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

Upward in one breath.” And to impress Tsin Lung with his resolution he threw away his scabbard and picked it up again several times.

“Grow large in hope, worthy Chief Examiner,” cried Tsin Lung, who from a like cause was involved in a similar misapprehension. “Rather shall your imperishable bones adorn the interior of a hollow cedar-tree throughout all futurity than you shall suffer the indignity of being extricated by an earth-nurtured sleeve-snatcher.” And to intimidate Hien by the display he continued to clash his open hand against his leg armour until the pain became intolerable.

“Honourable warriors!” implored Thang-li in so agonized a voice⁠—and also because they were weary of the exercise⁠—that Hien and Tsin Lung paused, “curb your bloodthirsty ambitions for a breathing-space and listen to what will probably be a Last Expression. Believe the passionate sincerity of this one’s throat when he proclaims that there would be nothing repugnant to his very keenest susceptibilities if an escaping parricide, who was also guilty of rebellion, temple-robbing, book-burning, murder and indiscriminate violence, and the pollution of tombs, took him familiarly by the hand at this moment. What, therefore, would be his gratified feelings if two such nobly-born subjects joined forces and drew him up dexterously by the body-cloth? Accept his definite assurance that without delay a specific pronouncement would be made respecting the bestowal of the one around whose jade-like personality this encounter has arisen.”

“The proposal casts a reasonable shadow, gracious Hien,” remarked Tsin Lung, turning towards the other with courteous deference. “Shall we bring a scene of irrational carnage to an end and agree to regard the incomparable Thang-li’s benevolent tongue as an outstretched olive branch?”

“It is admittedly said, ‘Every road leads in two directions,’ and the alternative you suggest, O virtue-loving Tsin Lung, is both reputable and just,” replied Hien pleasantly. In this amiable spirit they extricated Thang-li and bore him to the ground. At an appointed hour he received them with becoming ceremony and after a many-coursed repast rose to fulfil the specific terms of his pledge.

“The Line of Thang,” he remarked with inoffensive pride, “has for seven generations been identified with a high standard of literary achievement. Undeniably it is a very creditable thing to control the movements of an ofttime erratic vessel and to emerge triumphantly from a combat with every junk you encounter, and it is no less worthy of esteem to gather round about one, on the sterile slopes of the Chun-lings, a devoted band of followers. Despite these virtues, however, neither occupation is marked by any appreciable literary flavour, and my word is, therefore, that both persons shall present themselves for the next examination, and when in due course the result is declared the more successful shall be hailed as the chosen suitor. Lo, I have spoken into a sealed bottle, and my voice cannot vary.”

Then replied Tsin Lung: “Truly, it is as it is said, astute Thang-li, though the encircling wall of a hollow cedar-tree, for example, might impart to the voice in question a less uncompromising ring of finality than it possesses when raised in a silk-lined chamber and surrounded by a band of armed retainers. Nevertheless the pronouncement is one which appeals to this person’s sense of justice, and the only improvement he can suggest is that the superfluous Hien should hasten that ceremony at which he will be an honoured guest by now signifying his intention of retiring from so certain a defeat. For by what expedient,” he continued, with arrogant persistence, “can you avert that end, O ill-destined Hien? Have you not burned joss-sticks to the deities, both good and bad, for eleven years unceasingly? Can you, as this person admittedly can, inscribe the Classics with such inimitable delicacy that an entire volume of the Book of Decorum, copied in his most painstaking style, may be safely carried about within a hollow tooth, a lengthy ode, traced on a shred of silk, wrapped undetectably around a single eyelash?”

“It is true that the one before you cannot bend his brush to such deceptive ends,” replied Hien modestly. “A detail, however, has escaped your reckoning. Hitherto Hien has been opposed by a thousand, and against so many it is true that the spirits of his ancestors have been able to afford him very little help. On this occasion he need regard one adversary alone. Giving those Forces which he invokes clearly to understand that they need not concern themselves with any other, he will plainly intimate that after so many sacrifices on his part something of a really tangible affliction is required to overwhelm Tsin Lung. Whether this shall take the form of mental stagnation, bodily paralysis, demoniacal possession, derangement of the internal faculties, or being changed into one of the lower animals, it might be presumptuous on this person’s part to stipulate, but by invoking every accessible power and confining himself to this sole petition a very definite tragedy may be expected. Beware, O contumacious Lung, ‘However high the tree the shortest axe can reach its trunk.’ ”

As the time for the examination drew near the streets of Ho Chow began to wear a fuller and more animated appearance both by day and night. Tsin Lung’s outer hall was never clear of anxious suppliants all entreating him to supply them with minute and reliable copies of the passages which they found most difficult in the selected works, but although his low and avaricious nature was incapable of rejecting this means of gain he devoted his closest energies and his most inspired moments to his own personal copies, a set of books so ethereal that they floated in the air without support and so cunningly devised in the blending of their colour as to be, in fact, quite invisible to any but his microscopic eyes. Hien, on the other hand, devoted himself solely to interesting the Powers against his rival’s success by every variety of incentive, omen, sacrifice, imprecation, firework, inscribed curse, promise, threat or combination of inducements. Through the crowded