Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/128

122 at an opium-tavern in the town. Can this be true?"

"It is quite impossible," replied Ts'èng; "for the whole of that night Tan was twenty miles away, at the house of a doctor to whom I had sent him."

"Well, I have brought my man," said the other, "that he may repeat his story in your presence, and that, if necessary, we should confront him with Tan."

"Let him come in, by all means," said Ts'èng.

In obedience to a summons Tan's accuser entered the room. He was a dissipated-looking fellow. His face was thin and drawn, and of that peculiar mahogany hue which is begotten by long-continued indulgence in the opium-pipe. From the same habit his teeth were blackened, and the whites of his eyes looked as though they had been smoke-dried. On entering he bowed his knee, and then proceeded to give a circumstantial account of the night in question. At first Ts'èng had treated his accusations with contempt; but the remarkably coherent manner in which the man retailed his story, suggested doubts to his mind, which tortured him with misgivings. Without waiting for the conclusion of the man's statement, therefore, he summoned Tan to face his accuser. With a glance Tan took in the position of affairs, and having with a considerable effort mastered the uneasiness which the crisis provoked, he stood ready to brazen it out.

"This man tells me," said Ts'èng, "that instead of carrying my letter to the doctor the other evening, you passed the night drinking and smoking with him at a tavern in the town. Is this true or false?"

"It is false, your honour; and I can only suppose that this man, to whom I have only spoken once or twice in my life, must have invented this story out of spite, or in order to shield, in some way which I do not understand, his own conduct from blame."

"Are not you ashamed to tell such a lie in the sight of heaven?" said the man, quite taken aback by the coolness of the denial; "but fortunately I have some evidence of the truth of my story, which you will find it hard to meet. Did you deliver your master's letter to the doctor?"

"Certainly I did."

"That is curious; for I happen to have here a letter which I found on the floor of the room we occupied at the tavern, and which I strongly suspect is the letter you were intrusted with. Will you see for yourself, sir, whether this is your letter or not*?" said the man, handing to Ts'èng an unopened envelope, which he produced from his sleeve.

With a trembling hand Ts'èng took the letter, and at a glance recognised it as the one he had written with such eager haste, and with such a longing hope. The thought that but for the treachery of the wretch before him his little Primrose might have been still with him was more than he could bear. For a moment he fell back in his chair with quivering lips and cheeks as pale as death, and then as suddenly the blood rushed headlong through his veins, and with wild eyes and uttering savage curses he sprang from his chair and rushed upon Tan, who, accepting the turn things had taken, had fallen on his knees, and was performing the kotow with every token of humble submission.

With wild fury Ts'èng kicked at the bowing head of his follower, and might probably have been charged a second time with man-