leep warily; robbers are about.'"

"As regards bodily suffering and material extortion, it is possible to
attain such a limit as no longer to excite the cupidity of even the
most rapacious deity," admitted Leou. "Other forms of flattening-out a
transgressor's self-content remain however. For instance, it has come
within the knowledge of the controlling Powers that seven generations
of your distinguished ancestors occupy positions of dignified
seclusion in the Upper Air."

For the first time Sun Wei's attitude was not entirely devoid of an
emotion of concern.

"They would not--?"

"To mark their sense of your really unsupportable behaviour it has
been decided that all seven shall return to the humiliating scenes of
their former existences in admittedly objectionable forms," replied
the outrageous Leou. "Sun Chen, your venerated sire, will become an
agile grasshopper; your incomparable grandfather, Yuen, will have the
similitude of a yellow goat; as a tortoise your leisurely-minded
ancestor Huang, the high public official--"

"Forbear!" exclaimed the conscience-stricken Sun Wei; "rather would
this person suffer every imaginable form of torture than that the
spirit of one of his revered ancestors should be submitted to so
intolerable a bondage. Is there no amiable form of compromise whereby
the ancestors of some less devoted and liberally-inspired son might be
imperceptibly, as it were, substituted?"

"In ordinary cases some such arrangement is generally possible,"
conceded Leou; "but not idly is it written: 'There is a time to
silence an adversary with the honey of logical persuasion, and there
is a time to silence him with the argument of a heavily-directed
club.' In your extremity a hostage is the only efficient safeguard.
Seize the person of one of the gods themselves and raise a strong wall
around your destiny by holding him to ransom."

"'Ho Tai, requiring a light for his pipe, stretched out his hand
towards the great sky-lantern,'" quoted Sun Wei.

"'Do not despise Ching To because his armour is invisible,'" retorted
Leou, with equal point. "Your friends in the Above are neither feeble
nor inept. Do as I shall instruct you and no less a Being than Ning
will be delivered into your hand."

Then replied Sun Wei dubiously: "A spreading mango-tree affords a
pleasant shade within one's courtyard, and a captive god might for a
season undoubtedly confer an enviable distinction. But presently the
tree's encroachi