Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/70

RV 65 (PORTRAIT OF AN EMPEROR) "I will let you have a monkey."

"Monkeys live in stables."

"Nevertheless, you shall have a monkey."

"I'm a boy, not a little horse."

"You are he upon whom the Emperor has smiled." As the father spoke, he bowed in reverence.

The boy was thinking very hard. "I'll take the monkey," he said. "He can sleep with my hobby-horse."

But probably nothing contributed so much to the renown of Ming Huang as did the auspicious occasion when, at the very beginning of his long reign of forty-four years, he issued an edict closing the silk factories and forbidding the Palace Ladies to wear jewels or embroideries. There was an elaborate ceremony before a crowded Court when a fire was kindled in a huge bronze urn, after which the three thousand girls who made up the seraglio of Ming Huang, one by one tossed their rings and ear-rings into the flames. Afterwards the Emperor himself stepped down from his South-Facing throne, tore ruby and emerald rings from his fingers, then waited beside the urn. There were emissaries from India, from Japan and Persia, all with long, glum faces, forced to follow the dictates of the greatest Emperor under heaven. It would not do to incur the wrath of so mighty a monarch.

They knew that he was reputed to be a magnificent warrior. When he engaged in battle his opponent was vanquished at the start, even when it was in a battle RV 65 (65)