Kai Lung's Golden Hours. Bramah Ernest

activity on the part of our protecting ancestors.”

      “The devotional side of the emergency has had this one’s early care,” remarked Hwa-mei. “From daybreak to-morrow six zealous and deep-throated monks will curse Ming-shu and all his ways unceasingly, while a like number will invoke blessings and success upon your enlightened head. In the matter of noise and illumination everything that can contribute has been suitably prepared.”

      “It is difficult to conjecture what more could be done in that direction,” confessed Kai Lung gratefully.

      “Yet as regards a more material effort—?” suggested the maiden, amid a cloud of involving doubt.

      “If there is a subject in which the imagination of the Mandarin Shan Tien can be again enmeshed it might be yet accomplished,” replied Kai Lung. “Have you a knowledge of any such deep concern?”

      “Truly there is a matter that disturbs his peace of late. He has dreamed a dream three times, and its meaning is beyond the skill of any man to solve. Yet how shall this avail you who are no geomancer?”

      “What is the nature of the dream?” inquired Kai Lung. “For remember, ‘Though Shen-fi has but one gate, many roads lead to it.’ ”

      “The substance of the dream is this: that herein he who sleeps walks freely in the ways of men wearing no robe or covering of any kind, yet suffering no concern or indignity therefrom; that the secret and hidden things of the earth are revealed to his seeing eyes; and that he can float in space and project himself upon the air at will. These three things are alien to his nature, and being three times repeated, the uncertainty assails his ease.”

      “Let it, under your persistent care, assail him more and that unceasingly,” exclaimed Kai Lung, with renewed lightness in his voice. “Breathe on the surface of his self-repose as a summer breeze moves the smooth water of a mountain lake—not deeply, but never quite at rest. Be assured: it is no longer possible to doubt that powerful Beings are interested in our cause.”

      “I go, oppressed one,” replied Hwa-mei. “May this period of your ignoble trial be brought to a distinguished close.”

      On the following day at the appointed hour Cho-kow was led before the Mandarin Shan Tien, and the nature of his crimes having been explained to him by the contemptible Ming-shu, he was bidden to implicate Kai Lung and thus come to an earlier and less painful end.

      “All-powerful,” he replied, addressing himself to the Mandarin, “the words that have been spoken are bent to a deceptive end. They of our community are a simple race and doubtless in the past their ways were thus and thus. But, as it is truly said, ‘Tian went bare, his eyes could pierce the earth and his body float in space, but they of his seed do but dream the dream.’ We, being but the puny descendants—”

      “You have spoken of one Tian whose attributes were such, and of those who dream thereof,” interrupted the Mandarin, as one who performs a reluctant duty. “That which you adduce to uphold your cause must bear the full light of day.”

      “Alas, omnipotence,” replied Cho-kow, “this concerns the doing of the gods and those who share their line. Now I am but an ill-conditioned outcast from the obscure land of Khim, and possess no lore beyond what happens there. Haply the gods that rule in Khim have a different manner of behaving from those in the Upper Air above Yu-ping, and this person’s narration would avoid the semblance of the things that are and he himself would thereby be brought to disrepute.”

      “Suffer not that apprehension to retard your impending eloquence,” replied Shan Tien affably. “Be assured that the gods have exactly the same manner of behaving in every land.”

      “Furthermore,” continued Cho-kow, with patient craft, “I am a man of barbarian tongue, the full half of my speech being foreign to your ear. The history of the much-accomplished Tian and the meaning of the dreams that mark those of his race require for a full understanding the subtle analogies of an acquired style. Now that same Kai Lung whom you have implicated to my band—”

      “Excellence!” protested Ming-shu, with a sudden apprehension in his throat, “yesterday our labours dissolved in air through the very doubtful precedent of allowing one to testify what he had had the intention to relate. Now we are asked to allow a tomb-haunter to call a parricide to disclose that which he himself is ignorant of. Press down your autocratic thumb—”

      “Alas, instructor,” interposed Shan Tien compassionately, “the sympathetic concern of my mind overflows upon the spectacle of your ill-used forbearance, yet you having banded together the two in a common infamy, it is the ancient privilege of this one to call the other to his cause. We are but the feeble mouthpieces of a benevolent scheme of all-embracing justice and greatly do I fear that we must again submit.”

      With these well-timed words the broad-minded personage settled himself more reposefully among his cushions and signified that Kai Lung should be led forward and begin.

      The Story of Ning, the Captive God, and the Dreams

       that mark his Race

       i. THE MALICE OF THE DEMON, LEOU

      When Sun Wei definitely understood that the deities were against him (for on every occasion his enemies prospered and the voice of his own authority grew less), he looked this way and that with a well-considering mind.

      He did nothing hastily, but when once a decision was reached it was as unbending as iron and as smoothly finished as polished jade. At about the evening hour when others were preparing to offer sacrifice he took the images and the altars of his Rites down from their honourable positions and cast them into a heap on a waste expanse beyond his courtyard. Then with an axe he unceremoniously detached their incomparable limbs from their sublime bodies and flung the parts into a fire that he had prepared.

      “It is better,” declared Sun Wei, standing beside the pile, his hands buried within his sleeves—“it is better to be struck down at once, rather than to wither away slowly like a half-uprooted cassia-tree.”

      When this act of defiance was reported in the Upper World the air grew thick with the cries of indignation of the lesser deities, and the sound of their passage as they projected themselves across vast regions of space and into the presence of the supreme N’guk was like the continuous rending of innumerable pieces of the finest silk.

      In his musk-scented heaven, however, N’guk slept, as his habit was at the close of each celestial day. It was with some difficulty that he could be aroused and made to understand the nature of Sun Wei’s profanity, for his mind was dull with the smoke of never-ending incense.

      “To-morrow,” he promised, with a benignant gesture, turning over again on his crystal throne, “some time to-morrow impartial justice shall be done. In the meanwhile—courteous dismissal attend your opportune footsteps.”

      “He is becoming old and obese,” murmured the less respectful of the demons. “He is not the god he was, even ten thousand cycles ago. It were well—”

      “But, omnipotence,” protested certain conciliatory spirits, pressing to the front, “consider, if but for a short breath of time. A day here is as threescore of their years as these mortals live. By to-morrow night not only Sun Wei, but most of those now dwelling down below, will have Passed Beyond. But the story of his unpunished infamy will live. We shall become discredited and our altar fires extinct. Sacrifice of either food or raiment will cease to reach us. The Season of White Rain is approaching and will find us ill provided. We who speak are but Beings of small part—”

      “Peace!” commanded N’guk, now thoroughly disturbed, for the voices of the few had grown into a tumult; “how is it possible to consider with a torrent like the Hoang-Ho in flood pouring through my very ordinary ears? Your omniscient but quite inadequate Chief would think.”

      At this rebuke the uproar ceased. So deep became the nature of N’guk’s profound thoughts that they could be heard rolling like thunder among the caverns of his gigantic brain. To aid the process, female slaves on either side fanned his fiery head with