Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 9 (1943-01).djvu/15

 for your exploits as a Flying Tiger. Thereafter, you must be put to death but in no spirit of anger."

"I'll be just as dead as though you hated me," said Trent curtly. "I spurn your gifts. First you give me a bit of amber, a trinket of little importance, then you kill me and take it back again."

"No," said Mu Lin slowly; he seemed somewhat offended. "I shall give you no tangible gift. What I will bestow upon you is something of far greater value, something that you will remember always, in this world and in all the worlds that are to come."

"I'm still unimpressed and unappreciative."

"All things change, so will your opinion." Mu Lin walked across the room, Trent could not help thinking, "With what grace he walks, despite his years. But then it is an attribute of the Chinese. The smile of a Chinese girl is infinitely charming. Speaking to the eye, the Chinese language is the richest in the world."

How far his thoughts might have flown, is problematical, had Mu Lin not spoken again. "If there be no use in our words of what use are they?" He took a small object from a wall cabinet. Then he returned and stood by the chair in which Trent was sitting and held up the small yellow object for his gaze. "Here is a fragment of amber," he mused and now his voice sounded far away as though his thoughts had retreated to the inner recesses of his heart. "Amber may easily be tested as to its genuineness by a simple device. Only that which is rubbed and thereafter attracts mustard seeds is true. The belief that amber goes back to what your countrymen call the Age of Bronze is fantastic in the opinion of Chinese scholars who have meditated over this problem for centuries and they have long since set down that the 'resin of fir trees sinks into the earth and becomes amber after a thousand years." I have proven this to be correct in an astounding manner. But behold, this amber is transparent and if you hold it close to the light you will see that it encloses the body of a fly."

RENT examined the trinket with keen interest. "I have heard of oddities like this many times," he said, "and when I was in college, how long ago that seems, I studied the poems of Robert Herrick, one in particular I have never forgotten:

I saw a fly within a bead Of amber cleanly buried. The urn was little, but the room More rich than Cleopatra's tomb.'"

"A poem that fits the occasion," observed Mu Lin. "But see, this little fly is perfectly preserved. Its legs and wings are undamaged. Why did it not struggle to get away when first it became entangled in the liquid resin long ages ago? Perhaps it knew that it was to be immortal and was satisfied. Scientists by years of study have discovered one hundred and sixty-three different types of insects incased in amber, many unknown to us. But in no case are there signs of struggle or panic. All are perfect specimens. Perhaps they submitted serenely because they knew that this was not death but suspended animation. If one had the fanstatic impulse one could release specimens of all these different insects upon mankind. Perhaps some are poisonous. A single sting might bring death. Of these things no man may tell, for no living man knows. It would be interesting to trifle with such an experiment but I am concerned with a higher ambition. After all one plague more or less in this Axis infested world would scarcely matter. I'd do it at once if I thought that the insects would only feed on Japanese. However, I doubt if they'd touch such poisonous meat. But of idle speculation enough. What lies betore us