also; but Li Chia held her in
his arms, while Sun vehemently encouraged him.

So, pushing Li away, she turned to the other and reviled him:

"The Lord Li and I suffered many bitter moments before we came to
yesterday. And you, to serve a detestable and criminal lust, have
undone us and have caused me to hate the man I loved. After my death
I meet the Spirit of Retribution, and I shall not forget your vile
hypocrisy."

Then, turning toward Li Chia, she continued:

"During those many years when I lived in a disorder of the dust and
breeze, I secretly amassed these treasures, that they might some day
rescue my body. When I met my Lord, we vowed that our union should
be higher than the mountain, deeper than the sea. We swore that, even
when our hair was white, we should have our love. Before leaving the
capital, I pretended to receive this casket as a gift from my friends.
It contained a treasure of more than a myriad ounces. I intended to
deposit it in your treasury, when I had seen your father and mother.
Who would have thought your faith so shallow, that, on the strength
of a chance conversation, you would consent to lose my loyal heart?
To-day, before the eyes of all these people, I have shown you that
your thousand ounces were a very little sum of money. These persons
are my witness that it is my Lord who rejects his wife, that it is not
I who am wanting in my duty."

Hearing these sad words, those who were present wept, and called down
curses upon Li, and reviled him as an ingrate. And he, being both
ashamed and desolate, shed tears of bitter repentance. He knelt down
to beg for her forgiveness. But Shih-niang, holding the jewels in each
hand, leaped into the yellow water of the river.

The onlookers uttered a cry and rushed to save her. But, under a
sombre cloud, the waves in the heart of the river broke into boiling
foam, and no further trace was seen of that desperate woman.

Alas! she was an illustrious singing girl, as beautiful as flowers or
jade. She had been swallowed in an instant by the water.

The people, grinding their teeth, would have beaten Li and Sun; but
these, in terror and dismay, made haste to push their boats out from
the bank, and then went each his own way.

Li Chia, seeing the thousand ounces of silver in his cabin,
unceasingly wept for the death of Shih-niang. His remorse gave birth
to a kind of madness in him, of which he could never be healed.

Sun was so prostrated that he had t