Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/47

 him. In the late evening, after daylight had expired, he put on a long blue silken gown, embroidered with jade and coral beads, and felt-soled shoes that he had never before worn. Then out into the garden he walked. The night was tremulous with stars. The trees murmured gently. A yellow moon hung low. He breathed deeply of the cool fragrant air. He had already ordered a bamboo chair to be placed in the garden for his comfort. Now he took the chair and carried it to a pear tree. He climbed upon the chair. From his sleeve he drew a heavy red-silk cord. He fastened it around his neck, then he tied the ends of it to a strong branch. His hands did not tremble. No longer was he afraid. Without hesitation, he kicked the bamboo chair from beneath his feet. And there he dangled from the pear tree, while the moon glowed yellow and the trees murmured songs to the cool night wind. There was peace in the garden, peace and music, while Wong See Lo, the silk merchant, quietly danced in the air.

UT Ah Chow was made of firmer stuff. Not so easily would he submit to the amazing dictates of Dr. Shen Fu. In business he had always been known as a shrewd trader. If he must eventually forfeit his life, he must secure full value for it.

He would not join his ancestors in the knowledge that he had been bested in his last trade on earth. So instead of weeping and beating his breast, he returned on the morrow to the drug shop of Dr. Shen Fu. Ever since the golden days of the T'ang Dynasty it had been in the family of Shen and so it was known as "The Drug Shop of a Thousand Years."

The venerable Doctor greeted Ab Chow graciously. Nothing in his manner reflected his innermost thoughts—that a living specimen was returning to tire laboratory for further experimentation.

His words were humble, "My shop is honored by your presence." Not by as much as the flickering of an eyelid did he acknowledge that he was surprised at the visit.

"I have come to you," Ah Chow said, "to discuss various means of prolonging life. In all China, no sage is more profound, no doctor more deeply versed in alchemy."

There was honey in the words of Ah Chow, the porcelain monarch, but in his eyes were sharp swords. Dr. Shen Fu smiled but he was in no way deceived by the words that the eyes contradicted.

"You mean 'The Golden Pill of Immortality?'"

"You are acquainted with it?" Ah Chow fought a losing battle to suppress his eagerness.

"A drug shop that has blossomed for a thousand years must naturally have solved many of nature's mysteries. Still it is a question whether Immortality for man would be a blessing or a curse. How then could one join one's ancestors and thereby take his true place in the spiritual universe?"

"I am in no hurry to acquire so great an honor. Besides, I am very rich. I can pay well for any service you are able to render me."

"I have already been of service to you," mused Dr. Shen Fu. "You are dying gently and without pain."

Ah Chow decided that he had adopted the wrong course of procedure. It is only by a circuitous route that man attains fulfillment of his wishes.

He decided that he would wait for Dr. Shen Fu to unravel the skein of conversation.

"A thousand years ago," began the Doctor meditatively, "when one of my honored ancestors first opened this drug shop,