ents compared with which death itself is welcome, and to this end
Mian has reserved a farewell gift."

Speaking in this manner the devoted and magnanimous maiden placed in
Ling's hands the transparent vessel of liquid which the magician had
grasped when he fell. "This person," she continued, speaking with
difficulty, "places her lover's welfare incomparably before her own
happiness, and should he ever find himself in a situation which is
unendurably oppressive, and from which death is the only escape--such
as inevitable tortures, the infliction of violent madness, or the
subjection by magic to the will of some designing woman--she begs him
to accept this means of freeing himself without regarding her anguish
beyond expressing a clearly defined last wish that the two persons in
question may be in the end happily reunited in another existence."

Assured by this last evidence of affection, Ling felt that he had no
longer any reason for internal heaviness; his spirits were immeasurably
raised by the fragrant incense of Mian's great devotion, and under its
influence he was even able to breathe towards her a few words of similar
comfort as he left the spot and began his journey.

IX

On entering Canton, which he successfully accomplished without any
unpleasant adventure, the marked absence of any dignified ostentation
which had been accountable for many of Ling's misfortunes in the past,
impelled him again to reside in the same insignificant apartment that
he had occupied when he first visited the city as an unknown
and unimportant candidate. In consequence of this, when Ling was
communicating to any person the signs by which messengers might
find him, he was compelled to add, "the neighbourhood in which this
contemptible person resides is that officially known as 'the mean
quarter favoured by the lower class of those who murder by treachery,'"
and for this reason he was not always treated with the regard to which
his attainments entitled him, or which he would have unquestionably
received had he been able to describe himself as of "the partly-drained
and uninfected area reserved to Mandarins and their friends."

It was with an ignoble feeling of mental distress that Ling exhibited
himself at the Chief Office of Warlike Deeds and Arrangements on the
following day; for the many disadvantageous incidents of his past life
had repeated themselves before his eyes while he slept, and the not
unhopeful emotions which he had