her love to him. She had chosen this solution of their impossible
position, hoping that, relieved of her presence, he might be able to
endure till coming harvest.

The body, wrapped in matting, was laid in an empty cave. There was no
money for a coffin, and many were waiting like hungry wolves to eat the
uncoffined dead; moreover, the boy and his uncle were too weak to drag
the body to the burying-ground.

The months passed, and still the arid, sun-baked earth refused to bear
any green thing, and the despairing people longed for rain which never
came. The second year of drought had come and gone, and there was now
nothing sown in the fields, but on the seventh day of the fourth moon of
the fourth year of the Emperor Kwang Hsue, the longed-for rain fell and
hope revived.

At this time also a stranger came to the village registering the names
of survivors, and announcing that foreigners had arrived and were
distributing grain that the fields might be sown for an autumn crop.

The worst of the famine was over, but the terrors of famine fever had
yet to be faced, and when the longed-for grain had ripened there were
in many houses none left to eat it, for whole families had been wiped
out.

Wang now naturally became an inmate of his uncle's home, and gradually
the conditions of greatest horror were relieved. As soon as strength had
sufficiently returned, they made coffins and prepared to bury their
dead, that the required rites should not be lacking which should bring
consolation to those who had entered the land of shades without the
necessary honours having been paid to their memory. Not only for the
coffins was money required, but also to pay the fees of the geomancers
who must decide the site of the graves and an auspicious day for the
funeral. In this one family, thirteen coffins were made and graves dug
in accordance with the following plan: The four quarterings of the
celestial sphere were borne in mind, respectively governed by the Azure
Dragon, Red Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise, these being
identified with East, West, South, and North. The graves should face the
south, with White Tiger on the right and Azure Dragon on the left, as
these respectively control wind and water.

On the day of the funeral the son, dressed in coarse white cloth, with
unhemmed garments, white twists plaited with the hair of his queue which
he wore over his chest, and his head unshaven, walked as chief mourner,
the wailing re