KAI LUNG'S GOLDEN HOURS
matter," he replied gravely. "Haply his feet have become entangled in a mesh of hair."
N'guk turned his benevolent gaze upon another—one higher in authority.
"Perchance," admitted the superior Being tolerantly. "Such things are. How comes it else that among the earth-creatures we find the faces of the deities—both the good and the bad?"
"How long has he been absent from our paths?"
They pressed another forward—keeper of the Outer Path of the West Expanses, he.
"He went, High Excellence, in the fifteenth of the earth-ruler Chun, whom your enlightened tolerance has allowed to occupy the lower dragon throne for two score years, as these earthlings count. Thus and thus"
"Enough!" exclaimed the Supreme. "Hear my iron word. When the buffoon-witted Ning rises from his congenial slough this shall be his lot: for sixty thousand ages he shall fail to find the path of his return, but shall, instead, thread an aimless flight among the frozen ambits of the outer stars, carrying a tormenting train of fire at his tail. And Leou, the Whisperer," added the Divining One, with the inscrutable wisdom that marked even his most opaque moments, "Leou shall meanwhile perform Ning's neglected task."
•••••••
For five and twenty years Ning had laboured in the fields of Sun Wei with a wooden collar girt about his neck, and Sun Wei had prospered. Yet it is to be doubted whether this last detail deliberately hinged on the policy of Leou or whether Sun Wei had not
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