Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/146

 band, to join in their dangers and share their honours; whereupon the oath was administered to him, the passwords and secret signs revealed, and he was bound from that time forth, under the bonds of a most painful death and torments in the after-world, to submerge all passions save those for the benefit of their community, and to cherish no interests, wrongs or possessions that did not affect them all alike.

For the space of seven years Weng remained about the shadow of the mountain, carrying out, together with the other members of the band, the instructions which from time to time they received from the higher circles of the Society, as well as such acts of retributive justice as they themselves determined upon, and in this quiet and unostentatious manner maintaining order and greatly purifying the entire province. In his passionless subservience to the principles of the Order none exceeded him; yet at no time have men been forbidden to burn joss sticks to the spirit of the destinies, and who shall say?

At the end of seven years the first breath from out of the past reached Weng (or Thang, as he had announced himself to be when cast out nameless). One day he was summoned before the chief of their company and a mission laid upon him.

"You have proved yourself to be capable and sincere in the past, and this matter is one of delicacy," said the leader. "Furthermore, it is reported that you know something of the paths about Kien-fi?"

"There is not a forgotten turn within those paths by which I might stumble in the dark," replied Weng, striving to subdue his mind.

"See that out of so poignant a memory no more