one who had seen them.
Refusing to receive any remuneration for them, they bowed gracefully to
the Emperor and retired. As the door of the audience-chamber closed
upon them they vanished from human sight, and no trace of them could
anywhere be found.

On the great day appointed by the Emperor, such a gathering was
assembled as China in all the long history of the past had never before
witnessed. Abbots from far-off distant monasteries were there, dressed
in their finest vestments. Aged priests, with faces wrinkled by the
passage of years, and young bonzes in their slate-coloured gowns, had
travelled over the hills and mountains of the North to be present, and
took up their positions in the great building. Men of note, too, who
had made themselves famous by their devoted zeal for the ceremonies of
the Buddhist Church and by their munificent gifts to the temples and
shrines, had come with great retinues of their clansmen to add to the
splendour and dignity of the occasion.

But the chief glory and attraction of the day to the assembled crowds
was the Emperor, Li Shih-Ming. Never had he been seen in such pomp and
circumstance as on this occasion. Close round him stood the princes of
the royal family, the great officers of state and the members of the
Cabinet in their rich and picturesque dresses. Immediately beyond were
earls and dukes, viceroys of provinces and great captains and
commanders, whose fame for mighty deeds of valour in the border warfare
had spread through every city and town and hamlet in the Empire.

There were also present some of the most famous scholars of China, who,
though not members of the Buddhist Church, yet felt that they could not
refuse the invitation which the Emperor had extended to them.

In short, the very flower of the Empire was gathered together to carry
out the benevolent purpose of rescuing the spirits of the dead from an
intolerable state of misery which only the living had the power of
alleviating.

The supreme moment, however, was when Sam-Chaong and more than a
hundred of the priests most distinguished for learning and piety in the
whole of the church, marched in solemn procession, chanting a litany,
and took their places on the raised platform from which they were to
conduct the service for the dead.

During the ceremony, much to his amazement, Li Shih-Ming saw the two
men who had bestowed the fairy vestments on Sam-Chaong, standing one on
each side of him; but though