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

assented. The way was long and laborious, “For,” remarked Pe-lung, “in an ordinary course I should fly there in a single breath of time; but to seize an honoured guest by the body-cloth and thus transfer him over the side of a mountain is toilsome to the one and humiliating to the other.”

To beguile the time he spoke freely of the hardships of his lot.

“We dragons are frequently objects of envy at the hands of the undiscriminating, but the few superficial privileges we enjoy are heavily balanced by the exacting scope of our duties. Thus tonight it is my degraded task to divert the course of the river flowing below us, so as to overwhelm the misguided town of Yang, wherein swells a sordid outcast who has reviled the Sacred Claw. In order to do this properly it will be my distressing part to lie across the bed of the stream, my head resting upon one bank and my tail upon the other, and so remain throughout the rigour of the night.”

As they approached the cloudy pinnacle whereon was situated the dragon’s cave, one came forth at a distance to meet them. As she drew near, alternating emotions from time to time swayed Chang Tao’s mind. From beneath a well-ruled eyebrow Pe-lung continued to observe him closely.

“Fuh-sang, the unattractive daughter of my dwindling line,” remarked the former person, with refined indifference. “I have rendered you invisible, and she, as her custom is, would advance to greet me.”

“But this enchanting apparition is Melodious Vision!” exclaimed Chang Tao. “What new bewilderment is here?”

“Since you have thus expressed yourself, I will now throw off the mask and reveal fully why I have hitherto spared your life, and for what purpose I have brought you to these barren heights,” replied Pe-lung. “In the past Shen Yi provoked the Deities, and to mark their displeasure it was decided to take away his she-child and to substitute for it one of demoniac birth. Accordingly Fuh-sang, being of like age, was moulded to its counterpart, and an attendant gnome was despatched with her secretly to make the change. Becoming overwhelmed with the fumes of rice-spirit, until then unknown to his simple taste, this clay-brained earth-pig left the two she-children alone for a space while he slept. Discovering each other to be the creature of another part, they battled together and tore from one another the signs of recognition. When the untrustworthy gnome recovered from his stupor he saw what he had done, but being terror-driven he took up one of the she-children at a venture and returned with a pliant tale. It was not until a few moons ago that while in a close extremity he confessed his crime. Meanwhile Shen Yi had made his peace with those Above and the order being revoked the she-children had been exchanged again. Thus the matter rests.”

“Which, then, of the twain is she inherent of your house and which Melodious Vision?” demanded Chang Tao in some concern. “The matter can assuredly not rest thus.”

“That,” replied Pe-lung affably, “it will be your engaging task to unravel, and to this end will be your opportunity of closely watching Fuh-sang’s unsuspecting movements in my absence through the night.”

“Yet how should I, to whom the way of either maiden is as yet no more than the title-page of a many-volumed book, succeed where the father native to one has failed?”

“Because in your case the incentive will be deeper. Destined, as you doubtless are, to espouse Melodious Vision, the Forces connected with marriage and its Rites will certainly endeavour to inspire you. This person admittedly has no desire to nurture one who should prove to be of merely human seed, but your objection to propagating a race of dragonets turns on a keener edge. Added to all, a not unnatural disinclination to be dropped from so great a height as this into so deep and rocky a valley as that will conceivably lend wings to your usually nimble-footed mind.”

While speaking to Chang Tao in this encouraging strain, Pe-lung was also conversing suitably with Fuh-sang, who had by this time joined them, warning her of his absence until the dawn, and the like. When he had completed his instruction he stroked her face affectionately, greeting Chang Tao with a short but appropriate farewell, and changing his form projected himself downwards into the darkness of the valley below. Recognizing that the situation into which he had been drawn possessed no other outlet, Chang Tao followed Fuh-sang on her backward path, and with her passed unsuspected into the dragon’s cave.

Early as was Pe-lung’s return on the ensuing morning, Chang Tao stood on a rocky eminence to greet him, and the outline of his face, though not altogether free of doubt, was by no means hopeless. Pe-lung still retained the impressive form of a gigantic dragon as he cleft the Middle Air, shining and iridescent, each beat of his majestic wings being as a roll of thunder and the skittering of sand and water from his crepitant scales leaving blights and rainstorms in his wake. When he saw Chang Tao he drove an earthward angle and alighting near at hand considerately changed into the semblance of an affluent merchant as he approached.

“Greeting,” he remarked cheerfully. “Did you find your early rice?”

“It has sufficed,” replied Chang Tao. “How is your own incomparable stomach?”

Pe-lung pointed to the empty bed of the deflected river and moved his head from side to side as one who draws an analogy to his own condition. “But of your more pressing enterprise,” he continued, with sympathetic concern: “have you persevered to a fruitful end, or will it be necessary⁠—?” And with tactful feeling he indicated the gesture of propelling an antagonist over the side of a precipice rather than allude to the disagreeable contingency in spoken words.

“When the oil is exhausted the lamp goes out,” admitted Chang Tao, “but my time is not yet come. During the visionary watches of the night my poising mind was