Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/240

 Tze-Shi herself had brushed one, and Kwang-Hsu had given it to Wu with his yellow-jacket. Aside from its imperial association it was very beautiful—even a European could see that, and Bradley had spent much covetous time gazing on it—for in all China, where the cult of "handwriting" is an obsession, no one has ever written more beautifully than her majesty. The other said in the original Arabic, "Es-salam aleika." (John Bradley had another verse from the same Sura over his bed.)

And, as in Nang Ping's room, there was just one picture—this one a bird perched on a spray of azalea painted by Ting Yüch'uan.

Wu prostrated himself before the altar which proclaimed the owner's importance. He had come here to do worse than butchery, but to do it as a priest—to sacrifice to his gods and to his ancestors, to scourge in their service a woman who had never injured him or them, as much as to scourge a man who had; but he had vocation in his heart rather than personal vengeance—and such is Chinese justice.

Fantastic—is it not?—the Chinese code that ennobles and flagellates the dead ancestors and the living kindred in punishment of the raw present sin! And yet, even for it, there is a poor, feeble something to be said. We dig down into the earth and uproot the diseased tree, burn it all, search out and burn, too, its suckers and its saplings lest all our orchard suffer worm-breeding blight.

From an alabaster box, gold-lined, he took a handful of yellow powder, dribbled it into the tiny saucer of sacred oil burning before the tablet, and as the pungent blue flames hissed up, prostrated himself again, and knelt for a long time—in prayer.