Part 14 (1/2)

”What have we to gain by deceit, we who have performed our miracles before the countless hosts of yonder Western Heaven?”

”Ha, ha! hear the braggarts!” shouted the guests. ”What shall we command them to do?”

For a moment they consulted together, whispering and laughing.

”I have it,” cried the host finally. ”Our feast was short of fruit, since this is the off season. Suppose we let this fellow supply us.

Here, fellow, produce us a peach, and be quick about it. We have no time for fooling.”

”What, masters, a peach?” exclaimed the elder Chang in mock dismay.

”Surely at this season you do not expect a peach.”

”Caught at his own game,” laughed the guests, and the people began to hoot derisively.

”But, father, you promised to do anything he required,” urged the son.

”If he asks even a peach, how can you refuse and at the same time save your face?”

”Hear the boy talk,” mumbled the father, ”and yet, perhaps he's right.

Very well, masters,” turning to the crowd, ”if it's a peach you want, why, a peach you shall have, even though I must send into the garden of the Western Heaven for the fruit.”

The people became silent and the mandarin's guests forgot to laugh. The old man, still muttering, opened the box from which he had been taking the magic bowls, plates, and other articles. ”To think of people wanting peaches at this season! What is the world coming to?”

After fumbling in the box for some moments he drew out a skein of golden thread, fine spun and as light as gossamer. No sooner had he unwound a portion of this thread than a sudden gust of wind carried it up into the air above the heads of the onlookers. Faster and faster the old man paid out the magic coil, higher and higher the free end rose into the heavens, until, strain his eyes as he would, no one present could see into what far-region it had vanished.

”Wonderful, wonderful!” shouted the people with one voice, ”the old man is a fairy.”

For a moment they forgot all about the mandarin, the jugglers, and the peach, so amazed were they at beholding the flight of the magic thread.

At last the old man seemed satisfied with the distance to which his cord had sailed, and, with a bow to the spectators, he tied the end to a large wooden pillar which helped to support the roof of the grand stand.

For a moment the structure trembled and swayed as if it too would be carried off into the blue ether, the guests turned pale and clutched their chairs for support, but not even the mandarin dared to speak, so sure were they now that they were in the presence of fairies.

”Everything is ready for the journey,” said old Chang calmly.

”What! shall you leave us?” asked the mayor, finding his voice again.

”I? Oh, no, my old bones are not spry enough for quick climbing. My son here will bring us the magic peach. He is handsome and active enough to enter that heavenly garden. Graceful, oh graceful is that peach tree--of course, you remember the line from the poem--and a graceful man must pluck the fruit.”

The mandarin was still more surprised at the juggler's knowledge of a famous poem from the cla.s.sics. It made him and his friends all the more certain that the newcomers were indeed fairies.

The young man at a sign from his father tightened his belt and the bands about his ankles, and then, with a graceful gesture to the astonished people, sprang upon the magic string, balanced himself for a moment on the steep incline, and then ran as nimbly up as a sailor would have mounted a rope ladder. Higher and higher he climbed till he seemed no bigger than a lark ascending into the blue sky, and then, like some tiny speck, far, far away, on the western horizon.

The people gazed in open-mouthed wonder. They were struck dumb and filled with some nameless fear; they hardly dared to look at the enchanter who stood calmly in their midst, smoking his long-stemmed pipe.

The mandarin, ashamed of having laughed at and threatened this man who was clearly a fairy, did not know what to say. He snapped his long finger nails and looked at his guests in mute astonishment. The visitors silently drank their tea, and the crowd of sightseers craned their necks in a vain effort to catch sight of the vanished fairy. Only one in all that a.s.sembly, a bright-eyed little boy of eight, dared to break the silence, and he caused a hearty burst of merriment by crying out, ”Oh, daddy, will the bad young man fly off into the sky and leave his poor father all alone?”

The greybeard laughed loudly with the others, and tossed the lad a copper. ”Ah, the good boy,” he said smiling, ”he has been well trained to love his father; no fear of foreign ways spoiling his filial piety.”

After a few moments of waiting, old Chang laid aside his pipe and fixed his eyes once more on the western sky. ”It is coming,” he said quietly.

”The peach will soon be here.”