Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/283

 and fifteen years ago, the imperishable founder of the existing dynasty ascended on a fiery dragon to be a guest on high," confessed the conscience-stricken scribe, after consulting his printed tablets. "Owing to the stress of a sudden journey the significance of the date had previously escaped my weed-grown memory, tolerance."

"Alas!" exclaimed Shan Tien bitterly, "among the innumerable drawbacks of an exacting position the enforced reliance upon an unusually inept and more than ordinarily self-opinionated inscriber of the spoken word is perhaps the most illimitable. Owing to your profuse incompetence that which began as an agreeable prelude to a busy day has turned into a really serious matter."

"Yet, lenience," pleaded the hapless Ming-shu, lowering his voice for the Mandarin's private ear, "so far the danger resides in this one throat alone. That disposed of"

"Perchance," replied Shan Tien; then turning to Kai Lung: "Doubtless, O story-teller, you were so overcome by the burden of your guilt that until this moment you have hidden the knowledge of it deep within your heart?"

"Magnificence, the commanding quality of your enduring voice would draw the inner matter from a marrow-bone," frankly replied Kai Lung. "Fearful lest this crime might go unconfessed and my weak and trembling ghost therefrom be held to bear its weight unto the end of time, I set out the full happening in a written scroll and sent it at daybreak by a sure and secret hand to a scrupulous official to deal with as he sees fit."