s.
Shrieks resounded through the Hall of Virtuous Tranquillity, and when
the Pearl Empress attempted to pour oil on the troubled waters by
speaking soothing and comfortable words, the august Voice was entirely
inaudible in the tumult.

All sought at length in united indignation for the Lady A-Kuei, but she
had modestly withdrawn to the Pearl Pavilion in the Imperial Garden and,
foreseeing anxieties, had there secured herself on hearing the opening
of the Royal Speech.

Finally the ladies were led away by their attendants, weeping,
lamenting, raging, according to their several dispositions, and the
Pearl Empress, left with her own maidens, beheld the floor strewn with
jade pins, kingfisher and coral jewels, and even with fragments of silk
and gauze. Nor was she any nearer the solution of the desired secret.

That night she tossed upon a bed sleepless though heaped with down,
and her mind raged like a fire up and down all possible answers to the
riddle, but none would serve. Then, at the dawn, raising herself on one
august elbow she called to her venerable nurse and foster mother, the
Lady Ma, wise and resourceful in the affairs and difficulties of women,
and, repeating the circumstances, demanded her counsel.

The Lady Ma considering the matter long and deeply, slowly replied:

"This is a great riddle and dangerous, for to intermeddle with the
divine secrets is the high road to the Yellow Springs (death). But the
child of my breasts and my exalted Mistress shall never ask in vain, for
a thwarted curiosity is dangerous as a suppressed fever. I will conceal
myself nightly in the Dragon Bedchamber and this will certainly unveil
the truth. And if I perish I perish."

It is impossible to describe how the Empress heaped Lady Ma with costly
jewels and silken brocades and taels of silver beyond measuring--how she
placed on her breast the amulet of jade that had guarded herself from
all evil influences, how she called the ancestral spirits to witness
that she would provide for the Lady Ma's remotest descendants if she
lost her life in this sublime devotion to duty.

That night Lady Ma concealed herself behind the Imperial couch in the
Dragon Chamber, to await the coming of the Son of Heaven. Slowly dripped
the water-clock as the minutes fled away; sorely ached the venerable
limbs of the Lady Ma as she crouched in the shadows and saw the rising
moon scattering silver through the elegant traceries of carved ebony and
ivory;