that during the night a great storm raged,
and by the morning Shan's boat had been washed away.

This new calamity found the three brothers more obstinately perverse
than ever. It cannot be denied that Hing would have withdrawn from the
guilty confederacy, but they were as two to one, and prevailed, pointing
out that the house still afforded shelter, the river yielded some of the
simpler and inferior fish which could be captured from the banks, and
the fruitfulness of the orange-tree was undiminished.

At the end of seven more days Kao became afflicted with doubt. "There is
no such thing as a fixed proportion or a set reckoning between a dutiful
son and an embarrassed sire," he confessed penitently. "How incredibly
profane has been this person's behaviour in not seeing the obligation in
its unswerving necessity before." With this scrupulous resolve Kao took
his last possession, and carrying it into the field he consumed it
with fire beneath Hing's orange-tree. The fan, in turn, also had hidden
properties, its written sentence being a spell against drought, hot
winds, and the demons which suck the nourishment from all crops. In
consequence of the act these forces were called into action, and before
another day Hing's tree had withered away.

It is said with reason, "During the earthquake men speak the truth." At
this last disaster the impious fortitude of the three brothers suddenly
gave way, and cheerfully admitting their mistake, each committed
suicide, Chu disembowelling himself among the ashes of his couch, Shan
sinking beneath the waters of his river, and Hing hanging by a rope
among the branches of his own effete orange-tree.

When they had thus fittingly atoned for their faults the imprecation was
lifted from off their possessions. The couch was restored by magic
art to its former condition, the boat was returned by a justice-loving
person into whose hands it had fallen lower down the river, and
the orange-tree put out new branches. Kao therefore passed into an
undiminished inheritance. He married three wives, to commemorate the
number of his brothers, and had three sons, whom he called Chu, Shan,
and Hing, for a like purpose. These three all attained to high office in
the State, and by their enlightened morals succeeded in wiping all the
discreditable references to others bearing the same names from off the
domestic tablets.

From this story it will be seen that by acting virtuously, yet with an
observing di