Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/33

 even the relations of those in his employ were ruthlessly butchered. Those who had but little to do with his crimes were banished to the modern province of Ssŭ-chuan, to the number of four thousand families; the Dowager was exiled to a place called Yung in Shansi; and her two innocent children were barbarously dashed to pieces in sacks. The King then issued a decree warning all against daring to expostulate with him respecting his treatment of the Queen Mother, threatening that all who did so should be put to death, their limbs cut off, and heaped together in front of the palace gate.

This brutal threat, however, was powerless to restrain the righteous indignation of the people. No fewer than twenty-seven noble-minded men braved the royal monster, and a hideous stack of bloody arms and legs was soon to be seen in the courtyard of the palace. But soon after, a certain man named Mao Chiao, a native of the state of Tsi, undauntedly demanded audience; avowing in the most intrepid manner that his object was the same as that for which his twenty-seven predecessors had been so barbarously murdered. When the King heard of the application, he was lost in astonishment and rage; but being almost incredulous that any one should be so infatuated, and, possibly, satiated for the moment with his recent slaughters, he despatched an attendant to investigate the matter more closely. "One would think you had never seen the heap of arms and legs in front of the palace gate," was the grim remark of His Majesty, delivered by the messenger to Mao Chiao. "I have heard," returned Mao Chiao coolly, "that, in the sky, there are just twenty-eight constellations. Up