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

thought of whatever he might do; for in no case would any believe a word he spoke, while the greater likelihood tended towards his forgetting everything before he had reached his home.

As Ten-teh approached his own door his wife came forth to meet him. “Much gladness!” she cried aloud before she saw his burden; “tempered only by a regret that you did not abandon your chase at an earlier hour. Fear not for the present that the wolf-tusk of famine shall gnaw our repose or that the dreaded wings of the white and scaly one shall hover about our housetop. Your wealthy cousin, journeying back to the Capital from the land of the spice forests, has been here in your absence, leaving you gifts of fur, silk, carved ivory, oil, wine, nuts and rice and rich foods of many kinds. He would have stayed to embrace you were it not that his company of bearers awaited him at an arranged spot and he had already been long delayed.”

Then said Ten-teh, well knowing that he had no such desirable relative, but drawn to secrecy by the unnatural course of events: “The years pass unperceived and all changes but the heart of man; how appeared my cousin, and has he greatly altered under the enervating sun of a barbarian land?”

“He is now a little man, with a loose skin the colour of a finely-lacquered apricot,” replied the woman. “His teeth are large and jagged, his expression open and sincere, and the sound of his breathing is like the continuous beating of waves upon a stony beach. Furthermore, he has ten fingers upon his left hand and a girdle of rubies about his waist.”

“The description is unmistakable,” said Ten-teh evasively. “Did he chance to leave a parting message of any moment?”

“He twice remarked: ‘When the sun sets the moon rises, but tomorrow the drawn will break again,’ ” replied his wife. “Also, upon leaving he asked for ink, brushes and a fan, and upon it he inscribed certain words.” She thereupon handed the fan to Ten-teh, who read, written in characters of surpassing beauty and exactness, the proverb: “Well-guarded lips, patient alertness and a heart conscientiously discharging its accepted duty: these three things have a sure reward.”

At that moment Ten-teh’s wife saw that he carried something beyond his creel and discovering the man-child she cried out with delight, pouring forth a torrent of inquiries and striving to possess it. “A tale half told is the father of many lies,” exclaimed Ten-teh at length, “and of the greater part of what you ask this person knows neither the beginning nor the end. Let what is written on the fan suffice.” With this he explained to her the meaning of the characters and made their significance clear. Then without another word he placed the man-child in her arms and led her back into the house.

From that time Hoang, as he was thenceforward called, was received into the household of Ten-teh, and from that time Ten-teh prospered. Without ever approaching a condition of affluence or dignified ease, he was never exposed to the penury and vicissitudes which he had been wont to experience; so that none had need to go hungry or ill-clad. If famine ravaged the villages Ten-teh’s store of grain was miraculously maintained; his success on the lagoons was unvaried, fish even leaping on to the structure of the raft. Frequently in dark and undisturbed parts of the house he found sums of money and other valuable articles of which he had no remembrance, while it was no uncommon thing for passing merchants to leave bales of goods at his door in mistake and to meet with some accident which prevented them from ever again visiting that part of the country. In the meanwhile Hoang grew from infancy into childhood, taking part with Ten-teh in all his pursuits, yet even in the most menial occupation never wholly shaking off the air of command and nobility of bearing which lay upon him. In strength and endurance he outpaced all the youths around, while in the manipulation of the raft and the dexterous handling of the cormorants he covered Ten-teh with gratified shame. So excessive was the devotion which he aroused in those who knew him that the deficient youth wept openly if Hoang chanced to cough or sneeze; and it is even asserted that on more than one occasion high officials, struck by the authority of his presence, though he might be in the act of carrying fish along the road, hastily descended from their chairs and prostrated themselves before him.

In the fourteenth year of the reign of the usurper Fuh-chi a little breeze rising in the Province of Sz-chuen began to spread through all the land and men’s minds were again agitated by the memory of a hope which had long seemed dead. At that period the tyrannical Fuh-chi finally abandoned the last remaining vestige of restraint and by his crimes and excesses alienated even the protection of the evil spirits and the fidelity of his chosen guard; so that he conspired with himself to bring about his own destruction. One discriminating adviser alone had stood at the foot of the throne, and being no less resolute than farseeing, he did not hesitate to warn Fuh-chi and to hold the prophetic threat of rebellion before his eyes. Such sincerity met with the reward not difficult to conjecture.

“Who are our enemies?” exclaimed Fuh-chi, turning to a notorious flatterer at his side, “and where are they who are displeased with our too lenient rule?”

“Your enemies, O Brother of the Sun and Prototype of the Red-legged Crane, are dead and unmourned. The living do naught but speak of your clemency and bask in the radiance of your eye-light,” protested the flatterer.

“It is well said,” replied Fuh-chi. “How is it, then, that any can eat of our rice and receive our bounty and yet repay us with ingratitude and taunts, holding their joints stiffly in our presence? Lo, even