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

a precarious livelihood by entering into conversation with strangers, and still later he stood upon a board and dived for small coins which the charitable threw into the water. In this pursuit he was one day overtaken by a voracious sea-monster and perished miserably.

The large-meaning but never fully-accomplishing Emperor Kong reigned for yet another year, when he was deposed by the powerful League of the Three Brothers. To the end of his life he steadfastly persisted that the rebellion was insidiously fanned, if not actually carried out, by a secret confederacy of all the verse-makers of the Empire, who were distrustful of his superior powers. He spent the years of his exile in composing a poetical epitaph to be carved upon his tomb, but his successor, the practical-minded Liu-yen, declined to sanction the expense of procuring so fabulous a supply of marble.

When Kai Lung had repeated the story of the well-intentioned youth Hien and of the Chief Examiner Thang-li and had ceased to speak, a pause of questionable import filled the room, broken only by the undignified sleep-noises of the gross Ming-shu. Glances of implied perplexity were freely passed among the guests, but it remained for Shan Tien to voice their doubt.

“Yet wherein is the essence of the test maintained,” he asked, “seeing that the one whom you call Hien obtained all that which he desired and he who chiefly opposed his aims was himself involved in ridicule and delivered to a sudden end?”

“Beneficence,” replied Kai Lung, with courteous ease, despite the pinions that restrained him, “herein it is one thing to demand and another to comply, for among the Platitudes is the admission made: ‘No needle has two sharp points.’ The conditions which the subtlety of Ming-shu imposed ceased to bind, for their corollary was inexact. In no romance composed by poet or sage are the unassuming hopes of virtuous love brought to a barren end or the one who holds them delivered to an ignominious doom. That which was called for does not therefore exist, but the story of Hien may be taken as indicating the actual course of events should the case arise in an ordinary state of life.”

This reply was not deemed inept by most of those who heard, and they even pressed upon the one who spoke slight gifts of snuff and wine. The Mandarin Shan Tien, however, held himself apart.

“It is doubtful if your lips will be able thus to frame so confident a boast when tomorrow fades,” was his dark forecast.

“Doubtless their tenor will be changed, revered, in accordance with your farseeing word,” replied Kai Lung submissively as he was led away.

XI Of Which It Is Written: “In Shallow Water Dragons Become the Laughingstock of Shrimps”

At an early gong-stroke of the following day Kai Lung was finally brought up for judgment in accordance with the venomous scheme of the reptilian Ming-shu. In order to obscure their guilty plans all justice-loving persons were excluded from the court, so that when the storyteller was led in by a single guard he saw before him only the two whose enmity he faced, and one who stood at a distance prepared to serve their purpose.

“Committer of every infamy and inceptor of nameless crimes,” began Ming-shu, moistening his brush, “in the past, by the variety of discreditable subterfuges, you have parried the stroke of a just retribution. On this occasion, however, your admitted powers of evasion will avail you nothing. By a special form of administration, designed to meet such cases, your guilt will be taken as proved. The technicalities of passing sentence and seeing it carried out will follow automatically.”

“In spite of the urgency of the case,” remarked the Mandarin, with an assumption of the evenly-balanced expression that at one time threatened to obtain for him the title of “The Just,” “there is one detail which must not be ignored⁠—especially as our ruling will doubtless become a lantern to the feet of later ones. You appear, malefactor, to have committed crimes⁠—and of all these you have been proved guilty by the ingenious arrangement invoked by the learned recorder of my spoken word⁠—which render you liable to hanging, slicing, pressing, boiling, roasting, grilling, freezing, vatting, racking, twisting, drawing, compressing, inflating, rending, spiking, gouging, limb-tying, piecemeal-pruning and a variety of less tersely describable discomforts with which the time of this court need not be taken up. The important consideration is, in what order are we to proceed and when, if ever, are we to stop?”

“Under your benumbing eye, Excellence,” suggested Ming-shu resourcefully, “the precedent of taking first that for which the written sign is the longest might be established. Failing that, the names of all the various punishments might be inscribed on separate shreds of parchment and these deposited within your state umbrella. The first withdrawn by an unbiased⁠—”

“High Excellence,” Kai Lung ventured to interrupt, “a further plan suggests itself which⁠—”

“If,” exclaimed Ming-shu in irrational haste, “if the criminal proposes to narrate a story of one who in like circumstances⁠—”

“Peace!” interposed Shan Tien tactfully. “The felon will only be allowed the usual ten short measures of time for his suggestion, nor must he, under that guise, endeavour to insert an imagined tale.”

“Your ruling shall keep straight my bending feet, munificence,” replied Kai Lung. “Hear now my simplifying way. In place of cited wrongs⁠—which, after all, are comparatively trivial matters, as being merely offences against another or in defiance of a local usage⁠—substitute one really overwhelming crime for which the penalty is sharp and explicit.”

“To that end you would suggest⁠—?” Uncertainty sat upon the brow of both Shan Tien and Ming-shu.

“To straighten out the entangled thread this person would plead guilty to the act⁠—in a lesser capacity and against his untrammelled will⁠—of rejoicing musically on a day set apart for universal woe: a crime aimed directly at the sacred person of the Sublime Head and all those of his Line.”

At this significant admission the Mandarin’s expression faded; he stroked the lower part of his