Kai Lung’s Golden Hours - Ernest Bramah (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

the stony earth would be to invite the averted face of recognition.”

“Let recognition be extended in other directions and the task of returning to a forfeited inheritance will be lightened materially,” remarked a significant voice.

“Estimable mother,” exclaimed Tian, “this opportune stranger is my venerated father, whose continuous absence has been an overhanging cloud above my gladness, but now happily revealed and restored to our domestic altar.”

“Alas!” interposed Ning, “the opening of this enterprise forecasts a questionable omen. Before this person stands the one who enticed him into the beginning of all his evil; how then⁠—”

“Let the word remain unspoken,” interrupted Hia. “Women do not entice men⁠—though they admittedly accompany them, with an extreme absence of reluctance, in any direction. In her youth this person’s feet undoubtedly bore her occasionally along a light and fantastic path, for in the nature of spring a leaf is green and pliable, and in the nature of autumn it is brown and austere, and through changeless ages thus and thus. But, as it is truly said: ‘Milk by repeated agitation turns to butter,’ and for many years it has been this one’s ceaseless study of the Arts whereby she might avert that which she helped to bring about in her unstable youth.”

“The intention is a commendable one, though expressed with unnecessary verbiage,” replied Ning. “To what solution did your incantations trend?”

“Concealed somewhere within the walled city of Ti-foo are the sacred nail-sheaths on which your power so essentially depends, sent thither by Sun Wei at the crafty instance of the demon Leou, who hopes at a convenient time to secure them for himself. To discover these and bear them forth will be the part allotted to Tian, and to this end has the training of his youth been bent. By what means he shall strive to the accomplishment of the project the unrolling curtain of the future shall disclose.”

“It is as the destinies shall decide and as the omens may direct,” said Tian. “In the meanwhile this person’s face is inexorably fixed in the direction of Ti-foo.”

“Proceed with all possible discretion,” advised Ning. “In so critical an undertaking you cannot be too cautious, but at the same time do not suffer the rice to grow around your advancing feet.”

“A moment,” counselled Hia. “Tarry yet a moment. Here is one whose rapidly-moving attitude may convey a message.”

“It is Lin Fa!” exclaimed Ning, as the one alluded to drew near⁠—“Lin Fa who guards the coffers of Sun Wei. Some calamity pursues him.”

“Hence!” cried Lin Fa, as he caught sight of them, yet scarcely pausing in his flight: “flee to the woods and caves until the time of this catastrophe be past. Has not the tiding reached you?”

“We be but dwellers on the farther bounds and no word has reached our ear, O great Lin Fa. Fill in, we pray you, the warning that has been so suddenly outlined.”

“The usurper Ah-tang has lit the torch of swift rebellion and is flattening-down the land that bars his way. Already the villages of Yeng, Leu, Liang-li and the Dwellings by the Three Pure Wells are as dust beneath his trampling feet, and they who stayed there have passed up in smoke. Sun Wei swings from the rooftree of his own ruined yamen. Ah-tang now lays siege to walled Ti-foo so that he may possess the Northern Way. Guard this bag of silver meanwhile, for what I have is more than I can reasonably bear, and when the land is once again at peace, assemble to meet me by the Five-Horned Pagoda, ready with a strict account.”

“All this is plainly part of an orderly scheme for my advancement, brought about by my friends in the Upper World,” remarked Ning, with some complacency. “Lin Fa has been influenced to the extent of providing us with the means for our immediate need; Sun Wei has been opportunely removed to the end that this person may now retire to a hidden spot and there suffer his dishonoured nails to grow again: Ah-tang has been impelled to raise the banner of insurrection outside Ti-foo so that Tian may make use of the necessities of either side in pursuit of his design. Assuredly the long line of our misfortunes is now practically at an end.”

IV Events Round Walled Ti-Foo

Nevertheless, the alternative forced on Tian was not an alluring one. If he joined the band of Ah-tang and the usurper failed, Tian himself might never get inside Ti-foo; if, however, he allied himself with the defenders of Ti-foo and Ah-tang did not fail, he might never get out of Ti-foo. Doubtless he would have reverently submitted his cause to the inspired decision of the Sticks, or some other reliable augur, had he not, while immersed in the consideration, walked into the camp of Ah-tang. The omen of this occurrence was of too specific a nature not to be regarded as conclusive.

Ah-tang was one who had neglected the Classics from his youth upwards. For this reason his detestable name is never mentioned in the Histories, and the various catastrophes he wrought are charitably ascribed to the action of earthquakes, thunderbolts and other admitted forces. He himself, with his lamentable absence of literary style, was wont to declare that while confessedly weak in analogies he was strong in holocausts. In the end he drove the sublime emperor from his capital and into the Outer Lands; with true refinement the annalists of the period explain that the condescending monarch made a journey of inspection among the barbarian tribes on the confines of his Empire.

When Tian, charged with being a hostile spy, was led into the presence of Ah-tang, it was the youth’s intention to relate somewhat of his history, but the usurper, excusing himself on the ground of literary deficiency, merely commanded five of his immediate guard to bear the prisoner away and to return with his head after a fitting interval. Misunderstanding the exact requirement, Tian returned at the appointed time with the heads of