Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/115

 an evil spirit, fit only to be blasted from the earth. His companions listened to his ravings, mused over them as they sipped their tea.

"I have solved the mystery of the continued absence of Fu Hsi," he said slowly. "Fu Hsi who built the great house in the swamp-garden. He has been done to death by the weird Frog-man who perhaps has feasted on his body. One of the greatest men in all Canton, to be blotted out like this."

Now Pu Chiang had never seen Fu Hsi, but he inferred that he had. It gave piquancy to his fancies. It is a trait of mankind to condemn that which cannot be understood. So his companions drank their tea and plotted. They decided to seize the little Frog-man and exact retribution from him for imagined crimes.

One night he came to the tea-house when Pu Chiang and his companions were there. He ordered tea. Pu Chiang laughed slyly as he slipped a sleeping-potion into the cup. It was a delectable moment. The next thing the little Frog-man knew he was lying in the yellow-moonlight on a slight hill outside the city. Several shadowy forms glided about. When Pu Chiang discovered that the little man's consciousness had returned, he dragged him to his feet, bound his hands behind his back and commenced beating him with a bamboo switch. The little man writhed in agony. He groaned and cried hoarsely. To overwrought imaginations his screams sounded like the croaking of a frog.