Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/84

 cautious, but at the same time do not suffer the rice to grow around your advancing feet."

"A moment," counselled Hia, "Tarry yet a moment. Here is one whose rapidly moving attitude may convey a message."

"It is Lin Fa!" exclaimed Ning, as the one alluded to drew near—"Lin Fa who guards the coffers of Sun Wei. Some calamity pursues him." "Hence!" cried Lin Fa as he caught sight of them, yet scarcely pausing in his flight; "flee to the woods and caves until the time of this catastrophe be past. Has not the tiding reached you?"

"We be but dwellers on the farther bounds and no word has reached our ear, O great Lin Fa. Fill in, we pray you, the warning that has been so suddenly outlined."

"The usurper Ah-tang has lit the torch of swift rebellion and is flattening down the land that bars his way. Already the villages of Yeng, Leu, Liang-li and the Dwellings by the Three Pure Wells are as dust beneath his trampling feet, and they who stayed there have passed up in smoke. Sun Wei swings from the roof-tree of his own ruined yamen. Ah-tang now lays siege to walled Ti-foo so that he may possess the Northern Way. Guard this bag of silver meanwhile, for what I have is more than I can reasonably bear, and when the land is once again at peace, assemble to meet me by the Five-Horned Pagoda, ready with a strict account." Speaking thus, the distracted Lin Fa cast a heavy bag of silver among them, and taking a firmer hold on those that he retained, resumed his hurrying footsteps to the south.

"All this is plainly part of an orderly scheme for my