Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/62

 "It is difficult to conjecture what more could be done in that direction," confessed Kai Lung gratefully.

"Yet as regards a more material effort?" suggested the maiden, amid a cloud of involving doubt.

"If there is a subject in which the imagination of the Mandarin Shan Tien can be again enmeshed it might be yet accomplished," replied Kai Lung. "Have you a knowledge of any such deep concern?"

"Truly there is a matter that disturbs his peace of late. He has dreamed a dream three times, and its meaning is beyond the skill of any man to solve. Yet how shall this avail you who are no geomancer?" "What is the nature of the dream?" inquired Kai Lung. "For remember, 'Though Shen-fi has but one gate, many roads lead to it. "The substance of the dream is this: that therein he who sleeps walks freely in the ways of men wearing no robe or covering of any kind, yet suffering no concern or indignity therefrom; that the secret and hidden things of the earth are revealed to his seeing eyes, and that he can float in space and project himself upon the air at will. These three things are alien to his nature, and being three times repeated, the uncertainty assails his ease."

"Let it, under your persistent care, assail him more and that unceasingly," exclaimed Kai Lung, with renewed lightness in his voice. "Breathe on the surface of his self-repose as a summer breeze moves the smooth water of a mountain lake—not deeply, but never quite at rest. Be assured: it is no longer possible to doubt that powerful Beings are interested cause."

"I go, oppressed one," replied Hwa-mei. "May