AN INNER CHAMBER OF YU-PING
like will certainly endeavour to inspire you. This person admittedly has no desire to nurture one who should prove to be of merely human seed, but your objection to propagating a race of dragonets turns on a keener edge. Added to this, a not unnatural disinclination to be dropped from so great a height as this into so deep and rocky a valley as that will conceivably add wings to your usually nimble-footed mind."
While speaking to Chang Tao in this encouraging strain, Pe-lung was also conversing suitably with Fuh-sang, who had by this time joined them, warning her of his absence until the dawn, and the like. When he had completed his instruction he stroked her face affectionately, greeted Chang Tao with a short but appropriate farewell, and changing his form projected himself downwards into the darkness of the valley below. Recognising that the situation into which he had been drawn possessed no other outlet, Chang Tao followed Fuh-sang on her backward path, and with her passed unsuspected into the dragon's cave.
Early as was Pe-lung's return on the following morning, Chang Tao stood on a rocky eminence to greet him, and the outline of his face, though not altogether clear of doubt, was by no means hopeless. Pe-lung still retained the impressive form of a gigantic dragon as he cleft the Middle Air, shining and iridescent, each beat of his majestic wings being as a roll of thunder and the skittering of sand and water from his crepitant scales leaving blights and rain-storms in his wake. When he saw Chang Tao he drove an earthward angle and alighting near at hand considerately changed into the semblance of an affluent merchant as he approached.
193
