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

1885.] Golden-lilies' volubility was unchecked.

"Ask him, your Excellency, and he will tell you he is the man; that the ferryman told a wicked lie; and that far from having been killed, he has not suffered the slightest inconvenience from his fall."

"But your husband has confessed that he murdered him," said the magistrate.

"The ferryman told him he had, and he believed him; but it was not true," urged Golden-lilies; "and just when I thought that the darkest hour of my life had come, when all hope of seeing my husband again alive seemed vanishing, who should knock at our door but the pedlar himself. Without waiting to hear his explanation, I have brought him with me; and now do let my husband. go."

"Not so fast," said the magistrate. " I must first satisfy myself that this is Ting, and then I must inquire who that dead man yonder is, or rather was. Call Tan."

At this invocation Tan took up his former position on his knees; but in the interval since his last appearance he had lost confidence, and the turn events had taken did not, he saw, clearly reflect so brightly on his prospects as they did on Ts'èng's. He felt that he was compromised, though he could not understand all, and was not quite sure how the magistrate would, on review, regard his conduct.

"Do you recognise that man?" asked the magistrate, pointing at Ting.

"Yes, your Excellency; he is Ting the pedlar, or his ghost."

"But in your evidence you charged your master with murdering Ting, and you swore that you buried him; and in support of your assertions you produce a body which is not Ting's, since Ting is here. How do you explain this?"

"All I can say, your Excellency, is, that my master ordered me to bury Ting; and Lai, the ferryman, told me that the man I buried was Ting."

"Arrest Lai and bring him before me at once," said the magistrate to a police-runner; "and meanwhile I will hear the pedlar's evidence. Bring him forward. Who are you?"

"My contemptible surname, your Excellency, is Ting, and my personal name is 'Heavenly Brightness.'"

"Tell me what you know of this matter."

"After leaving the house of his honour Ts'èng," said Ting," "I got into Lai's ferry-boat to cross the lake. On the way over I told him the story of the fracas at his honour's door, and showed him the silk which had been given me. He took a fancy to the pattern on it, and bought it from me, as well as the basket in which I carried it. Nothing else happened until just as we got to the other shore, when we saw the corpse of a man floating in the water. As I walked away from the shore I turned round and saw Lai rowing towards the body. I reached home the same evening and remained there until to-day, when I called at his honour's house. On showing myself at the door I was, to my surprise, hurried off here, and now I kneel in your Excellency's presence."

At this juncture Lai entered. The last few weeks' dissipation had not improved his appearance, and his ill-concealed terror at his present predicament added a ghastly paleness to his bleared and sallow complexion.

"How is this," said the magistrate, "that you have charged an