter. Truly, but what lay beyond? Everywhere Kwok Shen's bitter vengeance would pursue him and on a thousand facile pretexts could betray him to the Torments.
Nor, apart, was the idea of flight congenial to his active resolution. After a time of penury he had at length experienced a course of ease which he would willingly prolong up to its farthest limit. Among these hopes there twined, perchance, the form of Hya, of the house of Tai. If, ran his most persuasive thought, by any means he could outwit the invading demon and preserve himself alive, might not the liberality of Kwok Shen be deeply stirred and all things wear a brighter face thenceforward? The deliberate way in which the snare had been exposed to him revealed that his own protective Forces were even now on the alert.
These varied facts had held Ming Tseuen for a flight of time involving hours when an unusual sound, slight but insistent, at the shutter overhead recalled him to the moment. Scarcely daring to hope that it was that other now returned again, he drew the footstool to the wall and cautiously looked out. The cloud of night had gathered, but the great sky lantern hung above and by its beams Ming saw another, such as he himself, standing below.
"Who art thou standing there?" he whispered down, "and wherefore are you come?"
"I would see you face to face," replied a voice no less well guarded. "Thrust forth thy arm that I may clamber up."
"Stay while I get a worthier hold," responded Ming, and having done so complied. The one outside made good his claim, and twisting through the space adroitly they fell upon the floor together. As they got up the other laughed, and standing thus apart regarded Ming.
"Canst thou not guess?" he demanded artlessly. "I am that San, heir of the one who is lord here, and this is my own chamber. I know who you are though I must not speak the name. So that is as I am!" and he continued to regard Ming closely.
"Should he chance to come this way our skins will bear witness of the meeting to the day when that last measurement is taken," observed Ming darkly; then going to the door he pushed home the wedge above the latch so that none could enter.
"That I well know," admitted San, "but we shall have warning by his sonorous breathing from afar and you can then speed me through the shutter."
"True," agreed Ming. "Yet whence are you?"
"For seven days and nearly seven days more I have dwelt at the elder Kong's, under a very strict injunction that confines me there. But I may not tell thee why."
"Then how comes it now that you have disobeyed?"
"The way is left unguarded and I adventured down. There came an irk to see the one who was, I heard him say, the double image of my living self—and as I likewise heard it would be to late to-morrow."
Ming Tseuen did not waver in his listless poise nor did he vary the unconcerned expression of his features.
"Why should to-morrow be too late?" he asked neglectfully.
"That I could tell also, but I will not lest you should guess too much," wisely replied the other. "But give heed to this: my shutter opens on an empty space where none pass by, and beneath it stands a water-cask on poles by which I scrambled down. Couldst thou have done as much?"
"If it gives you the foothold to descend, I doubt not that I could get up again," said Ming consideringly. "What is the place called where the elder Kong abides?"
"It has the symbol of a leaping goat and stands against the water-gate, a short space to the east—but why should you seek to know?" demanded San.
"I do not seek to know save in the light of converse," answered Ming, feeling his cautious path. "There is something to talk about in this exploit of thine—few of like age could have achieved it. And to have learned so much that would only be spoken of behind barred doors reveals a special aptness."
"As to that," declared the other proudly, "there is a passage close against the inner room where he and she recline that has a moving board unknown to them. Hadst thou not found it yet?"
"What need had I, seeing that we two are alike in everything, so that the one should tell all to the other?"
"That does not rejoice my face entirely," decided San, after he had thought upon it. "For seven days now and almost seven days more you have possessed my toys, while I in turn have been bereft of yours. . . . Where is my phœnix upon wheels whose place was here? Have you incapably destroyed it?"
"Not I," declared Ming Tseuen, though mildly. "It is laid by. This person is too old for such immature devices."
"How so?" demanded San indignantly. "My years are twelve, while among the outside I freely pass for more. How many years are thine?"
"Mine are somewhat more, though I freely pass for less," admitted Ming. "Therein we meet upon a middle ground."
"Further," continued San vaingloriously, "I am affianced to a virtuous maiden of the worthy house of Tai, whom I shall in due course marry and have a hundred strong sons of my own. Are you"
"Which one is that—this maiden?" interposed Ming Tseuen, more sharply than his wont.
"How should I say—not having ever seen her? But she has a sweet-smelling name and all the nine delights. Are you thus pledged or married?"
"Not yet," admitted Ming, “but I may some day attain it."
"I do not think so—though more I may not say lest I should tell too much. . . . Why, when I move my head or hand, do you do likewise also, and why should you change your voice to follow mine?"
"Consider the gladness of thy father's eyes when even he fails to discriminate between us," replied Ming, with an appropriate gesture such as San would use, and speaking with the counterpart of that one's voice. "Is it not—but hasten, one approaches from the inner hall. Here! Crouch quickly down behind this screen and eat your breath, or much bamboo awaits us!" Ming Tseuen only paused for a single beat of time to assure himself that San was adequately concealed before he sought to unwedge the door. Before he could reach it the latch was tried and the handle shaken.
"Why is the door barred against this person's coming, seeing that you have not yet had your nightly cup of wine?" inquired the one who stood there, a close attendant on Kwok Shen himself. "This is not apt, O San."
"I had forgot," replied Ming sleepily. "My mind is strange and dubious to-night. Regard it not, accommodating Tsoi."
"That may well be," assented Tsoi, with a hasty glance around and fingering a written charm he wore upon his wrist protectively. "For as I came I seemed to hear resentful voices in the air, and qualmous rustlings."
"Those also," agreed Ming more wakefully. "And wind-swirls overhead and beating wings, with sudden shrieks of mirth and other unclean sounds. What do these things portend, much-knowing?"
"I may not stay—he bade me hasten back," replied the weak-kneed Tsoi, taking a firm grasp upon the handle of the door. "This cup is from his own preparing hand. May you float tranquil in the Middle Air tonight!"
"May your constituents equalise harmoniously!" responded Ming, and they heard him bar the door on the outer side and marked his speedy footsteps down the passage.
"I also would withdraw," exclaimed San, coming forth and in a sudden tremor. "That matter of the creatures of the air did not appease my inner organs. I had not thought of that. Nor was the door barred thus when I slept here."
"Peace," said Ming reassuringly; "I have a new and most alluring artifice to show you yet. Where is the vampire kite that has a trusty cord attached? It turns on that."
"I do not care. I will not stay; at least, I will not stay unless you share with me the wine that Tsoi has brought. I was wont to have a cup of sweet spiced wine each night, and thou hast had it here while there I have had none."
"The wine: assuredly. That is but fair," agreed Ming Tseuen. He had already raised it to his lips to quell a sudden thirst that parched his throat, but now he turned aside to wipe his mouth and then held out the cup. "Your engaging moderation fills me with despair. Put my self-reproach at ease by drinking all."
"Yea; that is but fair," repeated San approvingly, "seeing how long you have enjoyed it. . . . It has a bitterish taste that was not wont to be."
"The rarer kinds of wine are often thus; it indicates a special sort of excellence."
"But this weighs down my eyes and sways my mind," objected San, with twitching limbs already. "It begins to burn my mouth. . . . I will not drink the rest."
"Consider well," urged Ming, “how humiliated would be the one who sent the wine if any should be left."
"I cannot Why does the room thus spin"
"Cannot!" protested Ming, and by a swift and sudden move he held the other's head and raised the wine until the cup was empty. "Cannot! But see, thou hast!"
"That was not well," gasped San, turning to bite the hand that held him, ere he fell senseless to the ground. "To-night thou art outdone, misgotten dog!"
"Perchance; but the deities ordain," acquiesced Ming trustfully, "and this works to an end." He continued to regard the one stretched at his feet, and then he turned to wedge the door inside and to listen for a moment to the sounds about the house. San had not stirred nor did he move again.
"Much of this arises from an ordinary person interfering with the guiding hand of destiny," was the burden of Ming's thoughts, for in addition to his other qualities the one in question was both reverent and devout. "Even had he been content to leave matters at a middle stage there is no telling what the outer end might not have been, but by so ordering the wine that the demon should definitely understand that his vengeance was complete, the too painstaking Kwok Shen has stumbled. Yet with one so consistently inept it will be well to certify assurance."
Accordingly he took San up and raised him to a couch, and pressing a cushion down upon his face he held it firmly there. Meanwhile, as he waited for his self-imposed task to be complete, his grateful heart rejoiced:
"Plainly the spirits of my hitherto unknown but henceforth venerated ancestors have been at work and brought this thing to pass. Henceforth I will sacrifice to their very useful memories on a really worthy scale, nor will outside and comparatively second-rate deities be forgotten, so that all who have upheld my cause will receive something solid in return. Never again let it impiously be said, 'He who sets out to make his fortune should leave his gods at home.' Has not this person maintained integrity throughout and, behold, his poverty is changed to affluence, affectionate and influential parents are raised up to take the place of those whom he has never known, and the loadstar of all earthly desire is automatically reserved to minister to his future happiness? Assuredly there is more in this than formless chance."
By this time there could no longer be any reasonable doubt that Ming Tseuen's task was done. With a seemly regard in the observance he despoiled San of his robe and all he carried, wrapping the one that he had worn around him in return, and he also made certain changes in the room of a consistent nature. Then he drew himself up to the shutter and cautiously looked out. The way was clear and the great sky lantern for a moment auspiciously withheld her light; Ming Tseuen dropped noiselessly to earth, and again reverently committing himself to the protection of his necessarily anonymous ancestors, he turned his trusting footsteps towards the elder Kong's, by the water-gate, a short distance to the east.
Ravenscourt Park, 1923.