KAI LUNG'S GOLDEN HOURS
to protect him in every extremity, yet holding failure as treason; most terrible and inexorable towards set disobedience. His body might find a painless escape from their earthly torments, but by his oaths his spirit lay in their keeping to be punished through all eternity.
That he was no longer Wu Chi's son, that he had no father—this conviction had been strong enough to rule him in every contingency of life save this. By every law of men and deities the ties between them had been dissolved, and they stood as man and man; yet the salt can never be quite washed out of sea-water.
For a time which ceased to be hours or minutes, but seemed as a fragment broken off eternity, he stood, motionless but most deeply racked. With an effort he stooped to take the cord, and paused again; twice he would have seized the dagger, but doubt again possessed him. From a distant point of the house came the chant of a monk singing a prayer and beating upon a wooden drum. The rays of the sun falling upon the gilded roof in the garden again caught his eyes; nothing else stirred.
"These in their turn have settled great issues lightly," thought Weng bitterly. "Must I wait upon an omen?"
"… submitting oneself to purifying scars," droned the voice far off; "propitiating if need be by even greater self-inflictions …"
"It suffices," said Weng dispassionately, and picking up the knife he turned to leave the room.
At the door he paused again, but not in an arising doubt. "I will leave a token for Tiao to wear as a jest," was the image that had sprung from his new abasement, and taking a sheet of parchment he quickly
138
