l, as the two persons always contrived to
be present together, and to explain to one another the nature of the
various matters afterwards; but as they were of somewhat deficient
understanding, the circumstance was unimportant.

It was with more uneasiness that the magician perceived one day that the
maiden whom he had adopted was no longer a child. As he desired secrecy
above all things until he should have completed the one important
matter for which he had laboured all his life, he decided with extreme
unwillingness to put into operation a powerful charm towards her, which
would have the effect of diminishing all her attributes until such time
as he might release her again. Owing to his reluctance in the matter,
however, the magic did not act fully, but only in such a way that her
feet became naturally and without binding the most perfect and beautiful
in the entire province of Hu Nan, so that ever afterwards she was called
Pan Fei Mian, in delicate reference to that Empress whose feet were so
symmetrical that a golden lily sprang up wherever she trod. Afterwards
the magician made no further essay in the matter, chiefly because he
was ever convinced that the accomplishment of his desire was within his
grasp.

The rumours of armed men in the neighbourhood of Si-chow threw the
magician into an unendurable condition of despair. To lose all, as would
most assuredly happen if he had to leave his arranged rooms and secret
preparations and take to flight, was the more bitter because he felt
surer than ever that success was even standing by his side. The very
subtle liquid, which would mix itself into the component parts of the
living creature which drank it, and by an insidious and harmless process
so work that, when the spirit departed, the flesh would become resolved
into a figure of pure and solid gold of the finest quality, had engaged
the refined minds of many of the most expert individuals of remote
ages. With most of these inspired persons, however, the search had
been undertaken in pure-minded benevolence, their chief aim being an
honourable desire to discover a method by which one's ancestors might
be permanently and effectively preserved in a fit and becoming manner to
receive the worship and veneration of posterity. Yet, in spite of these
amiable motives, and of the fact that the magician merely desired the
possession of the secret to enable him to become excessively wealthy,
the affair had been so arranged that