within them and even the bravest are troubled, Ti Yung Seng, burdened with a mighty load of stinkpots and repeatedly falling in the slime, went staggering over the marsh that surrounded the city with a great horror of death in his soul. trembled. None of his Wise when weak men's hearts die Rules afforded him any assist ance in performing the squalid and disgusting duties that were assigned to him, and his back was sore and bloody from the stripes which he received and from carrying great burdens of stinkpots. And the fear of death was a shadow on his eyes and a parching drought in his mouth. He thought of all the examinations that he had passed, and of all the wisdom to which he had attained, but it was no comfort to him; and when he tried to utter a Wise Rule, they loaded him with more stinkpots and kicked and reviled him. Then he received a direct revelation from his ancestor the Goddess, which showed that War was not, 88 he had formerly taught, a splendid and glorious thing, but that it was cruel and brutal and senseless; but when he tried to reveal this truth to others he was beaten again. And they made a song of his Wise Rules and forced him to sing it. Very soon food became soarce in the city, and therefore the Commander of the Army ordered his troops to sally forth and to attack the Orphrites an hour before dawn on & certain morning. Ti Yung Seng found, to his dismay, that he was expected to assist in the attack. He wept, and protested that he was extremely unwell; but his pleading was of no avail, and a fierce and brutal soldier with a sharp goad was ordered to assist his progress towards the enemy. In the dark hour Ti Dawn had not yet broken when they reached the enemy's camp. The Orphrites, who were aware of their advent, suddenly discharged a quantity of fireworks and raised a loud shout. Ti Yung Seng dropped his load and began to run towards the city, but he fell headlong in the slime, and the man with the goad pricked him and compelled him to take up his stinkpots and advance to the attack. The Orphrites discharged a cloud of arrows and came rushing out of their camp like a swarm of angry bees from a hive, brandishing great swords and torches and shouting their war-song. Yung Seng uttered a yell of terror, hurled all his stinkpots at the man with the goad, who fell heels over head into a deep ditch, and ran towards the Orphrites, crying out that he was Ti Yung Seng, the great philosopher and the Apostle of Peace. The Orphrites rushed at him and would certainly have carved him into small fragments with their swords, but at that moment their Prince came among them and, recognising Ti Yung Seng, ordered that he should be made prisoner. So they led him into their camp, and placed him in a small hut with a sentry on guard at the door. And the Orphrites drove their enemies back to the city, killing many. When day broke Ti Yung Seng was brought inte the presence of the King of the Orphrites, who was wise and just and a great captain. The King received him courteously and ordered that a chair should be placed for him. placed for him. Wherefore his soul revived, and he counted his troubles as ended. But when he offered to lead the Orphrites by a secret way into the oity, the King frowned and said "Doubtless, O Ti Yung Seng, you are the most learned of all the philosophers, but you seem to be singularly ignorant in matters pertaining to chivalrous conduct. My beloved daughter-in-law, whom you doubtless remember, has employed her leisure during the absence of the Prince, her husband, in compiling Rules of Honour in several large volumes, and has sent them to me. They shall be placed in your present residence, and I trust that you will benefit by a careful perusal of them. And if you do not know them by heart after three days and three nights, you shall indubitably be hanged." Ti Yung Seng pored over the books for two days, but the effulgence of his intelleet had become darkened by adversity, and the learned maxims of the Princess seemed to him the ravings of one demented. And on the evening of the second day, when he knew that his wisdom had left him, he wept; and when he thought of the hanging on the morrow, he beat his breast and grovelled on the floor of his prison, and lamented bitterly. And he thought of all his Wise Rules, but there were none that availed to render the aspect of imminent death less hideous. And he howled like a dog and beat on the bars of his prison. After he had done this for some time he perceived that one of the bars of the window was loosened in its socket, and a faint hope awoke in his heart. He worked at the bar very quietly, in order that the sentry might not hear him, and at last he was able to remove it from its place. There was an aperture sufficiently large for his body to pass, and looking out, he saw that the sentry was sitting by the door with his back towards the window. Ti Yung Seng forgot all the Wise Rules and Rules of Honour; his soul was empty of everything except a fierce desire to kill the sentry. He climbed through the window silently and pulled the iron bar after him. Then, as the sentry turned, he heaved up the bar and smote him on his helmet. The sentry fell without a sound, and Ti Yung Seng orept silently away into the darkness. For some time he wandered to and fro within the circuit of the camp, and exceeding fear possessed him, for he expeoted every moment to hear a shout proclaim that the body of the sentry had been found. Whenever he heard footsteps he flung himself easily outwit kings and milidown on the earth, and lay tary commanders, and that no there trembling until the prison might long contain sound died away. At length, them. And he resolved that after much wandering, he he would not return to the reached the palisade that city, but that he would jourguarded the camp, and was ney towards the mountains of able to climb it without being Ping, and take refuge with observed by the sentries. He certain Holy Hermits who fell heavily into the wet ditoh dwelt in those fastnesses. on the other side, and as he erawled forth from it he heard a loud clamour arise in the camp. Then he cast off his outer garment and fled into the night with a speed that had rarely been attained by any philosopher. When, at last, being utterly breathless, he was obliged to halt, he saw lights moving about the camp, and the noise of shouting came faintly to his ears. Then the lights died out and the elamour ceased, but the silence that followed was even more terrifying to Ti Yung, Seng. He felt that stealthy pursuers were close on his track, and he bounded and ran like a frightened hare until his limbs collapsed from utter weariness. So he crept into a wood, and lay there till the day broke. Now, when it was discovered in the camp that the prisoner had gone, there was a great outory, but the King immediately gave orders that Ti Yung Seng was to be allowed to escape. This clemency was due to the intercession of the Princess, who had stated that Ti Yung Seng was a complete imbecile, and that it was cruel to expect him to understand or to remember even one of her Rules of Honour. The Prince, also, was of the opinion that Ti Yung Seng was not worth the trouble of a ceremony or the expense of a rope. So the hanging was cancelled from the orders of the day, and the Orphrites advanced and easily took the city. And they released the Emperor from his iron cage and treated him with the honour due to the father of the Princess; but he had passed so long a time in the cage that he continued for the remainder of his life to regard himself as a bird, and he would twitter and sing, and the light of his mind was darkened. But when the dawn had painted the east with her pageant of colour his spirits revived, and he began to think once again that he was an extremely clever person, and that the Goddess of Wisdom had specially protected him, Ti Yung Seng journeyed for and that the Orphrites were three days towards the mounbad sentinels and very great tains of Ping. He was exceedfools. And he composed ingly hungry, and found nothing several Wise Rules which to eat but berries and roots; demonstrated that philoso- nevertheless, his heart W&8 phers of divine origin could exalted within him, and he gloried in the magnificence of his wisdom, and anticipated with great pleasure the enthusiastic reception that would be accorded to him by the Holy Hermits. In the afternoon of the third day he arrived at the mountains, and after orossing the lower slopes he found a small wooden shrine which was built at the foot of a precipice. The shrine contained a bronze image of the Goddess of Wisdom and a large gong; Ti Yung Seng made the miner obeisances to the goddess, resolving that a statue of himself should be set up in the shrine by the side of the bronze image. Then he smote lustily on the gong, and after a few moments a large basket hung on ropes began to descend the precipice, and Ti Yang Seng could see the Holy Hermits far above him watching its descent. He made the Five Gestures of Attainment, and the Hermits did likewise; then he climbed into the basket and was drawn slowly up the face of the rock. But some of the Hermits were they who had been dressed in pink feathers by command of the Emperor, and when Ti Yung Seng was sufficiently near for them to recognise him, they ceased to haul the ropes, and took counsel together. Ti Yung Seng was very angry, and quoted the Wise Rules, and put ourses upon them; but when they heard the Rules and the curses they began to lower the basket. And Ti Yung Seng stamped in lordly anger, and almost fell from it. But the Chief Hermit, VOL. CCVIII-NO. MCCLXII. an aged man who possessed great wisdom and foresight, rebuked the others, and caused him to be drawn up to the edge of the rook. Ti Yung Seng was still very angry when he stepped from the edge of the basket, and demanded that the Hermits who had held the ropes should be punished instantly and severely; the Chief Hermit, however, appeased him with soothing words, and led him into the monastery, and gave him food and wine. The Chief Hermit, also, had been one of those who were clothed in pink feathers and exposed to public insult, but he made no allusion to that painful incident. Now when Ti Yung Seng had eaten much food and had drunk great draughts of wine, his heart was yet more exalted, and he informed the Chief Hermit that he had been appointed by the Goddess of Wisdom, who had appeared to him in a vision, to be the head of the monastery; he also made allusion to his divine origin, and gave orders that an image of himself was to be set up in the temple of the Hermits. The Chief Hermit bowed, but said nothing, and presently led Ti Yang Seng to his own dwelling, which was situated near the edge of the precipice, and commanded a wide prospect of the plain below. And the tongue of Ti Yung Seng was unleashed, and he gave an account of all his exploits-how he had compelled an Emperor to send forth a mighty army, and how he had himself fought with 3 H One, but was it truly benefi- great valour, and how he had doubtless be, O Omnipotent escaped from the prison and the camp, and the matter of the slaying of the sentry. And Ti Yung Seng waxed exceeding eloquent and shameless, and he cried "I am the King of Life and the Lord of Learning; the Armies of the Unbeliever saw me and were soattered; the mighty Captains fled like dogs before me. The Holy and Wise of Earth shall kiss my sandals, and the man upon whom I look askance shall become even as a dead worm." And he commanded the Chief Hermit to fetch more wine; and when it was brought, he drank and oried: "I am God; yea, one of the chief of the Gods, born of the mighty Sun and the tender Moon. The earth is mine, and all men shall worship me. For it is so written in the Wise Rules." The Chief Hermit bowed low and said: "What is written is written." And presently he said: "Come, O Ti Yung Seng, ohild of the Gods, a little nearer the edge of the rook, to the end that you may more conveniently survey the Earth which is yours.' And he led Ti Yung Seng to the platform whence the Hermits were wont to let down their basket. And Ti Yang Seng surveyed the world, and uttered much foolishness, crying out that he was bountiful and beneficent, and that the Earth should flourish exceedingly under his rule. And the Chief Hermit waxed wroth, but he dissembled, and said: "Bountiful you will "Dear me !" said the Hermit, appearing embarrassed. "Yet we are taught that mildness and pity are attributes of the Gods. But perhaps you possess these also?" Verily do I possess them," answered Ti Yung Seng. "And I will give you a proof. I have not ceased to lament the fate of the unfortunate sentry whom I was compelled to smite, and the memory of that regrettable action haunts me continually." And he wiped away a tear. Then the Chief Hermit was more angry, and said in his heart: "Now do I know that the man is a fool and a hypocrite as well as a braggart, for the smiting of the sentry was the only sensible act that he ever performed in his life." But he dissembled again, and said: "Wherefore, O Ti Yung Seng, should so small a matter trouble your |