Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/88



Hwei-Ti sat in his garden. A gentle breeze was blowing fragrant with the perfume of peach-blossoms. The sun streamed down warmly. He sighed. It seemed too bad that he had but six months to live. He was wealthy. Money meant no more to him than shriveled lotus petals. Though he were to live hundreds of years he could not exhaust his treasuries. Again he sighed and breathed deeply of the pungent air. Never had he felt in more perfect health and yet the hand of death was reaching down to grasp him. He was still young. He had not yet reached half the span of ordinary life. He had worked hard to acquire a fortune, so hard that he had forsaken all earthly pleasures. He had never married. He was the last of his family. It was too bad that there was no offspring to carry on the splendid tradition of his old and venerated ancestors.

But now he was about to die. Woo Ling-foh, the prophet had predicted it and never had his prognostications failed. He had predicted fire and flood, earthquake and plague and always had his words come true. He had read the stars. His eyes traveled about the skies as though they were set free from his body.