Some Chinese Ghosts | Page 2

years ago the Celestially August, the Son of
Heaven, Yong-Lo, of the "Illustrious," or Ming, dynasty, commanded
the worthy official Kouan-Yu that he should have a bell made of such
size that the sound thereof might be heard for one hundred li. And he
further ordained that the voice of the bell should be strengthened with
brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver; and that the
face and the great lips of it should be graven with blessed sayings from
the sacred books, and that it should be suspended in the centre of the
imperial capital, to sound through all the many-colored ways of the
City of Pe-king.
Therefore the worthy mandarin Kouan-Yu assembled the
master-moulders and the renowned bellsmiths of the empire, and all
men of great repute and cunning in foundry work; and they measured
the materials for the alloy, and treated them skilfully, and prepared the
moulds, the fires, the instruments, and the monstrous melting-pot for
fusing the metal. And they labored exceedingly, like giants,--neglecting
only rest and sleep and the comforts of life; toiling both night and day
in obedience to Kouan-Yu, and striving in all things to do the behest of
the Son of Heaven.
But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mould separated
from the glowing casting, it was discovered that, despite their great
labor and ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for the metals
had rebelled one against the other,--the gold had scorned alliance with
the brass, the silver would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore
the moulds had to be once more prepared, and the fires rekindled, and
the metal remelted, and all the work tediously and toilsomely repeated.
The Son of Heaven heard, and was angry, but spake nothing.
A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even worse. Still the
metals obstinately refused to blend one with the other; and there was no
uniformity in the bell, and the sides of it were cracked and fissured, and
the lips of it were slagged and split asunder; so that all the labor had to

be repeated even a third time, to the great dismay of Kouan-Yu. And
when the Son of Heaven heard these things, he was angrier than before;
and sent his messenger to Kouan-Yu with a letter, written upon
lemon-colored silk, and sealed with the seal of the Dragon, containing
these words:--
"_From the Mighty Yong-Lo, the Sublime Tait-Sung, the Celestial and
August,--whose reign is called 'Ming,'--to Kouan-Yu the Fuh-yin:
Twice thou hast betrayed the trust we have deigned graciously to place
in thee; if thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head
shall be severed from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!_"
* * * * *
Now, Kouan-Yu had a daughter of dazzling loveliness, whose
name--Ko-Ngai--was ever in the mouths of poets, and whose heart was
even more beautiful than her face. Ko-Ngai loved her father with such
love that she had refused a hundred worthy suitors rather than make his
home desolate by her absence; and when she had seen the awful yellow
missive, sealed with the Dragon-Seal, she fainted away with fear for
her father's sake. And when her senses and her strength returned to her,
she could not rest or sleep for thinking of her parent's danger, until she
had secretly sold some of her jewels, and with the money so obtained
had hastened to an astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise her
by what means her father might be saved from the peril impending over
him. So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked
the aspect of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and
examined the signs of the Zodiac,--the _Hwang-tao_, or Yellow
Road,--and consulted the table of the Five Hin, or Principles of the
Universe, and the mystical books of the alchemists. And after a long
silence, he made answer to her, saying: "Gold and brass will never meet
in wedlock, silver and iron never will embrace, until the flesh of a
maiden be melted in the crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mixed
with the metals in their fusion." So Ko-Ngai returned home sorrowful
at heart; but she kept secret all that she had heard, and told no one what
she had done.
* * * * *

At last came the awful day when the third and last effort to cast the
great bell was to be made; and Ko-Ngai, together with her
waiting-woman, accompanied her father to the foundry, and they took
their places upon a platform overlooking the toiling of the moulders
and the lava of liquefied metal. All the workmen wrought their tasks in
silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering of the fires.