ll the utterance I now give forth ever
come unto your ears again, either on the earth, or when, blindly groping
in the Middle Distance, your spirit takes its nightly flight. They who
are gathered around, and whose voices I speak, bid me say this: Although
immeasurably above you in all matters, both of knowledge and of power,
yet we greet you as one who is well-intentioned, and inspired with
honourable ambition. Had you been content to entreat and despair, as did
all the feeble and incapable ones whose white bones formed your pathway,
your ultimate fate would have in no wise differed from theirs. But
inasmuch as you held yourself valiantly, and, being taken, raised an
instinctive hand in return, you have been chosen; for the day to mute
submission has, for the time or for ever, passed away, and the hour is
when China shall be saved, not by supplication, but by the spear."

"A state of things which would have been highly unnecessary if I had
been permitted to carry out my intention fully, and restore man to his
prehistoric simplicity," interrupted Tsin-Su-Hoang. "For that reason,
when the voice of the assemblage expresses itself, it must be understood
that it represents in no measure the views of Tsin-Su-Hoang."

"In the matter of what has gone before, and that which will follow
hereafter," continued the Voice dispassionately, "Yin, the son
of Yat-Huang, must concede that it is in no part the utterance of
Tsin-Su-Hoang--Tsin-Su-Hoang who burned the Sacred Books."

At the mention of the name and offence of this degraded being a great
sound went up from the entire multitude--a universal cry of execration,
not greatly dissimilar from that which may be frequently heard in the
crowded Temple of Impartiality when the one whose duty it is to take up,
at a venture, the folded papers, announces that the sublime Emperor,
or some mandarin of exalted rank, has been so fortunate as to hold
the winning number in the Annual State Lottery. So vengeance-laden and
mournful was the combined and evidently preconcerted wail, that Yin
was compelled to shield his ears against it; yet the inconsiderable
Tsin-Su-Hoang, on whose account it was raised, seemed in no degree to
be affected by it, he, doubtless, having become hardened by hearing
a similar outburst, at fixed hours, throughout interminable cycles of
time.

When the last echo of the cry had passed away the Voice continued to
speak.

"Soon the earth will again receive you, Yin," it sa