Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/106

 Kai Lung at length reached the shutter, after the delay caused by Li-loe's inopportune presence, he found that Hwa-mei was already standing there beneath the wall.

"Alas!" he exclaimed, in an access of self-reproach, "is it possible that I have failed to greet your arriving footsteps? Hear the degrading cause of my"

"Forbear," interrupted the maiden, with a magnanimous gesture of the hand that was not engaged in bestowing a gift of fruit. "There is a time to scatter flowers and a time to prepare the soil. To-morrow a further trial awaits you, for which we must conspire."

"I am in your large and all-embracing grasp," replied Kai Lung. "Proceed to spread your golden counsel."

"The implacable Ming-shu has deliberated with himself, and deeming it unlikely that you should a third time allure the imagination of the Mandarin Shan Tien by your art, he has ordered that you are again to be the first led out to judgment. This time, however, he has prepared a cloud of witnesses who will, once they are given a voice, quickly overwhelm you in a flood of calumny."

"Even a silver trumpet may not prevail above a score of brazen horns," confessed the story-teller