prised at anything I saw. She said it was
quite a common occurrence for a person walking beside you to suddenly
disappear altogether, and explained that they were simply foxes who took
human shape to suit their purpose. They had probably lived in the Sea
Palace for thousands of years and possessed this power of changing their
form at will. She said that no doubt the eunuchs would tell me they were
spirits or ghosts, but that was not true: they were sacred foxes and
would harm nobody. As if to confirm this superstition, one evening, a
few days later, my fire having gone out, I sent my eunuch to see if any
of the other Court ladies were awake, and if so, to try to get me
some hot water. He went out taking his lantern along with him, but he
returned almost immediately with a face as white as chalk. On inquiring
what was the matter, he replied: "I have seen a ghost: a woman, who came
up to me, blew the light out and disappeared." I told him that perhaps
it was one of the servant girls, but he said "No"; he knew all the women
attached to the Palace and he had never seen this one before. He stuck
to it that it was a ghost. I told him that Her Majesty had said there
were no ghosts, but that it might be a fox which had taken human shape.
He replied: "It was not a fox. Her Majesty calls them foxes, because she
is afraid to call them ghosts." He went on to tell me that many years
previously the head eunuch, Li Lien Ying, while walking in the courtyard
back of Her Majesty's Palace, saw a young servant girl sitting on the
edge of the well. He went over to ask her what she was doing there, but
on getting closer he found that there were several other girls there
also, and on seeing him approach, they all deliberately jumped down
the well. He immediately raised the alarm, and on one of the attendants
coming forward with a lantern, he explained what had occurred. The
attendant showed him that it was impossible for anybody to jump into the
well, as it was covered with a large stone. My eunuch said that a long
time before this several girls did actually commit suicide by jumping
down this well, and that what Li Lien Ying had seen were the ghosts of
these girls, and nothing more. It is believed by the Chinese that when
a person commits suicide their spirit remains in the neighborhood until
such time as they can entice somebody else to commit suicide, when they
are free to go to another world, and not before. I told him that I
did not believ