Some Chinese Ghosts | Page 8

you
will say nothing to him until I shall have sought to discover this
mystery; and this very evening I shall send my servant to follow after
him, and to watch whither he goes."
Pelou readily assented to this proposal, and promising to visit Tchang

the following morning, returned to his home. In the evening, when
Ming-Y left the house of Tchang, a servant followed him unobserved at
a distance. But on reaching the most obscure portion of the road, the
boy disappeared from sight as suddenly as though the earth had
swallowed him. After having long sought after him in vain, the
domestic returned in great bewilderment to the house, and related what
had taken place. Tchang immediately sent a messenger to Pelou.
In the mean time Ming-Y, entering the chamber of his beloved, was
surprised and deeply pained to find her in tears. "Sweetheart," she
sobbed, wreathing her arms around his neck, "we are about to be
separated forever, because of reasons which I cannot tell you. From the
very first I knew this must come to pass; and nevertheless it seemed to
me for the moment so cruelly sudden a loss, so unexpected a
misfortune, that I could not prevent myself from weeping! After this
night we shall never see each other again, beloved, and I know that you
will not be able to forget me while you live; but I know also that you
will become a great scholar, and that honors and riches will be
showered upon you, and that some beautiful and loving woman will
console you for my loss. And now let us speak no more of grief; but let
us pass this last evening joyously, so that your recollection of me may
not be a painful one, and that you may remember my laughter rather
than my tears."
She brushed the bright drops away, and brought wine and music and
the melodious kin of seven silken strings, and would not suffer Ming-Y
to speak for one moment of the coming separation. And she sang him
an ancient song about the calmness of summer lakes reflecting the blue
of heaven only, and the calmness of the heart also, before the clouds of
care and of grief and of weariness darken its little world. Soon they
forgot their sorrow in the joy of song and wine; and those last hours
seemed to Ming-Y more celestial than even the hours of their first bliss.
But when the yellow beauty of morning came their sadness returned,
and they wept. Once more Sië accompanied her lover to the
terrace-steps; and as she kissed him farewell, she pressed into his hand
a parting gift,--a little brush-case of agate, wonderfully chiselled, and

worthy the table of a great poet. And they separated forever, shedding
many tears.
* * * * *
Still Ming-Y could not believe it was an eternal parting. "No!" he
thought, "I shall visit her tomorrow; for I cannot now live without her,
and I feel assured that she cannot refuse to receive me." Such were the
thoughts that filled his mind as he reached the house of Tchang, to find
his father and his patron standing on the porch awaiting him. Ere he
could speak a word, Pelou demanded: "Son, in what place have you
been passing your nights?"
Seeing that his falsehood had been discovered, Ming-Y dared not make
any reply, and remained abashed and silent, with bowed head, in the
presence of his father. Then Pelou, striking the boy violently with his
staff, commanded him to divulge the secret; and at last, partly through
fear of his parent, and partly through fear of the law which ordains that
"_the son refusing to obey his father shall be punished with one
hundred blows of the bamboo,_" Ming-Y faltered out the history of his
love.
Tchang changed color at the boy's tale. "Child," exclaimed the High
Commissioner, "I have no relative of the name of Ping; I have never
heard of the woman you describe; I have never heard even of the house
which you speak of. But I know also that you cannot dare to lie to
Pelou, your honored father; there is some strange delusion in all this
affair."
Then Ming-Y produced the gifts that Sië had given him,--the lion of
yellow jade, the brush-case of carven agate, also some original
compositions made by the beautiful lady herself. The astonishment of
Tchang was now shared by Pelou. Both observed that the brush-case of
agate and the lion of jade bore the appearance of objects that had lain
buried in the earth for centuries, and were of a workmanship beyond
the power of living man to imitate; while the compositions proved to be
veritable master-pieces of poetry, written in the style of the poets of the