China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

three miles away. Why not send your son with Peng to try to find it? That’d give them something to do. If they discover anything worth seeing, we’ll make an expedition to look at it.”

Peng and Ru-Hai were delighted with the adventure and set off eagerly with the old musician the next morning.

They came back that night flushed and excited. “It’s only three miles away, but it’s quite deserted. We had to cut a path through the reeds and dig around a bit, but we found the cave. And it’s huge!” cried Ru-Hai.

“It is impressive,” Peng confirmed. “If the prefect wants to inspect it, master, we’d need some workmen, and two days to prepare.”

“And lanterns,” said Ru-Hai. “Colored lanterns. A lot of them. A thousand.”

“Certainly not,” said his father. “You’ll be lucky to get a hundred.”

But when he told the prefect the next morning, that worthy gentleman laughed aloud. “Give him a thousand,” he commanded.

—

It was quite a cavalcade. The first sedan chair contained the prefect, the second Shi-Rong; the next two, somewhat smaller, carried the prefect’s wife and Mei-Ling. After these came various lesser officials and local gentlemen, followed by a small company of guards and a retinue of servants all on foot.

They made their way along the path that had been cut through the reeds until they came to a level clearing beside the rock face where Peng and Ru-Hai were waiting. The two young men greeted the prefect with low bows, but Shi-Rong could see that his son was grinning.

As soon as all the party had gathered, they proceeded on foot up a steep track where the workmen had made some wooden steps to help them. It wasn’t far, not even fifty yards, before they came to the entrance, where a lamplit passageway led into the limestone rock. With Peng and Ru-Hai leading the way, they all filed down the glowing passage until suddenly they emerged into the great, cavernous hall.

Shi-Rong stood beside the prefect, who was quietly chuckling. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” the worthy gentleman remarked. “I believe your boy has used every lamp we gave him.”

It was a remarkable sight. The cave extended nearly three hundred yards, but it was divided into several sections. The largest was a huge curved chamber where stalagmites, like miniatures of the steep karst hills above ground, ranged themselves along the far side of a central underground lake. Cleverly, Ru-Hai had placed lanterns—blue, red, and green—amongst the stalagmites so that they were reflected in the water. It looked like a magical city. Having noticed that the ceiling of the chamber contained areas of mottled stone, he had placed white lamps just below so that it seemed as though the stone cityscape by the water was lying under gleaming, billowing clouds. For several minutes everyone stood motionless and silent, gazing at the beauty of this secret world.

“May we lead the way, Lord?” Ru-Hai asked the prefect at last.

“By all means.”

The workmen had made a stony path that wound between little pools of water and stalagmites. From the ceiling long stalactites descended like fingers seeking to touch them in a friendly way. Here, too, the men had done a good job, alternating lantern light and deep shadow so that the fingers seemed to descend from ghostly forms unseen. They came to a jutting wall where the gnarled formations looked like a collection of stone waterfalls, and to another place where a single pitted limestone figure stood alone, as though it had come from a Chinese garden. “This has been a good idea,” the prefect said cheerfully.

“It’s very beautiful. Quite wonderful,” said his wife. She turned to Mei-Ling. “Don’t you agree, my dear?”

“It’s one of the loveliest things I ever saw in my life. Thank you, Lord.”

“We should all thank the young men,” the prefect announced. “I only told them where the cave might be. They did the rest.”

“With your permission, Lord,” said Peng, “there is something else we wish to show you, as a scholar.”

“As a scholar, eh? Come along, Shi-Rong,” the prefect called, “we’d better both see this.”

So the prefect, Shi-Rong, and several mandarins followed as Peng led them deeper into the cave, into a section less brightly lit. Half a dozen workmen, holding lanterns on long poles, were waiting beside a particular section of wall. At a nod from Peng, they raised the lanterns high, close to the stone.

“Well, I never,” said the prefect.

Inscriptions. Dozens of them, apparently made with big brushes directly onto the porous stone in ink. The script was archaic, but the characters were entirely readable. Shi-Rong and the prefect peered at them intently.

“What do you think?” the prefect asked.

“Tang dynasty. Early Tang, I’d say,” Shi-Rong replied.

“I agree. This place must have been in use a thousand years ago.”

“And by mandarin scholars, it seems.”

“How many inscriptions are there?” the prefect asked Peng.

“I have found seventy so far, Lord.”

“We ought to have them copied,” said the prefect.

“Peng,” said Shi-Rong, “you will copy them. You may take a month.”

“Yes, master.” Peng bowed his head, whether in gladness or sadness, it was hard to tell.

Only at this moment did Shi-Rong realize his son was not one of the party. He frowned. Ru-Hai should have been there to witness this demonstration of scholarship. He should have shown the prefect that he took an interest. He might have listened to his father explain why he could so easily identify the period from which the writing came. But he wasn’t there. Where was he?

—

The prefect’s wife gazed around the cavern. When her husband and Shi-Rong had gone to look at the inscriptions, she and Mei-Ling had stayed in there with the rest of the party. And while Mei-Ling remained by the water, the prefect’s wife had moved to one side to survey the scene.

With the guards and servants, there must have been twenty or thirty figures standing here and there on the floor of the great cave, some in shadow, some partly lit by the glow from the lamps,