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

of the Locust’s Head!’ He will then lead you to a place where you will find all ready and a suitable chair with trusty bearers. The rest lies beneath your grinding heel. Prosperity!”

Weng prostrated himself and withdrew. The meeting by the wayside befell as he had received assurance⁠—they who serve the Triad do not stumble⁠—and at the appointed time he stood before Tiao’s door and called for admission. He looked to the right and the left as one who examines a new prospect, and among the azalea flowers the burnished roof of the summerhouse glittered in the sun.

“Lucky omens attend your coming, benevolence,” said the chief attendant obsequiously; “for since he sent for you an unpropitious planet has cast its influence upon our master, so that his power languishes.”

“Its malignity must be controlled,” said Weng, in a feigned voice, for he recognized the one before him. “Does any watch?”

“Not now,” replied the attendant; “for he has slept since these two hours. Would your graciousness have speech with the one of the inner chamber?”

“In season perchance. First lead me to your lord’s side and then see that we are undisturbed until I reappear. It may be expedient to invoke a powerful charm without delay.”

In another minute Weng stood alone in the sick man’s room, between them no more barrier than the silk-hung curtains of the couch. He slid down his right hand and drew a keen-edged knife; about his left he looped the even more fatal cord; then advancing with a noiseless step he pulled back the drapery and looked down. It was the moment for swift and silent action; nothing but hesitation and delay could imperil him, yet in that supreme moment he stepped back, released the curtain from his faltering grasp and, suffering the weapons to fall unheeded to the floor, covered his face with his hands, for lying before him he had seen the outstretched form, the hard contemptuous features, of his father.

Yet most solemnly alienated from him in every degree. By Wu Chi’s own acts every tie of kinship had been effaced between them: the bowl had been broken, the taper blown out, empty air had filled his place. Wu Chi acknowledged no memory of a son; he could claim no reverence as a father.⁠ ⁠… Tiao’s husband.⁠ ⁠… Then he was doubly childless.⁠ ⁠… The woman and her seed had withered, as he had prophesied.

On the one hand stood the Society, powerful enough to protect him in every extremity, yet holding failure as treason; most terrible and inexorable towards set disobedience. His body might find a painless escape from their earthly torments, but by his oaths his spirit lay in their keeping to be punished through all eternity.

That he was no longer Wu Chi’s son, that he had no father⁠—this conviction had been strong enough to rule him in every contingency of life save this. By every law of men and deities the ties between them had been dissolved, and they stood as a man and man; yet the salt can never be quite washed out of seawater.

For a time which ceased to be hours or minutes, but seemed as a fragment broken off eternity, he stood, motionless but most deeply racked. With an effort he stooped to take the cord, and paused again; twice he would have seized the dagger, but doubt again possessed him. From a distant point of the house came the chant of a monk singing a prayer and beating upon a wooden drum. The rays of the sun falling upon the gilded roof in the garden again caught his eyes; nothing else stirred.

“These in their turn have settled great issues lightly,” thought Weng bitterly. “Must I wait upon an omen?”

“… submitting oneself to purifying scars,” droned the voice far off; “propitiating if need be by even greater self-inflictions⁠ ⁠…”

“It suffices,” said Weng dispassionately, and picking up the knife he turned to leave the room.

At the door he paused again, but not in an arising doubt. “I will leave a token for Tiao to wear as a jest,” was the image that had sprung from his new abasement, and taking a sheet of parchment he quickly wrote thereon: “A wave has beat from that distant shore to this, and now sinks in the unknown depths.”

Again he stepped noiselessly to the couch, drew the curtain and dropped the paper lightly on the form. As he did so his breath stopped; his fingers stiffened. Cautiously, on one knee, he listened intently, lightly touched the face; then recklessly taking a hand he raised the arm and suffered it to fall again. No power restrained it; no alertness of awakening life came into the dull face. Wu Chi had already Passed Beyond.

VII Not Concerned with Any Particular Attribute of Those Who Are Involved

Unendurable was the intermingling of hopes and fears with which Kai Lung sought the shutter on the next occasion after the avowal of Hwa-mei’s devoted strategy. While repeatedly assuring himself that it would have been better to submit to piecemeal slicing without a protesting word rather than that she should incur so formidable a risk, he was compelled as often to admit that when once her mind had formed its image no effort on his part would have held her back. Doubtless Hwa-mei readily grasped the emotion that would possess the one whose welfare was now her chief concern, for without waiting to gum her hair or to gild her lips she hastened to the spot beneath the wall at the earliest moment that Kai Lung could be there.

“Seven marble tombstones are lifted from off my chest!” exclaimed the storyteller when he could greet her. “How did your subterfuge proceed, and with what satisfaction was the history of Weng Cho received?”

“That,” replied Hwa-mei modestly, “will provide the matter for an autumn tale, when seated around a pine-cone fire. In the meanwhile this protracted ordeal takes an ambiguous bend.”

“To what further end does the malignity of the ill-made Ming-shu now shape itself? Should it