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Being now within a step of Ping Siang and the completion of his undertaking, Yang Hu drew tighter the cords of his mask, tested and proved his weapons, and then, without further delay, threw open the door before him and stepped into the chamber, barring the door quickly so that no person might leave or enter without his consent.

At this interruption and manner of behaving, which clearly indicated the nature of the errand upon which the person before him had come, Ping Siang rose from his couch and stretched out his hand towards a gong which lay beside him.

“All summonses for aid are now unavailing, Ping Siang,” exclaimed Yang, without in any measure using delicate or set phrases of speech; “for, as you have doubtless informed yourself, the slaves of tyrants are the first to welcome the downfall of their lord.”

“The matter of your speech is as emptiness to this person,” replied the Mandarin, affecting with extreme difficulty an appearance of no-concern. “In what manner has he fallen? And how will the depraved and self-willed person before him avoid the well-deserved tortures which certainly await him in the public square on the morrow, as the reward of his intolerable presumptions?”

“O Mandarin,” cried Yang Hu, “the fitness and occasion for such speeches as the one to which you have just given utterance lie as far behind you as the smoke of yesterday’s sacrifice. With what manner of eyes have you frequently journeyed through Ching-fow of late, if the signs and omens there have not already warned you to prepare a coffin adequately designed to receive your well-proportioned body? Has not the pungent vapour of burning houses assailed your senses at every turn, or the salt tears from the eyes of forlorn ones dashed your peach-tea and spiced foods with bitterness?”

“Alas!” exclaimed Ping Siang, “this person now certainly begins to perceive that many things which he has unthinkingly allowed would present a very unendurable face to others.”

“In such a manner has it appeared to all Ching-fow,” said Yang Hu; “and the justice of your death has been universally admitted. Even should this one fail there would be an innumerable company eager to take his place. Therefore, O Ping Siang, as the only favour which it is within this person’s power to accord, select that which in your opinion is the most agreeable manner and weapon for your end.”

“It is truly said that at the Final Gate of the Two Ways the necessity for elegant and well-chosen sentences ends,” remarked Ping Siang with a sigh, “otherwise the manner of your address would be open to reproach. By your side this person perceives a long and apparently highly-tempered sword, which, in his opinion, will serve the purpose efficiently. Having no remarks of an improving but nevertheless exceedingly tedious nature with which to imprint the occasion for the benefit of those who come after, his only request is that the blow shall be an unhesitating and sufficiently well-directed one.”

At these words Yang Hu threw back his cloak to grasp the sword-handle, when the Mandarin, with his eyes fixed on the naked arm, and evidently inspired by every manner of conflicting emotions, uttered a cry of unspeakable wonder and incomparable surprise.

“The Serpent!” he cried, in a voice from which all evenness and control were absent. “The Sacred Serpent of our Race! O mysterious one, who and whence are you?”

Engulfed in an all-absorbing doubt at the nature of events, Yang could only gaze at the form of the serpent which had been clearly impressed upon his arm from the earliest time of his remembrance, while Ping Siang, tearing the silk garment from his own arm and displaying thereon a similar form, continued:

“Behold the inevitable and unvarying birthmark of our race! So it was with this person’s father and the ones before him; so it was with his treacherously-stolen son; so it will be to the end of all time.”