d it safest to accept this token and falling
down he thrice knocked his forehead submissively. When he looked up
again the majestic bird had vanished as utterly as the flame that is
quenched, and lying at his feet was a naked man-child.

"O master," said the voice of the assistant, as he cautiously
protruded his head above the surface of the raft, "has the vision
faded, or do creatures of the air before whom even their own kind
kowtow still haunt the spot?"

"The manifestation has withdrawn," replied Ten-teh reassuringly, "but
like the touch of the omnipotent Buddha it has left behind it that
which proves its reality," and he pointed to the man-child.

"Beware, alas!" exclaimed the youth, preparing to immerse himself a
second time if the least cause arose; "and on no account permit
yourself to be drawn into the snare. Inevitably the affair tends to
evil from the beginning and presently that which now appears as a
man-child will assume the form of a devouring vampire and consume us
all. Such occurrences are by no means uncommon when the great
sky-lantern is at its full distension."

"To maintain otherwise would be impious," admitted his master, "but at
the same time there is nothing to indicate that the beneficial deities
are not the ones responsible for this apparition." With these humane
words the kindly-disposed Ten-teh wrapped his outer robe about the
man-child and turned to lay him in the empty creel, when to his
profound astonishment he saw that it was now filled with fish of the
rarest and most unapproachable kinds.

"Footsteps of the dragon!" exclaimed the youth, scrambling back on to
the raft hastily; "undoubtedly your acuter angle of looking at the
visitation was the inspired one. Let us abandon the man-child in an
unfrequented spot and then proceed to divide the result of the
adventure equally among us."

"An agreed portion shall be allotted," replied Ten-teh, "but to
abandon so miraculously-endowed a being would cover even an outcast
with shame."

"'Shame fades in the morning; debts remain from day to day,'" replied
the youth, the allusion of the proverb being to the difficulty of
sustaining life in times so exacting, when men pledged their household
goods, their wives, even their ancestral records for a little flour or
a jar of oil. "To the starving the taste of a grain of corn is more
satisfying than the thought of a roasted ox, but as many years must
pass as this creel now holds fish before the li