ome.

After careful enquiry, and through friendly hints from men who, he had
reason to believe, were fairies in disguise and had been sent by the
Goddess of Mercy to help those who aspired after a higher life, he
learned that it was possible by the constant pursuit of virtue to
arrive at that stage of existence in which death would lose all its
power to injure, and men should become immortal. This boon of eternal
life could be won by every man or woman who was willing to pay the
price for so precious a gift. It could be gained by great self-denial,
by willingness to suffer, and especially by the exhibition of profound
love and sympathy for those who were in sorrow of any kind. It
appeared, indeed, that the one thing most imperatively demanded by the
gods from those who aspired to enter their ranks was that they should
be possessed of a divine compassion, and that their supreme object
should be the succouring of distressed humanity. Without this
compassion any personal sacrifice that might be made in the search for
immortality would be absolutely useless.

Sam-Chung was already conscious that he was a favourite of the gods,
for they had given him two companions, both with supernatural powers,
to enable him to contend against the cunning schemes of the evil
spirits, who are ever planning how to thwart and destroy those whose
hearts are set upon higher things.

One day, accompanied by Chiau and Chu, the two attendants commissioned
by the Goddess of Mercy to attend upon him, Sam-Chung started on his
long journey for the famous Tien-ho river, to cross which is the
ambition of every pilgrim on his way to the land of the Immortals.
They endured many weeks of painful travelling over high mountains and
through deep valleys which lay in constant shadow, and across sandy
deserts where men perished of thirst or were struck down by the
scorching heat of the sun, before they met any of the infernal foes
that they expected to be lying in wait for them.

Weary and footsore, they at last arrived one evening on the shores of
the mighty Tien-ho, just as the sun was setting. The glory of the
clouds in the west streamed on to the waters of the river, and made
them sparkle with a beauty which seemed to our wearied travellers to
transform them into something more than earthly. The river here was so
wide that it looked like an inland sea. There was no sign of land on
the distant horizon, nothing but one interminable vista of waters,