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Page 26
A lengthy period containing no words caused Ling, who had in the
meantime closed his eyes and lost Canton and all else in delicate
thoughts of Mian, to look up. That which met his attention on doing so
filled him with an intelligent wonder, for the person before him held
in his hand what had the appearance of a tuft of bright yellow hair,
which shone in the light of the sun with a most engaging splendour,
but which he nevertheless regarded with a most undignified expression
of confusion and awe.
"Illustrious demon," he cried at length, kow-towing very respectfully,
"have the extreme amiableness to be of a benevolent disposition, and
do not take an unworthy and entirely unremunerative revenge upon this
very unimportant person for failing to detect and honour you from the
beginning."
"Such words indicate nothing beyond an excess of hemp spirit,"
answered Ling, with signs of displeasure. "To gain my explicit esteem,
make me smooth without delay, and do not exhibit before me the lock of
hair which, from its colour and appearance, has evidently adorned the
head of one of those maidens whose duty it is to quench the thirst of
travellers in the long narrow rooms of this city."
"Majestic and anonymous spirit," said the other, with extreme
reverence, and an entire absence of the appearance of one who had
gazed into too many vessels, "if such be your plainly-expressed
desire, this superficial person will at once proceed to make smooth
your peach-like skin, and with a carefulness inspired by the certainty
that the most unimportant wound would give forth liquid fire, in which
he would undoubtedly perish. Nevertheless, he desires to make it
evident that this hair is from the head of no maiden, being, indeed,
the uneven termination of your own sacred pigtail, which this
excessively self-confident slave took the inexcusable liberty of
removing, and which changed in this manner within his hand in order to
administer a fit reproof for his intolerable presumption."
Impressed by the mien and unquestionable earnestness of the remover of
hair, Ling took the matter which had occasioned these various emotions
in his hand and examined it. His amazement was still greater when he
perceived that--in spite of the fact that it presented every
appearance of having been cut from his own person--none of the
qualities of hair remained in it; it was hard and wire-like,
possessing, indeed, both the nature and the appearance of a metal.
As he gazed fixedly and with astonishment, there came back into the
remembrance of Ling certain obscure and little-understood facts
connected with the limitless wealth possessed by the Yellow Emperor--
of which the great gold life-like image in the Temple of Internal
Symmetry at Peking alone bears witness now--and of his lost secret.
Many very forcible prophecies and omens in his own earlier life, of
which the rendering and accomplishment had hitherto seemed to be dark
and incomplete, passed before him, and various matters which Mian had
related to him concerning the habits and speech of the magician took
definite form within his mind. Deeply impressed by the exact manner in
which all these circumstances fitted together, one into another, Ling
rewarded the person before him greatly beyond his expectation, and
hurried without delay to his own chamber.
XI
For many hours Ling remained in his room, examining in his mind all
passages, either in his own life or in the lives of others, which
might by any chance have influence on the event before him. In this
thorough way he became assured that the competition and its results,
his journey to Si-chow with the encounter in the cypress wood, the
flight of the incapable and treacherous Mandarin, and the battle of
Ki, were all, down to the matter of the smallest detail, parts of a
symmetrical and complete scheme, tending to his present condition.
Cheered and upheld by this proof of the fact that very able deities
were at work on his behalf, he turned his intellect from the
entrancing subject to a contemplation of the manner in which his
condition would enable him to frustrate the uninventive villainies of
the obstinate person Li Keen, and to provide a suitable house and mode
of living to which he would be justified in introducing Mian, after
adequate marriage ceremonies had been observed between them. In this
endeavour he was less successful than he had imagined would be the
case, for when he had first fully understood that his body was of such
a substance that nothing was wanting to transmute it into fine gold
but the absence of the living spirit, he had naturally, and without
deeply examining the detail, assumed that so much gold might be
considered to be in his possession. Now, however, a very definite
thought arose within him that his own wishes and interests would have
been better secured had the benevolent spirits who undertook the
matter placed the secret within his knowledge in such a way as to
enable him to administer the fluid to some very heavy and inexpensive
animal, so that the issue which seemed inevitable before the enjoyment
of the riches could be entered upon should not have touched his own
comfort so closely. To a person of Ling's refined imagination it could
not fail to be a subject of internal reproach that while he would
become the most precious dead body in the world, his value in life
might not be very honourably placed even by the most complimentary one
who should require his services. Then came the thought, which, however
degraded, he found himself unable to put quite beyond him, that if in
the meantime he were able to gain a sufficiency for Mian and himself,
even her pure and delicate love might not be able to bear so offensive
a test as that of seeing him grow old and remain intolerably healthy--
perhaps with advancing years actually becoming lighter day by day, and
thereby lessening in value before her eyes--when the natural
infirmities of age and the presence of an ever-increasing posterity
would make even a moderate amount of taels of inestimable value.
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