dy part and contemptuously hurls him bruised and
unrecognisable into the boundless space of the around. Frequently
the demon causes the chariot to rise into the air, and it is credibly
asserted by discriminating witnesses (although this person only sets
down as incapable of denial that which he has actually beheld) that
some have maintained an unceasing flight through the middle air for a
distance of many li. Occasionally the captive demon escapes from the
bondage of those who have invoked it, through some incautious gesture
or heretical remark on their part, and then it never fails to use them
grievously, casting them to the ground wounded, consuming the chariot
with fire, and passing away in the midst of an exceedingly debased
odour, by which it is always accompanied after the manner of our own
earth spirits.

This being, as this person has already set forth, an unlawful demon on
account of its power when once called up, and the admitted uncertainty
of its movements, those in authority maintain a stern and inexorable
face towards the practice. To entrap the unwary certain persons (chosen
on account of their massive outlines, and further protected from evil
influences by their pure and consistent habits) keep an unceasing watch.
When one of them, himself lying concealed, detects the approach of such
a being, he closely observes the position of the sun, and signals to
the other a message of warning. Then the second one, shielded by the
sanctity of his life and rendered inviolable by the nature of his
garments--his sandals alone being capable of overturning any demon from
his path should it encounter them--boldly steps forth into the road and
holds out before him certain sacred emblems. So powerful are these
that at the sight the unlawful demon confesses itself vanquished, and
although its whole body trembles with ill-contained rage, and the air
around is poisoned by its discreditable exhalation, it is devoid of
further resistance. Those in the chariot are thereupon commanded to
dismiss it, and being bound in chains they are led into the presence of
certain lesser mandarins who administer justice from a raised dais.

"Behold!" exclaims the chief of the captors, when the prisoners have
been placed in obsequious attitudes before the lesser mandarins, "thus
the matter chanced: The honourable Wang, although disguised under the
semblance of an applewoman, had discreetly concealed himself by the
roadside, all but his head bei