Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/313

 grain consumed and the ashes on his hearthstone black. "Can it be that so solemn an omen has fallen unfulfilled to the ground; or has this person long walked hand in hand with shadows in the Middle Air?"

"Dwellers of Yin; dwellers of Chung-yo; of Wei, Shan-ta, Feng, the Rock of the Bleak Pagoda, and all the eleven villages of the valley!" cried a voice without. "Ho, inhospitable sleeping ones, I have reached the last dwelling of the plain and no one has as yet bidden me enter, no voice invited me to unlace my sandals and partake of tea. Do they fear that this person is a robber in disguise, or is this the courtesy of the Upper Seng valley?"

"They sleep more deeply," said Ten-teh, speaking back to the full extent of his failing power; "perchance your voice was not raised high enough, O estimable wayfarer. Nevertheless, whether you come in peace or armed with violence, enter here, for the one who lies within is past help and beyond injury."

Upon this invitation the stranger entered and stood before Ten-teh. He was of a fierce and martial aspect, carrying a sword at his belt and a bow and arrows slung across his back, but privation had set a deep mark upon his features and his body bore unmistakable traces of a long and arduous march. His garments were ragged, his limbs torn by rocks and thorny undergrowth, while his ears had fallen away before the rigour of the ice-laden blasts. In his right hand he carried a staff upon which he leaned at every step, and glancing to the ground Ten-teh perceived that the lower parts of his sandals were worn away so that he trod painfully upon his bruised and naked feet.

"Greeting," said Ten-teh, when they had regarded