den. He looked about him. There was no sign of house, of garden, of habitation anywhere in sight. What had happened? He neither knew nor cared. His body felt as though it had been crushed, broken. His pain was great but he heeded it not. He was free once more, back upon the road, back into the sunlight, back into the clear, crisp air of the mountains. Far in the distance he could hear the tinkle of a camel's bell. It was the bell of the leader of a camel train winding slowly back toward Hankow. It was going home. In that moment a great longing for his little hotel took root in the mind of Li Kan. Henceforth his traveling would be done in his own tea room. He would travel by listening to the adventures of other people.
He rose to his feet. His bones ached but he was able to walk. He shuddered as he thought what might have become of him if he had kissed the soft red lips of Chin Chu. It was a foolish thought, but he almost regretted that he had not risked all for that one sublime moment of rhapsody.
During the ensuing years Li Kan sat in his hotel. Over and over again he told and retold of his adventures. Many believed and went on their way marveling. Others scoffed. They could not understand what had happened to the magnificent house, the lovely lady and the garden. Many shook their heads. They refused to believe. They credited the strange story to the vapors of samshu or opium. But Li Kan smiled. He was a philosopher. After all, a story was a story. He did not bother showing them the opal of Ts Ah-nyi which he still possessed, the opal which had glistened and glowed with a wondrous fire but which was now dead, as dead and cold as the bones of old prophets.
"A man may lie," mused Li Kan. "but a rare jewel never does." And he drew loudly and long at his old bamboo pipe of vile tobacco.
Easter Island
By Robert E. Howard
How many weary centuries have flown
Since strange-eyed beings walked this ancient shore,
Hearing, as we, the green Pacific's roar,
Hewing fantastic gods from sullen stone!
The sands are bare; the idols stand alone.
Impotent 'gainst the years was all their lore:
They are forgot in ages dim and hoar;
Yet still, as then, the long tide-surges drone.
What dreams had they, that shaped these uncouth things?
Before these gods what victims bled and died?
What purple galleys swept along the strand
That bore the tribute of what dim sea-kings?
But now they reign o'er a forgotten land,
Gating forever out beyond the tide.
