Part 23 (1/2)
The Gruesome Remedy
Meantime Chao Chen and Liu Ch'in had reached Hsiang Shan. When they were brought to Miao Shan the ministers took out the King's letter and read it to her. ”I, Miao Chuang, King of Hsing Lin, have learned that there dwells at Hsiang Shan an Immortal whose power and compa.s.sion have no equal in the whole world. I have pa.s.sed my fiftieth year, and am afflicted with ulcers that all remedies have failed to cure. To-day a priest has a.s.sured me that at Hsiang Shan I can obtain the hand and eye of a living person, with which he will prepare an ointment able to restore me to my usual state of health. Relying upon his word and upon the goodness of the Immortal to whom he has directed me, I venture to beg that those two parts of a living body necessary to heal my ulcers be sent to me. I a.s.sure you of my everlasting grat.i.tude, fully confident that my request will not be refused.”
The next morning Miao Shan bade the ministers take a knife and cut off her left hand and gouge out her left eye. Liu Ch'in took the knife offered him, but did not dare to obey the order. ”Be quick,”
urged the Immortal; ”you have been commanded to return as soon as possible; why do you hesitate as if you were a young girl?” Liu Ch'in was forced to proceed. He plunged in the knife, and the red blood flooded the ground, spreading an odour like sweet incense. The hand and eye were placed on a golden plate, and, having paid their grateful respects to the Immortal, the envoys hastened to return.
When they had left, Miao Shan, who had transformed herself in order to allow the envoys to remove her hand and eye, told Shan Ts'ai that she was now going to prepare the ointment necessary for the cure of the King. ”Should the Queen,” she added, ”send for another eye and hand, I will transform myself again, and you can give them to her.” No sooner had she finished speaking than she mounted a cloud and disappeared in s.p.a.ce. The two ministers reached the palace and presented to the Queen the gruesome remedy which they had brought from the temple. She, overcome with grat.i.tude and emotion, wept copiously. ”What Immortal,”
she asked, ”can have been so charitable as to sacrifice a hand and eye for the King's benefit?” Then suddenly her tears gushed forth with redoubled vigour, and she uttered a great cry, for she recognized the hand of her daughter by a black scar which was on it.
Half-measures
”Who else, in fact, but his child,” she continued amid her sobs, ”could have had the courage to give her hand to save her father's life?” ”What are you saying?” said the King. ”In the world there are many hands like this.” While they thus reasoned, the priest entered the King's apartment. ”This great Immortal has long devoted herself to the attainment of perfection,” he said. ”Those she has healed are innumerable. Give me the hand and eye.” He took them and shortly produced an ointment which, he told the King, was to be applied to his left side. No sooner had it touched his skin than the pain on his left side disappeared as if by magic; no sign of ulcers was to be seen on that side, but his right side remained swollen and painful as before.
”Why is it,” asked the King, ”that this remedy, which is so efficacious for the left side, should not be applied to the right?” ”Because,”
replied the priest, ”the left hand and eye of the saint cures only the left side. If you wish to be completely cured, you must send your officers to obtain the right eye and right hand also.” The King accordingly dispatched his envoys anew with a letter of thanks, and begging as a further favour that the cure should be completed by the healing also of his right side.
The King Cured
On the arrival of the envoys Shan Ts'ai met them in the mutilated form of Miao Shan, and he bade them cut off his right hand, pluck out his right eye, and put them on a plate. At the sight of the four bleeding wounds Liu Ch'in could not refrain from calling out indignantly: ”This priest is a wicked man, thus to make a martyr of a woman in order to obtain the succession!”
Having thus spoken, he left with his companion for the kingdom of Hsing Lin. On their return the King was overwhelmed with joy. The priest quickly prepared the ointment, and the King, without delay, applied it to his right side. At once the ulcers disappeared like the darkness of night before the rising sun. The whole Court congratulated the King and eulogized the priest. The King conferred upon the latter the t.i.tle Priest of the Brilliant Eye. He fell on his face to return thanks, and added: ”I, a poor priest, have left the world, and have only one wish, namely, that your Majesty should govern your subjects with justice and sympathy and that all the officials of the realm should prove themselves men of integrity. As for me, I am used to roaming about. I have no desire for any royal estate. My happiness exceeds all earthly joys.”
Having thus spoken, the priest waved the sleeve of his cloak, a cloud descended from Heaven, and seating himself upon it he disappeared in the sky. From the cloud a note containing the following words was seen to fall: ”I am one of the Teachers of the West. I came to cure the King's illness, and so to glorify the True Doctrine.”
The King's Daughter
All who witnessed this miracle exclaimed with one voice: ”This priest is the Living Buddha, who is going back to Heaven!” The note was taken to King Miao Chuang, who exclaimed: ”Who am I that I should deserve that one of the rulers of Heaven should deign to descend and cure me by the sacrifice of hands and eyes?”
”What was the face of the saintly person like who gave you the remedy?” he then asked Chao Chen.
”It was like unto that of your deceased daughter, Miao Shan,”
he replied.
”When you removed her hands and eyes did she seem to suffer?”
”I saw a great flow of blood, and my heart failed, but the face of the victim seemed radiant with happiness.”
”This certainly must be my daughter Miao Shan, who has attained to perfection,” said the King. ”Who but she would have given hands and eyes? Purify yourselves and observe the rules of abstinence, and go quickly to Hsiang Shan to return thanks to the saint for this inestimable favour. I myself will ere long make a pilgrimage thither to return thanks in person.”
The King and Queen taken Prisoners
Three years later the King and Queen, with the grandees of their Court, set out to visit Hsiang Shan, but on the way the monarchs were captured by the Green Lion, or G.o.d of Fire, and the White Elephant, or Spirit of the Water, the two guardians of the Temple of Buddha, who transported them to a dark cavern in the mountains. A terrific battle then took place between the evil spirits on the one side and some hosts of heavenly genii, who had been summoned to the rescue, on the other. While its issue was still uncertain, reinforcements under the Red Child Devil, who could resist fire, and the Dragon-king of the Eastern Sea, who could subdue water, finally routed the enemy, and the prisoners were released.