iang,
whose cruelties and extortions had made his name an object of wide and
deserved loathing, the agents only regarded the city as a bright spot in
the line of blood and fire which they were fanning into life from Peking
to Canton, and which would presumably burst forth and involve the entire
Empire.

Although it had of late become a plain fact, by reason of the manner
of behaving of the people, that events of a sudden and turbulent nature
could not long be restrained, yet outwardly there was no exhibition of
violence, not even to the length of resisting those whom Ping Siang sent
to enforce his unjust demands, chiefly because a well-founded whisper
had been sent round that nothing was to be done until Tung Fel should
arrive, which would not be until the seventh day in the month of Winged
Dragons. To this all persons agreed, for the more aged among them,
who, by virtue of their years, were also the formers of opinion in all
matters, called up within their memories certain events connected with
the two persons in question which appeared to give to Tung Fel the
privilege of expressing himself clearly when the matter of finally
dealing with the malicious and self-willed Mandarin should be engaged
upon.

Among the mountains which enclose Ching-fow on the southern side dwelt
a jade-seeker, who also kept goats. Although a young man and entirely
without relations, he had, by patient industry, contrived to collect
together a large flock of the best-formed and most prolific goats to be
found in the neighbourhood, all the money which he received in exchange
for jade being quickly bartered again for the finest animals which he
could obtain. He was dauntless in penetrating to the most inaccessible
parts of the mountains in search of the stone, unfailing in his skilful
care of the flock, in which he took much honourable pride, and on all
occasions discreet and unassumingly restrained in his discourse and
manner of life. Knowing this to be his invariable practice, it was with
emotions of an agreeable curiosity that on the seventh day of the month
of Winged Dragons those persons who were passing from place to place in
the city beheld this young man, Yang Hu, descending the mountain path
with unmistakable signs of profound agitation, and an entire absence of
prudent care. Following him closely to the inner square of the city, on
the continually expressed plea that they themselves had business in
that quarter, these persons observed