hing Kang's attention was at once arrested. Thinking that the animal
was ill, and delighted at the prospect of lending it aid, for silver
foxes are regarded as of good omen in China, Ching Kang approached it,
and was about to examine it carefully, when to his astonishment he found
he could not move--he was hypnotised. But although his limbs were
paralysed, his faculties were wonderfully active, and his heart almost
ceased beating when he saw the fox slowly begin to get bigger and
bigger, until at last its head was on a level with his own. There was
then a loud crash, its skin burst asunder, and there stepped out of it
the form of a girl of such entrancing beauty that Ching Kang thought he
must be in Heaven. She was fairer than most Chinese women; her eyes were
blue instead of brown, and her shapely hands and feet were of milky
whiteness. She was gaily dressed in blue silk, with earrings and
bracelets of blue stone, and carried in one of her hands a blue fan.
With a wave of her slender palms she released Ching Kang from his spell,
and, bidding him follow her, plunged into a thick clump of bushes. Madly
infatuated, Ching Kang needed no second bidding, but, keeping close to
her heels, stolidly pushed his way through barricades of brambles that,
whilst yielding to her touch, closed on him and beat him on the face and
body so unmercifully that in a very short time he was barely
recognisable, being literally bathed in blood. However, despite his
wounds increasing and multiplying with every step he took, and naturally
causing him the most excruciating agony, Ching Kang never, for one
instant, thought of turning back; he always kept within touching
distance of the blue form in front of him. But at last human nature
could stand it no longer; his strength gave way, and as with a mad
shriek of despair he implored her to stop, his senses left him and he
fell in a heap to the ground. When he recovered he was lying alone,
quite alone in the middle of the road, exactly opposite the spot where
he had first seen the fox, and by his side was a fan, a blue fan.
Picking it up sadly, he placed it near his heart (where it remained to
the very day of his death), and with one last lingering look at the bank
of the stream, he continued his solitary journey.

This was Ching Kang's story. His brother did not think he ever met the
fox-woman again. He believed Ching Kang was still searching for her when
he died.

CHAPTER VIII

DEATH WARNIN