Kai Lung’s Golden Hours by Ernest Bramah (an ebook reader .TXT) 📕

be sought in secret places. The things I have spoken I know because we have many ears, and in our care a whisper passes from east to west and from north to south without a word being spilled.”

“And the price of your sword is that I should join the confederacy?” asked Weng thoughtfully.

“I had set out to greet you before the estimable Mandarin who is now saluting his ancestors was so inopportune as to do so,” replied the emissary. “Yet it is not to be denied that we offer an adequate protection among each other, while at the same time punishing guilt and administering a rigorous justice secretly.”

“Lead me to your meeting-place, then,” said Weng determinedly. “I have done with the outer things.”

The guide pointed to a rock, shaped like a locust’s head, which marked the highest point of the steep mountain before them. Soon the fertile lowlands ended and they passed beyond the limit of the inhabitable region. Still ascending they reached the Tiger’s High Retreat, which defines the spot where even the animal kind turn back and where watercourses cease to flow. Beyond this the most meagre indication of vegetable sustenance came to an end, and thenceforward their passage was rendered more slow and laborious by frequent snowstorms, barriers of ice, and sudden tempests which strove to hurl them to destruction. Nevertheless, by about the hour of midnight they reached the rock shaped like a locust’s head, which stood in the wildest and most inaccessible part of the mountain, and masked the entrance to a strongly-guarded cave. Here Weng suffered himself to be blindfolded, and being led forward he was taken into the innermost council. Closely questioned, he professed a spontaneous desire to be admitted into their band, to join in their dangers and share their honours; whereupon the oath was administered to him, the passwords and secret signs revealed, and he was bound from that time forth, under the bonds of a most painful death and torments in the afterworld, to submerge all passions save those for the benefit of their community, and to cherish no interests, wrongs or possessions that did not affect them all alike.

For the space of seven years Weng remained about the shadow of the mountain, carrying out, together with the other members of the band, the instructions which from time to time they received from the higher circles of the Society, as well as such acts of retributive justice as they themselves determined upon, and in this quiet and unostentatious manner maintaining peace and greatly purifying the entire province. In this passionless subservience to the principles of the Order none exceeded him; yet at no time have men been forbidden to burn joss-sticks to the spirit of the destinies, and who shall say?

At the end of seven years the first breath from out of the past reached Weng (or Thang, as he had announced himself to be when cast out nameless). One day he was summoned before the chief of their company and a mission laid upon him.

“You have proved yourself to be capable and sincere in the past, and this matter is one of delicacy,” said the leader. “Furthermore, it is reported that you know something of the paths about Kien-fi?”

“There is not a forgotten turn within those paths by which I might stumble in the dark,” replied Weng, striving to subdue his mind.

“See that out of so poignant a memory no more formidable barrier than a forgotten path arises,” said the leader, observing him closely. “Know you, then a house bearing as a sign the figure of a golden ibis?”

“Truly; I have noted it,” replied Weng, changing his position, so that he now leaned against a rock. “There dwelt an old man of some lower official rank, who had no son but many daughters.”

“He has Passed, and one of those⁠—Tiao by name,” said the other, referring to a parchment⁠—“has schemingly driven out the rest and held the patrimony. Crafty and ambitious, she has of late married a high official who has ever been hostile to ourselves. Out of a private enmity the woman seeks the lives of two who are under our most solemn protection, and now uses her husband’s wealth and influence to that end. It is on him that the blow must fall, for men kill only men, and she, having no son, will then be discredited and impotent.”

“And concerning this official?” asked Weng.

“It has not been thought prudent to speak of him by name,” replied the chief. “Stricken with a painful but not dangerous malady he has retired for a time to the healthier seclusion of his wife’s house, and there he may be found. The woman you will know with certainty by a crescent scar⁠—above the right eye.”

“Beneath the eye,” corrected Weng instantly.

“Assuredly, beneath: I misread the sign,” said the head, appearing to consult the scroll. “Yet, out of a keen regard for your virtues, Thang, let me point a warning that it is antagonistic to our strict rule to remember these ancient scars too well. Further, in accordance with that same esteem, do not stoop too closely nor too long to identify the mark. By our pure and exacting standard no high attainment in the past can justify defection. The pains and penalties of failure you well know.”

“I bow, chieftain,” replied Weng acquiescently.

“It is well,” said the chief. “Your strategy will be easy. To cure this lord’s disorder a celebrated physician is even now travelling from the Capital towards Kien-fi. A day’s journey from that place he will encounter obstacles and fall into the hands of those who will take away his robes and papers. About the same place you will meet one with a bowl on the roadside who will hail you, saying, ‘Charity, out of your superfluity, noble mandarin coming from the north!’ To him you will reply, ‘Do mandarins garb thus and thus and go afoot? It is I who need a change of raiment and a chair; aye, by the token