The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack. Achmed Abdullah

Fifth Science Fiction Megapack

      The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack

      The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

      The Robert Sheckley Megapack

      The Steampunk Megapack

      The Time Travel Megapack

      The Wizard of Oz Megapack

      HORROR

      The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

      The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack

      The E.F. Benson Megapack

      The Second E.F. Benson Megapack

      The Algernon Blackwood Megapack

      The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack

      The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack

      The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack

      The Ghost Story Megapack

      The Second Ghost Story Megapack

      The Third Ghost Story Megapack

      The Haunts & Horrors Megapack

      The Horror Megapack

      The M.R. James Megapack

      The Macabre Megapack

      The Second Macabre Megapack

      The Mummy Megapack

      The Occult Detective Megapack

      The Vampire Megapack

      The Werewolf Megapack

      WESTERNS

      The B.M. Bower Megapack

      The Max Brand Megapack

      The Buffalo Bill Megapack

      The Cowboy Megapack

      The Zane Grey Megapack

      The Western Megapack

      The Second Western Megapack

      The Wizard of Oz Megapack

      YOUNG ADULT

      The Boys’ Adventure Megapack

      The Dan Carter, Cub Scout Megapack

      The Doll Story Megapack

      The G.A. Henty Megapack

      The Girl Detectives Megapack

      The Penny Parker Megapack

      The Pinocchio Megapack

      The Rover Boys Megapack

      The Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Megapack

      The Tom Swift Megapack

      AUTHOR MEGAPACKS

      The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

      The Edward Bellamy Megapack

      The B.M. Bower Megapack

      The E.F. Benson Megapack

      The Second E.F. Benson Megapack

      The Algernon Blackwood Megapack

      The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack

      The Max Brand Megapack

      The First Reginald Bretnor Megapack

      The Wilkie Collins Megapack

      The Ray Cummings Megapack

      The Guy de Maupassant Megapack

      The Philip K. Dick Megapack

      The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack

      The Jacques Futrelle Megapack

      The Randall Garrett Megapack

      The Second Randall Garrett Megapack

      The Anna Katharine Green Megapack

      The Zane Grey Megapack

      The Edmond Hamilton Megapack

      The Dashiell Hammett Megapack

      The M.R. James Megapack

      The Selma Lagerlof Megapack

      The Murray Leinster Megapack

      The Second Murray Leinster Megapack

      The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack

      The Talbot Mundy Megapack

      The Andre Norton Megapack

      The H. Beam Piper Megapack

      The Mack Reynolds Megapack

      The Rafael Sabatini Megapack

      The Saki Megapack

      The Robert Sheckley Megapack

      OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY

      The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany Megapack”)

      The Wildside Book of Fantasy

      The Wildside Book of Science Fiction

      Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories

      More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories

      X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries

      THE EVENING RICE

      Up there in the gray North a great triple tomb thrusts its frowning parapet obliquely into space. On its outer walls, to left and right of the entrance, are bas-reliefs in sea-green majolica, representing five-claw, imperial dragons.

      It is the Fu-Ling, the Happy and August Tomb, where lies the T’ai Tzu, the Nurhachi, the Iron-capped Prince, the founder of the Manchu dynasty, who centuries ago swept out of the barren Central Asian wastes at the head of his host of red-skinned, flat-nosed horsemen, and turned placid China into a crimson shambles.

      Last year the hereditary keeper of the sacred tomb, a Ch’i-jen, a Manchu bannerman, sold it to a moon-faced Chinese farmer for a lean sack of clipped silver taels. Next year it will house the farmer’s squealing, red-bristled pigs.

      And still the Manchu has his sword and the strength of his sword-arm; still the moon-faced coolie is a coward who shrinks at the swish and crackle of naked steel.

      Yet, next year, the pigs will dirty the tomb’s yellow imperial tiles. And the pigs, too, are symbolic—and necessary. For what is the evening rice without a few slivers of fried pork?

      * * **

      The last time Ng Ch’u had seen him had been nearly forty years earlier in the squat little Manchu-Chinese border town of Ninguta, in the hushed shelter of an enameled pagoda-roof that mirrored the sun-rays a thousandfold, like countless intersecting rainbows—endless zigzag flashings of electric blue and deep rose and keen, arrogant, glaucous-green, like the shooting of dragon-flies and purple-winged tropical moths. There had been murder in the other’s, the Manchu’s, eyes; murder in the hairy, brown fist that curled about broad, glistening steel.

      But on that day he, the despised Chinese coolie, had had the whip-hand.

      “A Manchu you are!” he had said; and his eyes had glistened triumphantly through meager almond slits. “A Manchu indeed! A Pao-i bannerman, an aristocrat—sloughing your will and your passions as snakes cast their skin, brooking no master but yourself and the black desert thunder! And I am only a mud-turtle from the land of Han.” He had sucked in his breath. “But—” he had continued; had slurred and stopped.

      “But?”

      “But—there