Part 14 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HIGHER AND HIGHER HE CLIMBED.”]
Suddenly he held out his hand as if to catch some falling object, but, look as they would, the people could see nothing. Swis.h.!.+ thud! it came like a streak of light, and, lo, there in the magician's fingers was a peach, the most beautiful specimen the people had ever seen, large and rosy. ”Straight from the garden of the G.o.ds,” said Chang, handing the fruit to the mandarin, ”a peach in the Second Moon, and the snow hardly off the ground.”
Trembling with excitement, the official took the peach and cut it open.
It was large enough for all his guests to have a taste, and such a taste it was! They smacked their lips and wished for more, secretly thinking that never again would ordinary fruit be worth the eating.
But all this time the old juggler, magician, fairy or whatever you choose to call him, was looking anxiously into the sky. The result of this trick was more than he had bargained for. True, he had been able to produce the magic peach which the mandarin had called for, but his son, where was his son? He shaded his eyes and looked far up into the blue heavens, and so did the people, but no one could catch a glimpse of the departed youth.
”Oh, my son, my son,” cried the old man in despair, ”how cruel is the fate that has robbed me of you, the only prop of my declining years! Oh, my boy, my boy, would that I had not sent you on so perilous a journey!
Who now will look after my grave when I am gone?”
Suddenly the silken cord on which the young man had sped so daringly into the sky, gave a quick jerk which almost toppled over the post to which it was tied, and there, before the very eyes of the people, it fell from the lofty height, a silken pile on the ground in front of them.
The greybeard uttered a loud cry and covered his face with his hands.
”Alas! the whole story is plain enough,” he sobbed. ”My boy was caught in the act of plucking the magic peach from the garden of the G.o.ds, and they have thrown him into prison. Woe is me! Ah! woe is me!”
The mandarin and his friends were deeply touched by the old man's grief, and tried in vain to comfort him. ”Perhaps he will return,” they said.
”Have courage!”
”Yes, but in what a shape?” replied the magician. ”See! even now they are restoring him to his father.”
The people looked, and they saw twirling and twisting through the air the young man's arm. It fell upon the ground in front of them at the fairy's feet. Next came the head, a leg, the body. One by one before the gasping, shuddering people, the parts of the unfortunate young man were restored to his father.
After the first outburst of wild, frantic grief the old man by a great effort gained control of his feelings, and began to gather up these parts, putting them tenderly into the wooden box.
By this time many of the spectators were weeping at the sight of the father's affliction. ”Come,” said the mandarin at last, deeply moved, ”let us present the old man with sufficient money to give his boy a decent burial.”
All present agreed willingly, for there is no sight in China that causes greater pity than that of an aged parent robbed by death of an only son.
The copper cash fell in a shower at the juggler's feet, and soon tears of grat.i.tude were mingled with those of sorrow. He gathered up the money and tied it in a large black cloth. Then a wonderful change came over his face. He seemed all of a sudden to forget his grief. Turning to the box, he raised the lid. The people heard him say: ”Come, my son; the crowd is waiting for you to thank them. Hurry up! They have been very kind to us.”
In an instant the box was thrown open with a bang, and before the mandarin and his friends, before the eyes of all the sightseers the young man, strong and whole once more, stepped forth and bowed, clasping his hands and giving the national salute.
For a moment all were silent. Then, as the wonder of the whole thing dawned upon them, the people broke forth into a tumult of shouts, laughter, and compliments. ”The fairies have surely come to visit us!”
they shouted. ”The city will be blessed with good fortune! Perhaps it is Fairy Old Boy himself who is among us!”
The mandarin rose and addressed the jugglers, thanking them in the name of the city for their visit and for the taste they had given to him and his guests of the peach from the heavenly orchard.
Even as he spoke, the magic box opened again; the two fairies disappeared inside, the lid closed, and the chest rose from the ground above the heads of the people. For a moment it floated round in a circle like some homing pigeon trying to find its bearings before starting on a return journey. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, it shot off into the heavens and vanished from the sight of those below, and not a thing remained as proof of the strange visitors except the magic peach seed that lay beside the teacups on the mandarin's table.
According to the most ancient writings there is now nothing left to tell of this story. It has been declared, however, by later scholars that the official and his friends who had eaten the magic peach, at once began to feel a change in their lives. While, before the coming of the fairies, they had lived unfairly, accepting bribes and taking part in many shameful practices, now, after tasting of the heavenly fruit, they began to grow better. The people soon began to honour and love them, saying, ”Surely these great men are not like others of their kind, for these men are just and honest in their dealings with us. They seem not to be ruling for their own reward!”
However this may be, we do know that before many years their city became the centre of the greatest peach-growing section of China, and even yet when strangers walk in the orchards and look up admiringly at the beautiful sweet-smelling fruit, the natives sometimes ask proudly, ”And have you never heard about the wonderful peach which was the beginning of all our orchards, the magic peach the fairies brought us from the Western Heaven?”
THE PHANTOM VESSEL
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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