Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/296

 "The description is unmistakable," said Ten-teh evasively. "Did he chance to leave a parting message of any moment?"

"He twice remarked, 'When the sun sets the moon rises, but to-morrow the dawn will break again,'" replied his wife. "Also, upon leaving he asked for ink, brushes and a fan, and upon it he inscribed certain words." She thereupon handed the fan to Ten-teh, who read, written in characters of surpassing beauty and exactness, the proverb: "Well-guarded lips, patient alertness, and a heart conscientiously discharging its accepted duty: these three things have a sure reward."

At that moment Ten-teh's wife saw that he carried something beyond his creel and discovering the man-child she cried out with delight, pouring forth a torrent of inquiries and striving to possess it. "A tale half told is the father of many lies," exclaimed Ten-teh at length, "and of the greater part of what you ask this person knows neither the beginning nor the end. Let what is written on the fan suffice." With this he explained to her the meaning of the characters and made their significance clear. Then without another word he placed the man-child in her arms and led her back into the house.

From that time Hoang, as he was thenceforward called, was received into the household of Ten-teh, and from that time Ten-teh prospered. Without ever approaching a condition of affluence or dignified ease, he was never exposed to the penury and vicissitudes which he had been wont to experience; so that none had need to go hungry or ill-clad. If famine ravaged the villages Ten-teh's store of grain was miraculously maintained; his success on the lagoons was unvaried,