Page:Gems of Chinese literature (1922).djvu/264

 The wife of a man, named Chêng, once came before me to complain that her husband had been driven to commit suicide. She said that he had been beadle of a certain village, and that having had some trouble in collecting taxes from a man, named Hsiao, who withheld his title-deed and refused to listen to argument, the latter, on the 13th day of the moon, had collected a number of friends and wrecked the house, beating her husband so severely that, in despair, he threw himself into the river and was drowned. She further indicated the spot at which the body was to be found; and accordingly, though suspecting in my heart the truth of her story, I had no alternative but to hold the usual inquest. Her son got the corpse on board a boat and brought it along, and I proceeded forthwith to make an examination. No wounds were visible upon it; the finger-nails were full of mud and sand―a sure proof of suicide by drowning―though at the same time I felt confident that the persons accused, who were all honestly engaged in trade, would not thus causelessly set upon and beat another man. Further, deceased had been beadle of the place, and those now arraigned on this charge of murder had frequently complained on previous occasions to my predecessor in office, of the depredations of thieves, with a view to their losses from the beadle; and I, when I took over the seals, had gone so far as to fix a limit of time within which the missing articles were to be restored, but without success. Now, there was this story of attack and suicide; but the flesh on the face of the dead man was too far decomposed to admit of his identification, and I also thought it rather strange that no one should know anything about an affair which had happened eight days previously, and that there should have been such delay in making the charge. At the same time, as the inquest was held only eight days after death, it remained to be shown why the body should be then so far