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Page 73
"Behold the inevitable and unvarying birthmark of our race! So it was
with this person's father and the ones before him; so it was with his
treacherously-stolen son; so it will be to the end of all time."
Trembling beyond all power of restraint, Yang removed the mask which
had hitherto concealed his face.
"Father or race has this person none," he said, looking into Ping
Siang's features with an all-engaging hope, tempered in a measure by a
soul-benumbing dread; "nor memory or tradition of an earlier state
than when he herded goats and sought for jade in the southern
mountains."
"Nevertheless," exclaimed the Mandarin, whose countenance was
lightened with an interest and a benevolent emotion which had never
been seen there before, "beyond all possibility of doubting, you are
this person's lost and greatly-desired son, stolen away many years ago
by the treacherous conduct of an unworthy woman, yet now happily and
miraculously restored to cherish his declining years and perpetuate an
honourable name and race."
"Happily!" exclaimed Yang, with fervent indications of uncontrollable
bitterness. "Oh, my illustrious sire, at whose venerated feet this
unworthy person now prostrates himself with well-merited marks of
reverence and self-abasement, has the errand upon which an ignoble son
entered--the every memory of which now causes him the acutest agony of
the lost, but which nevertheless he is pledged to Tung Fel by the
Unutterable Oath to perform--has this unnatural and eternally cursed
thing escaped your versatile mind?"
"Tung Fel!" cried Ping Siang. "Is, then, this blow also by the hand of
that malicious and vindictive person? Oh, what a cycle of events and
interchanging lines of destiny do your words disclose!"
"Who, then, is Tung Fel, my revered Father?" demanded Yang.
"It is a matter which must be made clear from the beginning," replied
Ping Siang. "At one time this person and Tung Fel were, by nature and
endowments, united in the most amiable bonds of an inseparable
friendship. Presently Tung Fel signed the preliminary contract of a
marriage with one who seemed to be endowed with every variety of
enchanting and virtuous grace, but who was, nevertheless, as the
unrolling of future events irresistibly discovered, a person of
irregular character and undignified habits. On the eve of the marriage
ceremony this person was made known to her by the undoubtedly
enraptured Tung Fel, whereupon he too fell into the snare of her
engaging personality, and putting aside all thoughts of prudent
restraint, made her more remunerative offers of marriage than Tung Fel
could by any possible chance overbid. In such a manner--for after the
nature of her kind riches were exceptionally attractive to her
degraded imagination--she became this person's wife, and the mother of
his only son. In spite of these great honours, however, the undoubted
perversity of her nature made her an easy accomplice to the duplicity
of Tung Fel, who, by means of various disguises, found frequent
opportunity of uttering in her presence numerous well-thought-out
suggestions specially designed to lead her imagination towards an
existence in which this person had no adequate representation.
Becoming at length terrified at the possibility of these unworthy
emotions, obtruding themselves upon this person's notice, the two in
question fled together, taking with them the one who without any doubt
is now before me. Despite the most assiduous search and very tempting
and profitable offers of reward, no information of a reliable nature
could be obtained, and at length this dispirited and completely
changed person gave up the pursuit as unavailing. With his son and
heir, upon whose future he had greatly hoped, all emotions of a
generous and high-minded nature left him, and in a very short space of
time he became the avaricious and deservedly unpopular individual
against whose extortions the amiable and long-suffering ones of
Ching-fow have for so many years protested mildly. The sudden and not
altogether unexpected fate which is now on the point of reaching him
is altogether too lenient to be entirely adequate."
"Oh, my distinguished and really immaculate sire!" cried Yang Hu, in a
voice which expressed the deepest feelings of contrition. "No oaths or
vows, however sacred, can induce this person to stretch forth his hand
against the one who stands before him."
"Nevertheless," replied Ping Siang, speaking of the matter as though
it were one which did not closely concern his own existence, "to
neglect the Unutterable Oath would inevitably involve not only the two
persons who are now conversing together, but also those before and
those who are to come after in direct line, in a much worse condition
of affairs. That is a fate which this person would by no means permit
to exist, for one of his chief desires has ever been to establish a
strong and vigorous line, to which end, indeed, he was even now
concluding a marriage arrangement with the beautiful and refined
Hiya-ai-Shao, whom he had at length persuaded into accepting his
betrothal tokens without reluctance."
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