one other thing, esteemed, if such a presumption is to
be endured," Kai Lung ventured to request. "Each day a stone has been
displaced from off the wall and these now lie about your gentle feet.
If you should inconvenience yourself to the extent of standing upon
the mound thus raised, and would stretch up your hand, I, leaning
forth, could touch it with my finger-tips."

"This also will I dare to do and feel it no reproach," replied
Hwa-mei; thus for the first time their fingers met.

"Let me now continue the ignoble message that my unworthy lips must
bear," resumed the maiden, with a gesture of refined despair.
"Ming-shu and Shan Tien, recognizing a mutual need in each, have
agreed to forego their wordy strife and have entered upon a common
cause. To mark this reconciliation the Mandarin to-morrow night will
make a feast of wine and song in honour of Ming-shu and into this
assembly you will be led, bound and wearing the wooden cang, to
contribute to their offensive mirth. To this end you will not be
arraigned to-morrow, but on the following morning at a special court
swift sentence will be passed and carried out, neither will Shan Tien
suffer any interruption nor raise an arresting hand."

The darkness by this time encompassed them so that neither could see
the other's face, but across the scent-laden air Hwa-mei was conscious
of a subtle change, as of a poise or the tightening of a responsive
cord.

"This is the end?" she whispered up, unable to sustain. "Ah, is it not
the end?"

"In the high wall of destiny that bounds our lives there is ever a
hidden gap to which the Pure Ones may guide our unconscious steps
perchance, if they see fit to intervene. . . . So that to-morrow,
being the eleventh of the Moon of Gathering-in, is to be celebrated by
the noble Mandarin with song and wine? Truly the nimble-witted
Ming-shu must have slumbered by the way!"

"Assuredly he has but now returned from a long journey."

"Haply he may start upon a longer. Have the musicians been commanded
yet?"

"Even now one goes to inform the leader of their voices and to bid him
hold his band in readiness."

"Let it be your continual aim that nothing bars their progress. Where
does that just official dwell of whom you lately spoke?"

"The Censor K'o-yih, he who rebuked Shan Tien's ambitions and made him
mend his questionable life? His yamen is about the Three-eyed Gate of
Tai, a half-day's journey to the south."

"The lines converge