hat she desired to accomplish. Succeeding in this after some delay
(for the persons in question, being very illiterate and narrow-minded,
were unable at first to understand the existence of any recumbent male
person other than the dead magician, whom they thereupon commenced to
bury in the garden with expressions of great satisfaction at their
own intelligence in comprehending Mian's meaning so readily) they all
journeyed to the wood, and bearing Ling between them, they carried him
to the house without further adventure.

VIII

It was in the month of Hot Dragon Breaths, many weeks after the fight in
the woods of Ki, that Ling again opened his eyes to find himself in an
unknown chamber, and to recognize in the one who visited him from time
to time the incomparable maiden whose life he had saved in the cypress
glade. Not a day had passed in the meanwhile on which Mian had neglected
to offer sacrifices to Chang-Chung, the deity interested in drugs and
healing substances, nor had she wavered in her firm resolve to bring
Ling back to an ordinary existence even when the attendants had
protested that the person in question might without impropriety be sent
to the Restoring Establishment of the Last Chance, so little did his
hope of recovering rest upon the efforts of living beings.

After he had beheld Mian's face and understood the circumstances of his
escape and recovery, Ling quickly shook off the evil vapours which had
held him down so long, and presently he was able to walk slowly in the
courtyard and in the shady paths of the wood beyond, leaning upon Mian
for the support he still required.

"Oh, graceful one," he said on such an occasion, when little stood
between him and the full powers which he had known before the battle,
"there is a matter which has been pressing upon this person's mind for
some time past. It is as dark after light to let the thoughts dwell
around it, yet the thing itself must inevitably soon be regarded, for in
this life one's actions are for ever regulated by conditions which are
neither of one's own seeking nor within one's power of controlling."

At these words all brightness left Mian's manner, for she at once
understood that Ling referred to his departure, of which she herself had
lately come to think with unrestrained agitation.

"Oh, Ling," she exclaimed at length, "most expert of sword-users and
most noble of men, surely never was a maiden more inelegantly placed
than the one who