for failing to detect and honour you from the
beginning."

"Such words indicate nothing beyond an excess of hemp spirit," answered
Ling, with signs of displeasure. "To gain my explicit esteem, make me
smooth without delay, and do not exhibit before me the lock of hair
which, from its colour and appearance, has evidently adorned the head of
one of those maidens whose duty it is to quench the thirst of travellers
in the long narrow rooms of this city."

"Majestic and anonymous spirit," said the other, with extreme reverence,
and an entire absence of the appearance of one who had gazed into
too many vessels, "if such be your plainly-expressed desire, this
superficial person will at once proceed to make smooth your peach-like
skin, and with a carefulness inspired by the certainty that the most
unimportant wound would give forth liquid fire, in which he would
undoubtedly perish. Nevertheless, he desires to make it evident that
this hair is from the head of no maiden, being, indeed, the uneven
termination of your own sacred pigtail, which this excessively
self-confident slave took the inexcusable liberty of removing, and which
changed in this manner within his hand in order to administer a fit
reproof for his intolerable presumption."

Impressed by the mien and unquestionable earnestness of the remover of
hair, Ling took the matter which had occasioned these various emotions
in his hand and examined it. His amazement was still greater when he
perceived that--in spite of the fact that it presented every appearance
of having been cut from his own person--none of the qualities of hair
remained in it; it was hard and wire-like, possessing, indeed, both the
nature and the appearance of a metal.

As he gazed fixedly and with astonishment, there came back into
the remembrance of Ling certain obscure and little-understood facts
connected with the limitless wealth possessed by the Yellow Emperor--of
which the great gold life-like image in the Temple of Internal Symmetry
at Peking alone bears witness now--and of his lost secret. Many very
forcible prophecies and omens in his own earlier life, of which
the rendering and accomplishment had hitherto seemed to be dark and
incomplete, passed before him, and various matters which Mian had
related to him concerning the habits and speech of the magician took
definite form within his mind. Deeply impressed by the exact manner in
which all these circumstances fitted together, one into anothe