Page:Romance of the Three Kingdoms - tr. Brewitt-Taylor - Volume 1.djvu/276

 This happened in the first month of the fifth year of “Established Tranquillity” and a certain historian wrote a poem:—

Seeing his victim had passed beyond the realm of punishment Ts‘ao had the slave led in.

“Do you know this man, Uncle?”

“Yes,” cried Tung Ch‘êng. “So the runaway slave is here; he ought to be put to death.”

“He just told me of your treachery; he is my witness,” said Ts‘ao. “Who would dare kill him?”

“How can you, the first Minister of State, heed the unsupported tale of an absconding slave?”

“But I have Wang and the others in prison,” said Ts‘ao Ts‘ao. “And how can you rebut their evidence?”

He then called in the remainder of his followers and ordered them to search Tung Ch‘êng’s bedroom. They did so and found the decree that had been given him in the girdle and the pledge signed by the conspirators.

“You mean rat!” cried Ts‘ao, “you dared do this?”

He gave orders to arrest the whole household without exception. Then he returned to his Palace with the incriminating documents and called all his advisers together to discuss the dethronement of the Emperor and the setting up of a successor.

The reader who wishes to know the fate of the Emperor must read the next chapter.