Page:Romance of the Three Kingdoms - tr. Brewitt-Taylor - Volume 1.djvu/274

 “You officials do not know that this man is connected with a gang of evil doers who desire to overturn the government and even injure me. However Heaven has defeated their plans, but I desire that you should hear his evidence.”

Then Ts‘ao ordered the lictors to beat their prisoner. They did so till he lay unconscious, when they revived him by spraying water over his face. As soon as he came to he glared at his oppressor and ground his teeth.

“Ts‘ao Ts‘ao you rebel! what are you waiting for? Why not kill me?” cried Chi.

Ts‘ao Ts‘ao replied, “The conspirators were only six at first; you made the seventh.”

Here the prisoner broke in with more abuse, while Wang Tzŭ-fu and the others exchanged glances looking as though they were sitting on a rug full of needles. Ts‘ao continued his torture of the prisoner, beating him into unconsciousness and reviving him with cold water, the victim disdaining to ask mercy. Finally Ts‘ao realised he would incriminate none of his accomplices and so he told the gaolers to remove him.

At the close of the banquet, when the guests were dispersing, four of them, the four conspirators, were invited to remain behind to supper. They were terrified so that their souls seemed no longer to inhabit their bodies, but there was no saying nay to the invitation. Presently Ts‘ao Ts‘ao said, “Still there is something I want to speak about so I have asked you to stay for a time longer. I do not know what you four have been arranging with Tung Ch‘êng.”

“Nothing at all,” said Wang.

“And what is written on the white silk?” asked Ts‘ao.

They all said they knew nothing about it.

Then Ts‘ao ordered the runaway slave to be brought in. As soon as he came Wang said, “Well, what have you seen and where?”

The slave Ch‘ing-t‘ung replied, “You six very carefully chose retired places to talk in and you secretly signed a white roll. You cannot deny that.”

Wang replied, “This miserable creature was punished for misbehaviour with one of Uncle Tung’s maids and now because of that he slanders his master. You must not listen to him.”

“Chi P‘ing tried to pour poison down my throat. Who told him to do that if it was not Tung?”

They all said they knew nothing about who it was.

“So far,” said Ts‘ao, “matters are only beginning and there is a chance of forgiveness. But if the thing grows, it will be difficult not to take notice of it.”

The whole four vigorously denied that any plot existed. However Ts‘ao called up his henchmen and the four men were put into confinement.