Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/86

RV 81 (PORTRAIT OF AN EMPEROR) Shou-kuei. Truly it was a bad day for pheasants and suckling pigs, but for the soldiers and subjects of Duke Bonimet there was so much rich warm rice wine, it trickled down the chin. So much did they eat, their fingers were tired and their jaws ached. It was all they could do to ward off regurgitation. Stomachs cried out in anguish. Nevertheless, they ate on. Duke Bonimet, from his place on the dais beside Chang Shou-kuei, gazed down upon his soldiers, his face as benevolent as a full moon. It was good to watch them being fed so well, since it was costing him nothing.

From sheer exhaustion, at last the celebrants paused. The surge of the flood of feast slowed up. Food had lost its allure, though the warmth of the wine still enticed. And now slim dancing-girls appeared, arrayed in softest silk of pungent vivid colors. They swayed with the vibrancy of young trees. Their arched eyebrows enhanced their vermilioned faces. The music crashed, the stars stared down like startled eyes, for no lovelier picture had ever been witnessed in the realms of Duke Bonimet, General of All Men. By torches and campfire the girls danced and wove a golden spell. To many, the faces of the dancing girls appeared as through a mist. They had drunk much. Their senses reeled and spun and sprawled. But it was pleasurable to watch those graceful, gliding figures. Others collapsed amid the food, or spewed up the messes that their weary stomachs spumed. Chang Shou-kuei had drunk little but he pretended that he was beyond despair. He hid behind a drunken cloak, a pretense of intoxication. Duke RV 81 (81)