BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 10
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
He looked anxiously for the gathering signs of habitation that would indicate a village street (for a feeling of inadequacy in all his attributes was beginning to assail him), but finding none and fearing to miss the settlement on the one foot or to increase his weary march upon the other, he turned aside, meaning to greet the loiterer whom he had already noted. When he had approached sufficiently near to observe the detail, he saw that what the stranger carried was a coffin.
“Alas,” exclaimed Kai Lung, “is this, then, so insalubrious a region that, when a man goes about his daily task, he takes with him the equipment for his obsequies? What scope is there for the story-teller’s art in a spot so far removed from gravity-dispersal or the leisured amenities of life?” Yet, there being none else to question and no abode in sight, he continued on toward him. When the other perceived Kai Lung’s approaching form, he laid down the burden off his shoulders and advanced to meet him.
“Welcome to this unattractive wilderness,” he remarked hospitably. “Your becoming name and the number of your blameless years would be an agreeable subject for conversation.”
“I am of the worthless house of Kai, my forbidding name being Lung,” was the reply. “As regards my years—they have been few and quite devoid of interest, as this immature pigtail will readily disclose. Now, as regards your own distinguished self?”
“Thang am I, my father’s name being presumably illustrious but unfortunately misplaced,” replied the other. “My ill-spent age exceeds twoscore by one. By ceaseless toil, I wrest a feeble livelihood from this tenacious soil.”
“The occupation is a venerated one in our enlightened land, being only second, both as regards honour and inadequacy of reward, to the literary calling,” replied Kai Lung. “And touching that same office—as between one necessitous person and another—is there within not too great a distance from this well-favoured spot a refined community who by some stratagem or other may be drawn together to listen to an epic from the masterpieces, with a reasonable outlook of the narrator being finally rewarded in one form or another?”
“A community!” exclaimed the stranger, enlarging both his eyes. “Know, traveller, that the one before you and those beneath his crumbling roof live so remote that they do not see an outside face from one moon to another. Whence, therefore, could even a sprinkling of bystanders be obtained to listen to your pleasing voice?”
“If this is so,” observed Kai Lung dispassionately, “the voice to which you so flatteringly refer will very soon cease forever. Yet how comes it that you who are an alert and vigorous man have selected a region at once so desert and remote?”
’That,” replied the peasant, “is to conform to the integral fitness of things. In his milk days, the one before you listened with becoming deference to the conversation of persons of every rank of life and studied what they said. From what he heard, when they were speaking freely, it was at once plain that he himself was so beneath all others both as regards the virtues and attainments that it was only seemly for him to withdraw and live apart. Accordingly, selecting a lesser one as unworthy as himself, he retired unpretentiously to this forgotten spot; for it is related of it that after the First Celestial Emperor had formed the earth, he wiped his toil-stained hands upon his heaven-born thighs, and this is what fell from him. Being neither earth, heaven, nor the region Down Below, it was ignored by the deities and protective Forces, so that here there are no winds, dews, spontaneous growth, nor variable seasons.”
“Are there then no evilly disposed Beings either?” inquired Kai Lung with interest.
“For some reason or other, they abound,” admitted Thang. “Thus, in spite of what a fostering care could do, our only he-child—one who seemed destined by his fearless and engaging nature to raise a squalid Line to something like an equality with others—came under the malign influence of a resentful Spectre that drew his breath away…It is his coffined form that I am carrying from place to place to find, if possible, a spot immune from harmful spirits.”
“May the Many-eyed One guide your footsteps!” voiced Kai Lung with a look of wide compassion. “Your condition is a hapless one. For how, being thus bereft, will your weak and trembling shade, when you shall have yourself Passed Beyond, obtain either food or raiment?”
“That is very true, but is it not tolerantly written, ’Even a mole can turn its eyes upward?’ Within my stricken hut, two sadly deficient she-children still remain. If some lenient-minded youth can be persuaded to marry one of these, he may, when in a charitable vein, include my shivering ghost in the offerings he transmits. As I am well inured to privation here below, it is only reasonable to suppose that what is, after all, little more than an unsubstantial outline, will be satisfied with even less.”
“It is aptly said, ’The strongest tower is built of single bricks,’ and your steadfast attitude justifies the saying,” remarked Kai Lung. “Did I possess anything beyond a general feeling of concavity I would pleasurably contribute to your store. As it is, I endow you with the confident prediction that your upright House will flourish. Farewell, esteemed.” With these words and a deferential bow, in which he contrived to indicate his sympathetic outlook toward the other’s unenviable lot and a regret that the circumstances had not conspired toward their more enduring friendship, the weary story-teller turned to resume the hopeless struggle of his onward march. An unpretentious voice recalled him.
“Hitherto, a sense of insufficiency restrained me,” explained the lowly Thang; “for judging from the fullness of your garb and the freedom of your manner, I thought you to be a rich official, travelling at ease. If, however, as certainly your words may be taken to suggest, you are not really so well-equipped and can offer no reward for that which is really worthless, I am emboldened to beg your high-born acceptance of the inadequate resources of my makeshift home. The more you can consume, the less will be this self-conscious person’s shame at the insipidity of what he puts before you; the longer you can tolerate his worn-out roof, the greater will be the confidence with which he can henceforth continue to dwell beneath it.”
“Yet your humane task?” urged Kai Lung, in spite of the despair of his position. “Should so slight a thing as the extremity of a passing stranger interrupt your rites?”
“About the city gate are many beggars, but on the plains all men meet as brothers,” was Thang’s reply. “Furthermore,” he added prudently, “were you to die about this spot, the duty of providing you with a suitable bestowal would devolve on me, and even then your annoyed and thirsty ghost might haunt my door.”
“But you spoke of destitution. If less than a sufficiency for your own stock exists, how should another—”
“Where four can stand at all, five can just squeeze,” replied the accommodating Thang. “Unless my repellent face displeases you beyond endurance, the last word of ceremonious denial has been uttered.”
When they were come to the peasant’s hut, Thang excused himself on a simple plea for passing in before his guest. From the approaching path Kai Lung soon overheard the reason.
“It had been our natural hope to spend the night in grief and lamentation, but chance has sent another—even more faint and needy than ourselves—to share our scanty hearth. Sorrow must therefore be banished to a more appropriate time, and in the meanwhile nothing should escape to dim the lustre of his welcome in this stranger’s eyes.”
A lesser voice replied, graceful yet docile:
“Where the ox clears a way, the sheep can surely follow…There is a little cake which I had secretly prepared of fruit and sifted meal, put by against the joy-day of our two remaining dear ones. This will to some extent disguise the leanness of our ill-spread board, and toward it we can ourselves affect a cloyed repugnance.”
“We,” said a still smaller voice, “will cheerfully forego our separate share to relieve the stranger’s need…Have I not spoken with your polished tongue, Chalcedony?”
“Your fragrant words, O Musk, are my own feeble thoughts well set to music,” was the equally melodious answer.
“Then are we all agreed”—it was now Thang again. “Conduct the politely awaiting stranger to a seat beneath our ragged thatch, ye two uncouth afflictions, while I go hence to gather such decaying herbs as our stubborn ground affords.”
Kai Lung had moved to a more distant part—so that he should not seem to betray too gross an interest in the details of what was being prepared for his enjoyment—when the two sympathetic she-children approached together. Being dressed alike and so moulded that they varied in no single detail, it was beyond an ordinary person’s skill to discriminate between them. Their years were somewhat short of a half a score, and with a most engaging confidence each took the story-teller freely by the hand and drew him forward.
“She who leads you by the right hand is Musk,” said the one who was thus positioned, “the other being Chalcedony. To me no special gift has ever come beyond a high discordant voice by Chalcedony can accompany this harmoniously with music blown on reeds. What is your attractive name, wayfarer, and are you as old as your meritorious aspect would lead one to suppose?”
When he had replied to these courteous inquiries in suitable terms, the one referred to added:
“Since it is inevitable that we should spend some hours together, how is it possible to know one from the other among you when both are perceptibly alike?”
“It is for that very reason that our sounds have been chosen so diversely,” was the capable reply. “Being two alikes, born at a single birth, we have been named so that it is impossible to mistake one for the other, nor do either of our revereds ever now fall into so culpable an error…That one, remember, is Chalcedony, your base slave here being Musk.”
As Kai Lung reached the door, Thang’s lesser one came forth and with a look of gladness made him welcome. When he had been protestingly composed into the one chair that the meagre hut contained, Musk and Chalcedony1 again approached, and standing one on either side before him sought to beguile his weariness by the artless means within their simple power, Musk lifting up her resolute voice in a set chant—“The She-child’s Invocation”—and Chalcedony by no means lagging in the sounds that she extracted from an arrangement of pierced reeds. Nor did either desist until the rice appeared and was enticingly set out.
“It is less than would satisfy a family of midgets, and moderately self-respecting dogs would turn from it with loathing,” remarked Thang, bowing before his guest. “It is quite possible, however, that your excessive politeness will compel you to make something of a meal. Approach, therefore.”
“One hears of the lavishness of rich country nobles,” aptly replied Kai Lung, standing before the board, “But this—”
Afterward a small pipe, charged with dried herbs, was passed from hand to hand, and tranquillity prevailed. When it was dark and a single paper lantern had been lit, they sat upon the floor, and the story-teller claimed that, as a circle had been formed, it was, by ancient privilege, incumbent on him to gratify their leisure.
“So that,” he added, “the history of Tong So and the story of his ingenious rise to honours will linger pleasurably within your minds long after all thought of the large-mouthed Kai Lung shall have come to be forgotten.”
The discriminating Thang, however, understood that the other wished to make some small return for the compassion shown to him, in the only way he had. He therefore indicated to Musk and Chalcedony (who were on the point of blending their energies in the exposition of a well-laboured ballad entitled “The More-desirable Locality”) that they should restrain their acknowledged zeal, and admitted to Kai Lung that he was now favourably prepared for whatever might ensue.
I
How There Fell to Him the Leadership of the Fraternity of Thieves within I-kang
When Tcheng the Earless, the accepted head and authority of the company of thieves that dwelt about I-kang, suddenly Passed Above, all of that calling came together to appoint another who should take his place. Finally, by an equal choice, the matter lay between Tong So, because he was able and discreet above the rest, and Pe-hung, who, though gross and boastful, possessed the claim that he was of the House of Tcheng. Those who favoured the cause of Tong So dwelt on the need of skill and resource in the one who should direct their strategy, while the voices raised on behalf of Pe-hung extolled authority and a dutiful submission to the fixed order of events.
“Illustrious brothers,” exclaimed Tong So at length, for those who were to decide had by that time reached the pass of two wrestlers who are locked in an inextricable embrace where neither can prevail, “it is well said among us, ‘Although the door is locked the shutter may be pliant.’ The honey of smooth speech and the salutary vinegar of abuse having likewise failed to convince, it may be judged that the time now is to explore another way.”
“Say on,” urged those around, for both sides were weary of the strife. “May the more integritous cause prevail.”
“What a thousand eloquent words cannot achieve, a single timely action may accomplish,” continued Tong So. “Let a facile test be set. In the innermost secrecy of the Temple of Autumnal Winds there reposes the Green Eye of Nong, surrounded by a never-sleeping guard. Whichever of the two shall bear it off, let him be acclaimed our head.”
“It is well said,” agreed the gathering. “He who performs that feat is worthy to be our leader. Furthermore, the value of the spoil will, when equally divided, add greatly to the dignity of all.”
Standing somewhat apart, the contumacious Pe-hung would have declined the test had that been possible, but to do so then would have involved a greater loss of face than even he could stomach, for in the past he had never failed to speak of his own skill approvingly. He accordingly sought to attain his unworthy end by a more devious line, and while seeming to agree he contrived a hidden snare.
“The trial is a suitable one,” he therefore said, “and its accomplishment is well within my own indifferent powers. For that reason, and also because the idea sprang from the enriched soil of his productive mind, the distinction of the first attempt lies clearly with Tong So. Thereafter I will speedily outshine whatever glory he may obtain.”
Pe-hung’s words, however, were but as the sheath wherein one holds a keen-edged blade, for his inner thoughts ran thus: Tong So will make the attempt and be slain by those who guard the jewel. Obviously, it is unsuitable for a dead person to be a leader, so that the choice will automatically revert to me. Or Tong So will fail in the attempt but escape alive. In that case, his ineptitude clearly unfits him to be our chief and there will no longer be any opposition to this one’s cause. If, however, by an unforeseen perversity Tong So should succeed, it will manifestly be impossible for another, no matter how competent, to carry away what is no longer there, and so the contest fails in its essential. To this end it is aptly written, ‘He who would feast with vampires must expect to provide the meat.’”
In the darkness of a stormy night, the door-keepers of the Temple of Autumnal Winds were aroused by the clash of conflict beyond the outer gate. As the repeated cries for help indicated that violence of a very definite kind was in progress, they did not deem it courteous to interfere until the sound of retiring footsteps and a restored tranquillity announced that the virtuous might prudently emerge.
Outside, they found Tong So bearing all the signs of a speedy departure Upward. His robe was torn and earth-stained, his eyes devoid of light, while the ground around had been lavishly arranged with bloodshed. To the ordinary passer-by, finding him thus, only one question would present itself: had those who had gone before efficiently performed their sordid task, or was there, perchance, something of value still concealed about the unconscious body?
“Danger lurks here, unless we move our feet with caution,” observed the chief keeper of the door to the one who served his hand. “Should, the inopportune wayfarer Pass Beyond in this distressing manner, his offended and vindictive ghost will continue to haunt the gate-house, regardless of our feelings and of the possible loss of custom to the temple itself which so forbidding a visitation may entail.”
“Alas, master,” exclaimed the other,. “as it is, the gatehouse has become overcrowded somewhat since the less successful deities have been thrust into our keeping. Would it not be well to take this distinguished personage, the one by the head and the other by the feet, and unostentatiously convey him to the doorway of another before it is too late?”
“If it could be prudently effected, such a safeguard would undoubtedly be wise; if, however, while in the act we encountered a company of his friends or the official watchers of the street, no excuse would serve us. Better endure the annoyance of another’s ghost than incur the probability of yielding up our own.”
“Nevertheless, there is the saying, ‘He who fails to become a giant need not remain content with being a dwarf,’ and a middle way may yet be found. Beneath the innermost sacrary of the temple there is an empty vault. Should this ever-welcome stranger honour us by Passing while reposing in its commodious depth, his nobly born apparition will occasion no alarm, for by closing the upper and the lower doors we can confine its discreditable activities to that secluded region.”
To this proposal the chief door-keeper turned an assenting ear. Together they drew Tong So through the lower door and along a narrow passage, until they reached the cave hollowed beneath the walls. Here they left him, first securing his robe and whatever else of interest he possessed.
When Tong So had thus penetrated beyond the outer limits of the temple, he allowed a sufficient interval to elapse, and then raised himself out through the upper door, using for this purpose a cord that had been wound concealed among his hair.
In the sanctuary above, a band chosen for their vigilance kept guard by day and night. It was dark except for the pale lustre round about the jewel, for it would have been held disrespectful to the brilliance of the Sacred Eye to deem it necessary to require an added light. This favoured Tong So’s strategy, but, as he crept forward, his benumbed foot struck against a column.
“Alas,” exclaimed Kai Lung, “is this, then, so insalubrious a region that, when a man goes about his daily task, he takes with him the equipment for his obsequies? What scope is there for the story-teller’s art in a spot so far removed from gravity-dispersal or the leisured amenities of life?” Yet, there being none else to question and no abode in sight, he continued on toward him. When the other perceived Kai Lung’s approaching form, he laid down the burden off his shoulders and advanced to meet him.
“Welcome to this unattractive wilderness,” he remarked hospitably. “Your becoming name and the number of your blameless years would be an agreeable subject for conversation.”
“I am of the worthless house of Kai, my forbidding name being Lung,” was the reply. “As regards my years—they have been few and quite devoid of interest, as this immature pigtail will readily disclose. Now, as regards your own distinguished self?”
“Thang am I, my father’s name being presumably illustrious but unfortunately misplaced,” replied the other. “My ill-spent age exceeds twoscore by one. By ceaseless toil, I wrest a feeble livelihood from this tenacious soil.”
“The occupation is a venerated one in our enlightened land, being only second, both as regards honour and inadequacy of reward, to the literary calling,” replied Kai Lung. “And touching that same office—as between one necessitous person and another—is there within not too great a distance from this well-favoured spot a refined community who by some stratagem or other may be drawn together to listen to an epic from the masterpieces, with a reasonable outlook of the narrator being finally rewarded in one form or another?”
“A community!” exclaimed the stranger, enlarging both his eyes. “Know, traveller, that the one before you and those beneath his crumbling roof live so remote that they do not see an outside face from one moon to another. Whence, therefore, could even a sprinkling of bystanders be obtained to listen to your pleasing voice?”
“If this is so,” observed Kai Lung dispassionately, “the voice to which you so flatteringly refer will very soon cease forever. Yet how comes it that you who are an alert and vigorous man have selected a region at once so desert and remote?”
’That,” replied the peasant, “is to conform to the integral fitness of things. In his milk days, the one before you listened with becoming deference to the conversation of persons of every rank of life and studied what they said. From what he heard, when they were speaking freely, it was at once plain that he himself was so beneath all others both as regards the virtues and attainments that it was only seemly for him to withdraw and live apart. Accordingly, selecting a lesser one as unworthy as himself, he retired unpretentiously to this forgotten spot; for it is related of it that after the First Celestial Emperor had formed the earth, he wiped his toil-stained hands upon his heaven-born thighs, and this is what fell from him. Being neither earth, heaven, nor the region Down Below, it was ignored by the deities and protective Forces, so that here there are no winds, dews, spontaneous growth, nor variable seasons.”
“Are there then no evilly disposed Beings either?” inquired Kai Lung with interest.
“For some reason or other, they abound,” admitted Thang. “Thus, in spite of what a fostering care could do, our only he-child—one who seemed destined by his fearless and engaging nature to raise a squalid Line to something like an equality with others—came under the malign influence of a resentful Spectre that drew his breath away…It is his coffined form that I am carrying from place to place to find, if possible, a spot immune from harmful spirits.”
“May the Many-eyed One guide your footsteps!” voiced Kai Lung with a look of wide compassion. “Your condition is a hapless one. For how, being thus bereft, will your weak and trembling shade, when you shall have yourself Passed Beyond, obtain either food or raiment?”
“That is very true, but is it not tolerantly written, ’Even a mole can turn its eyes upward?’ Within my stricken hut, two sadly deficient she-children still remain. If some lenient-minded youth can be persuaded to marry one of these, he may, when in a charitable vein, include my shivering ghost in the offerings he transmits. As I am well inured to privation here below, it is only reasonable to suppose that what is, after all, little more than an unsubstantial outline, will be satisfied with even less.”
“It is aptly said, ’The strongest tower is built of single bricks,’ and your steadfast attitude justifies the saying,” remarked Kai Lung. “Did I possess anything beyond a general feeling of concavity I would pleasurably contribute to your store. As it is, I endow you with the confident prediction that your upright House will flourish. Farewell, esteemed.” With these words and a deferential bow, in which he contrived to indicate his sympathetic outlook toward the other’s unenviable lot and a regret that the circumstances had not conspired toward their more enduring friendship, the weary story-teller turned to resume the hopeless struggle of his onward march. An unpretentious voice recalled him.
“Hitherto, a sense of insufficiency restrained me,” explained the lowly Thang; “for judging from the fullness of your garb and the freedom of your manner, I thought you to be a rich official, travelling at ease. If, however, as certainly your words may be taken to suggest, you are not really so well-equipped and can offer no reward for that which is really worthless, I am emboldened to beg your high-born acceptance of the inadequate resources of my makeshift home. The more you can consume, the less will be this self-conscious person’s shame at the insipidity of what he puts before you; the longer you can tolerate his worn-out roof, the greater will be the confidence with which he can henceforth continue to dwell beneath it.”
“Yet your humane task?” urged Kai Lung, in spite of the despair of his position. “Should so slight a thing as the extremity of a passing stranger interrupt your rites?”
“About the city gate are many beggars, but on the plains all men meet as brothers,” was Thang’s reply. “Furthermore,” he added prudently, “were you to die about this spot, the duty of providing you with a suitable bestowal would devolve on me, and even then your annoyed and thirsty ghost might haunt my door.”
“But you spoke of destitution. If less than a sufficiency for your own stock exists, how should another—”
“Where four can stand at all, five can just squeeze,” replied the accommodating Thang. “Unless my repellent face displeases you beyond endurance, the last word of ceremonious denial has been uttered.”
When they were come to the peasant’s hut, Thang excused himself on a simple plea for passing in before his guest. From the approaching path Kai Lung soon overheard the reason.
“It had been our natural hope to spend the night in grief and lamentation, but chance has sent another—even more faint and needy than ourselves—to share our scanty hearth. Sorrow must therefore be banished to a more appropriate time, and in the meanwhile nothing should escape to dim the lustre of his welcome in this stranger’s eyes.”
A lesser voice replied, graceful yet docile:
“Where the ox clears a way, the sheep can surely follow…There is a little cake which I had secretly prepared of fruit and sifted meal, put by against the joy-day of our two remaining dear ones. This will to some extent disguise the leanness of our ill-spread board, and toward it we can ourselves affect a cloyed repugnance.”
“We,” said a still smaller voice, “will cheerfully forego our separate share to relieve the stranger’s need…Have I not spoken with your polished tongue, Chalcedony?”
“Your fragrant words, O Musk, are my own feeble thoughts well set to music,” was the equally melodious answer.
“Then are we all agreed”—it was now Thang again. “Conduct the politely awaiting stranger to a seat beneath our ragged thatch, ye two uncouth afflictions, while I go hence to gather such decaying herbs as our stubborn ground affords.”
Kai Lung had moved to a more distant part—so that he should not seem to betray too gross an interest in the details of what was being prepared for his enjoyment—when the two sympathetic she-children approached together. Being dressed alike and so moulded that they varied in no single detail, it was beyond an ordinary person’s skill to discriminate between them. Their years were somewhat short of a half a score, and with a most engaging confidence each took the story-teller freely by the hand and drew him forward.
“She who leads you by the right hand is Musk,” said the one who was thus positioned, “the other being Chalcedony. To me no special gift has ever come beyond a high discordant voice by Chalcedony can accompany this harmoniously with music blown on reeds. What is your attractive name, wayfarer, and are you as old as your meritorious aspect would lead one to suppose?”
When he had replied to these courteous inquiries in suitable terms, the one referred to added:
“Since it is inevitable that we should spend some hours together, how is it possible to know one from the other among you when both are perceptibly alike?”
“It is for that very reason that our sounds have been chosen so diversely,” was the capable reply. “Being two alikes, born at a single birth, we have been named so that it is impossible to mistake one for the other, nor do either of our revereds ever now fall into so culpable an error…That one, remember, is Chalcedony, your base slave here being Musk.”
As Kai Lung reached the door, Thang’s lesser one came forth and with a look of gladness made him welcome. When he had been protestingly composed into the one chair that the meagre hut contained, Musk and Chalcedony1 again approached, and standing one on either side before him sought to beguile his weariness by the artless means within their simple power, Musk lifting up her resolute voice in a set chant—“The She-child’s Invocation”—and Chalcedony by no means lagging in the sounds that she extracted from an arrangement of pierced reeds. Nor did either desist until the rice appeared and was enticingly set out.
“It is less than would satisfy a family of midgets, and moderately self-respecting dogs would turn from it with loathing,” remarked Thang, bowing before his guest. “It is quite possible, however, that your excessive politeness will compel you to make something of a meal. Approach, therefore.”
“One hears of the lavishness of rich country nobles,” aptly replied Kai Lung, standing before the board, “But this—”
Afterward a small pipe, charged with dried herbs, was passed from hand to hand, and tranquillity prevailed. When it was dark and a single paper lantern had been lit, they sat upon the floor, and the story-teller claimed that, as a circle had been formed, it was, by ancient privilege, incumbent on him to gratify their leisure.
“So that,” he added, “the history of Tong So and the story of his ingenious rise to honours will linger pleasurably within your minds long after all thought of the large-mouthed Kai Lung shall have come to be forgotten.”
The discriminating Thang, however, understood that the other wished to make some small return for the compassion shown to him, in the only way he had. He therefore indicated to Musk and Chalcedony (who were on the point of blending their energies in the exposition of a well-laboured ballad entitled “The More-desirable Locality”) that they should restrain their acknowledged zeal, and admitted to Kai Lung that he was now favourably prepared for whatever might ensue.
I
How There Fell to Him the Leadership of the Fraternity of Thieves within I-kang
When Tcheng the Earless, the accepted head and authority of the company of thieves that dwelt about I-kang, suddenly Passed Above, all of that calling came together to appoint another who should take his place. Finally, by an equal choice, the matter lay between Tong So, because he was able and discreet above the rest, and Pe-hung, who, though gross and boastful, possessed the claim that he was of the House of Tcheng. Those who favoured the cause of Tong So dwelt on the need of skill and resource in the one who should direct their strategy, while the voices raised on behalf of Pe-hung extolled authority and a dutiful submission to the fixed order of events.
“Illustrious brothers,” exclaimed Tong So at length, for those who were to decide had by that time reached the pass of two wrestlers who are locked in an inextricable embrace where neither can prevail, “it is well said among us, ‘Although the door is locked the shutter may be pliant.’ The honey of smooth speech and the salutary vinegar of abuse having likewise failed to convince, it may be judged that the time now is to explore another way.”
“Say on,” urged those around, for both sides were weary of the strife. “May the more integritous cause prevail.”
“What a thousand eloquent words cannot achieve, a single timely action may accomplish,” continued Tong So. “Let a facile test be set. In the innermost secrecy of the Temple of Autumnal Winds there reposes the Green Eye of Nong, surrounded by a never-sleeping guard. Whichever of the two shall bear it off, let him be acclaimed our head.”
“It is well said,” agreed the gathering. “He who performs that feat is worthy to be our leader. Furthermore, the value of the spoil will, when equally divided, add greatly to the dignity of all.”
Standing somewhat apart, the contumacious Pe-hung would have declined the test had that been possible, but to do so then would have involved a greater loss of face than even he could stomach, for in the past he had never failed to speak of his own skill approvingly. He accordingly sought to attain his unworthy end by a more devious line, and while seeming to agree he contrived a hidden snare.
“The trial is a suitable one,” he therefore said, “and its accomplishment is well within my own indifferent powers. For that reason, and also because the idea sprang from the enriched soil of his productive mind, the distinction of the first attempt lies clearly with Tong So. Thereafter I will speedily outshine whatever glory he may obtain.”
Pe-hung’s words, however, were but as the sheath wherein one holds a keen-edged blade, for his inner thoughts ran thus: Tong So will make the attempt and be slain by those who guard the jewel. Obviously, it is unsuitable for a dead person to be a leader, so that the choice will automatically revert to me. Or Tong So will fail in the attempt but escape alive. In that case, his ineptitude clearly unfits him to be our chief and there will no longer be any opposition to this one’s cause. If, however, by an unforeseen perversity Tong So should succeed, it will manifestly be impossible for another, no matter how competent, to carry away what is no longer there, and so the contest fails in its essential. To this end it is aptly written, ‘He who would feast with vampires must expect to provide the meat.’”
In the darkness of a stormy night, the door-keepers of the Temple of Autumnal Winds were aroused by the clash of conflict beyond the outer gate. As the repeated cries for help indicated that violence of a very definite kind was in progress, they did not deem it courteous to interfere until the sound of retiring footsteps and a restored tranquillity announced that the virtuous might prudently emerge.
Outside, they found Tong So bearing all the signs of a speedy departure Upward. His robe was torn and earth-stained, his eyes devoid of light, while the ground around had been lavishly arranged with bloodshed. To the ordinary passer-by, finding him thus, only one question would present itself: had those who had gone before efficiently performed their sordid task, or was there, perchance, something of value still concealed about the unconscious body?
“Danger lurks here, unless we move our feet with caution,” observed the chief keeper of the door to the one who served his hand. “Should, the inopportune wayfarer Pass Beyond in this distressing manner, his offended and vindictive ghost will continue to haunt the gate-house, regardless of our feelings and of the possible loss of custom to the temple itself which so forbidding a visitation may entail.”
“Alas, master,” exclaimed the other,. “as it is, the gatehouse has become overcrowded somewhat since the less successful deities have been thrust into our keeping. Would it not be well to take this distinguished personage, the one by the head and the other by the feet, and unostentatiously convey him to the doorway of another before it is too late?”
“If it could be prudently effected, such a safeguard would undoubtedly be wise; if, however, while in the act we encountered a company of his friends or the official watchers of the street, no excuse would serve us. Better endure the annoyance of another’s ghost than incur the probability of yielding up our own.”
“Nevertheless, there is the saying, ‘He who fails to become a giant need not remain content with being a dwarf,’ and a middle way may yet be found. Beneath the innermost sacrary of the temple there is an empty vault. Should this ever-welcome stranger honour us by Passing while reposing in its commodious depth, his nobly born apparition will occasion no alarm, for by closing the upper and the lower doors we can confine its discreditable activities to that secluded region.”
To this proposal the chief door-keeper turned an assenting ear. Together they drew Tong So through the lower door and along a narrow passage, until they reached the cave hollowed beneath the walls. Here they left him, first securing his robe and whatever else of interest he possessed.
When Tong So had thus penetrated beyond the outer limits of the temple, he allowed a sufficient interval to elapse, and then raised himself out through the upper door, using for this purpose a cord that had been wound concealed among his hair.
In the sanctuary above, a band chosen for their vigilance kept guard by day and night. It was dark except for the pale lustre round about the jewel, for it would have been held disrespectful to the brilliance of the Sacred Eye to deem it necessary to require an added light. This favoured Tong So’s strategy, but, as he crept forward, his benumbed foot struck against a column.
