Concerning this person’s well-sustained efforts to discover
further demons. The behaviour of those invoked on two
occasions.
Venerated Sire,--In an early letter I made some reference to a variety
of demon invoked by certain of the barbarians. As this matter aroused
your congenial interest, I have since privately bent my mind incessantly
to the discovery of others; but this has been by no means easy, for,
touching the more intimate details of the subject, the barbarians
frequently maintain a narrow-minded suspicion. Many whom I have
approached feign to become amused or have evaded a deliberate answer
under the subterfuge of a jest; yet, whenever I would have lurked by
night in their temples or among the enclosed spaces of their tombs to
learn more, at a given signal one in authority has approached me with
anxiety and mistrust engraved upon his features, and, disregarding my
unassuming protest that I would remain alone in a contemplative reverie,
has signified that so devout an exercise is contrary to their written
law.
On one occasion only did this person seem to hold himself poised on the
very edge of a fuller enlightenment. This was when, in the venerable
company of several benevolent persons, he was being taken from place to
place to see the more important buildings, and to observe the societies
of artificers labouring at their crafts. The greater part of the day had
already been spent in visiting temples, open spaces reserved to children
and those whose speech, appearance, and general manner of behaving
make it desirable that they should be set apart from the contact of the
impressionable, halls containing relics and emblems of the past,
places of no particular size or attraction but described as being of
unparalleled historic interest, and the stalls of the more reputable
venders of merchandise.
Doubtless, with observing so many details of a conflicting nature,
this person’s discriminating faculties had become obscured, but towards
evening he certainly understood that we sought the company of an
assembly of those who had been selected from all the Empire to pronounce
definitely upon matters of supreme import. The building before which our
chariot stopped had every appearance of being worthy of so exceptional a
gathering, and with a most affluent joy that I should at last be able to
glean a decisive pronouncement, I evaded those who had accompanied
me, and, mingling self-reliantly with the throng inside, I quickly
surrounded myself with many of the wisest-looking, and begged that they
would open their heads freely and express their innermost opinions upon
the subject of demons of all kinds.
Although I had admittedly hoped that these persons would not conceal
themselves behind the wings of epigram or intangible prevarication, I
was far from being prepared for the candour with which they greeted me,
and although by long usage I am reasonably unconcerned at the proximity
of any of our own recognised genii, it is not to be denied that my
organs of ferocity grew small and unstable at the revelations.
From their words it appeared that the spot on which we stood had
long been the recognised centre and meeting-place for every class of
abandoned and objectionable spirit of the universe. Not only this, but
several of the persons who had gathered around were confidently pointed
out as the earthly embodiment of various diabolical Forces, while others
cheerfully admitted that they themselves were the shadows of certain
illustrious ones who had long Passed Above, and all united in declaring
that those who moved among them wearing the distinction of a dark blue
uniform were Evil Beings of a most ghoulish and repulsive type. Indeed,
as I looked more closely, I could see that not only those pointed out,
but all standing around, had expressions immeasurably more in
keeping with a band of outcast spirits than suggestive of an assembly
representing wisdom and dignified ease. At that moment, however, a most
inelegant movement was caused by one suddenly declaring that he
had recognised this one who is inscribing his experiences to be the
apparition of a certain great reformer who during the period of his
ordinary existence had received the name of Guy Fawkes, and amid a
tumult of overwhelming acclamation a proposal was raised that I
should be carried around in triumph and afterwards initiated into
the observance of a time-honoured custom. Although it had now become
doubtful to what end the adventure was really tending, this person
would have submitted himself agreeably to the participation had not the
blue-apparelled band cleft their way into the throng just as I was about
to be borne off in triumph, and forming themselves into a ringed
barrier around me they presently succeeded in rearranging the contending
elements and in restoring me to the society of my friends. To these
persons they complained with somewhat unreasoning acrimony that I
had been exciting the inmates into a state of rebellion with wild
imaginings, and for the first time I then began to understand that an
important error had been perpetrated by some one, and that instead of
being a meeting-place for those upholding the wisdom and authority
of the country, the building was in reality an establishment for the
mentally defective and those of treacherous instincts.
For some time after this occurrence I failed to regard the subject of
demons and allied Forces in any but a spirit of complete no enthusiasm,
but more recently my interest and research have been enlarged by the
zeal and supernatural conversation of a liberal-minded person who
sought my prosaic society with indefatigable persistence. When we had
progressed to such a length that the one might speak of affairs without
the other at once interposing that he himself had also unfortunately
come out quite destitute of money, this stranger, who revealed to me
that his name was Glidder, but that in the company of a certain chosen
few he was known intimately as the Keeper of the Salograma, approached
me confidentially, and inquired whether we of our Central Kingdom were
in the habit of receiving manifestations from the spirits of those who
had Passed Beyond.
At the unassumed ingenuousness of this remark I suffered my
impassiveness to relax, as I replied with well-established pride that
although a country which neglected its ancestors might doubtless be
able to produce more of the ordinary or graveyard spectres, we were
unapproachable for the diverse forms and malignant enmity of our
apparitions. Of invisible beings alone, I continued tolerantly, we
had the distinction of being harassed by upwards of seven hundred
clearly-defined varieties, while the commoner inflictions of demons,
shades, visions, warlocks, phantoms, sprites, imps, phenomena, ghosts,
and reflections passed almost without comment; and touching our admitted
national speciality of dragons, the honour of supremacy had never been
questioned.
At this, the agreeable person said that the pleasure he derived from
meeting me was all-excelling, and that I must certainly accompany him to
a meeting-place of this same chosen few the following evening, when,
by the means of sacred expedients, they hoped to invoke the presence
of some departed spirits, and perchance successfully raise a tangible
vision or two. To so fair-minded a proposal I held myself acquiescently,
and then inquired where the meeting-place in question was destined
to be--whether in a ruined and abandoned sanctuary, or upon some
precipitous spot of desolation.
The inquiry was gracefully intended, but a passing cloud of unworthy
annoyance revealed itself upon the upper part of the other’s expression
as he replied, “We, the true seekers, despise theatrical accessories,
and, as a matter of fact, I couldn’t well get away from the office in
time to go anywhere far. To-morrow we meet at my place in the Camden
Road. It’s only a three-half-penny tram stage from the Euston and
Tottenham Court corner, so it couldn’t be much more convenient for you.”
He thereupon gave me an inscribed fragment of paper and mentioned the
appointed hour.
“I’ll tell you why I am particularly anxious for you to come to-morrow,”
he said as we were each departing from one another. “Pash--he’s the
Reader of the Veda among us--and his people have got hold of a Greek
woman (they SAY she is a princess, of course), who can do a lot of
things with flowers and plate glass. They are bringing her for the first
time to-morrow, and it struck me that if I have YOU there already when
they arrive--you’ll come in your national costume by the way?--it will
be a considerable set-off. Since his daughter was presented to the
duchess at the opening of a bazaar, there has been no holding Pash; why
he was ever elected Reader of the Books, I don’t know. Er--we have had
scoffers sometimes, but I trust I may rely upon you not to laugh at
anything you may not happen to agree with?”
With conscientious dignity I replied that I had only really laughed
seven times in my life, and therefore the entertainment was one which
I was not likely to embark upon hastily or with inadequate cause. He
immediately expressed a seemly regret that the detail had been spoken,
and again assuring him that at the stated hour I would present myself
at the house bearing the symbol engraved upon the card, we definitely
parted.
That, as a matter of fact, I did not so present myself at the exact
hour, chiefly concerns the uncouth and arbitrary-minded charioteer who
controlled the movements of the vehicle to which the one whom I was
seeking had explicitly referred; for at an angle in the road he suffered
the horses to draw us aside into a path which did not correspond to the
engraved signs upon the card, nor by any word of persuasion could he be
prevailed upon to return.
Thus, without any possible reproach upon the manner in which I was
conducting the enterprise, it came about that by the time I reached the
spot indicated, all those persons who had been spoken of as constituting
a chosen band were assembled, and with them the barbarian princess.
Nevertheless, this person was irreproachably greeted, and the maiden
indicated even spoke a few words to him in an outside tongue. Being
necessarily unacquainted with the import of the remark I spread out my
hands with a sign of harmonious sympathy and smiled agreeably, whereat
she appeared to receive an added esteem from the faces of those around
(excluding those directly of the House of Glidder), and was thereby
encouraged to speak similarly at intervals, this person each time
replying in a like fashion.
“Is he then a Guide of the Way, also, princess?” said the one Pash, who
had noted the occurrence; to which the maiden replied, “To a degree, yet
lacking the Innermost Mysteries.”
Presently it was announced that all things were fittingly prepared in
another chamber. Here, upon a table of polished wood, stood on the one
side a round stone with certain markings, a group of inscribed books,
and various other emblems; and on the other side a bowl of water, a
sphere of crystal, pieces of unwritten parchment, and behind all, and at
a distance away, a sheet of transparent glass, greater in height than
an ordinary person and as wide. When all were seated--the one who had
enticed me among them placing himself before the stone, the person
Pash guarding the books, the barbarian princess being surrounded by her
symbols and alone in a self-imposed solitude, and the others at various
points--the lights were subdued and the appearances awaited.
It would scarcely be respectful, O my enlightened father, to take up
your well-spent leisure by a too prolific account of the matters which
followed, they being in no way dissimilar from the manifestations
by which the uninitiated little ones of Yuen-ping are wont to amuse
themselves and pass the winter evenings. From time to time harmonious
sounds could be plainly detected, flowers and branches of wood were
scattered sparsely here and there, persons claimed that passing objects
had touched their faces, and misshapen forms of smoke-like density
(which some confidently recognised as the outlines of departed ones whom
they had known), revealed themselves against the glass. When this had
been accomplished, the lights were recalled, and the barbarian maiden,
sinking into a condition of languor, announced and foretold events and
happenings upon which she was consulted, sometimes replying by spoken
words, at others suffering her hand to trace them lightly upon the
parchment sheets. Thus, to an inquirer it was announced that one, Aunt
Mary, in the Upper Air, was well and happy, though undeniably pained at
the action of Cousin William in the matter of the freehold houses, and
more than sceptical how his marriage would turn out. Another was advised
that although the interest on Consols was admittedly lower than that
anticipated by those controlling the destines of a new venture entitled,
The Great Rosy Dawn Gold Mine Development Syndicate, and the name
certainly less poetically inspiring, the advising spirits were of the
opinion that the former enterprise would prove the more stable of the
two, and, in any case, they recommended the person in question to begin
by placing not more than half of her life’s savings into the mine.
The family of the House of Pash was assured that beneficent spirits
surrounded them at every turn, and that their good deeds were not
suffered to fall unfruitfully to the ground; while many bearing the name
of Glidder, on the other hand, were reproved by one who had known them
in infancy for the offences of jealousy, ostentation, vain thoughts,
shallowness of character, and the like.
At length, revered, as there seemed to be no reasonable indication of
any barbarian phantom of weight or authority appearing--nothing,
indeed, beyond what a person in our country, of no admitted skill, would
accomplish in the penetrating light of day with two others holding his
hands, and a third reposing upon his head, I formed the perhaps immature
judgment that the one to whom I was indebted for the entertainment would
be suffering a grievous frustration of his hopes and a diminution of his
outward authority. Therefore, without sufficient consideration of the
restricted surroundings, as it afterwards appeared, I threw myself
into a retrospective vision, and floating unencumbered through space,
I sought for Kwan Kiang-ti, the Demon of the Waters, upon whom I might
fittingly call, as I was given into his keeping by the ceremony of
spirit-adoption at an early age. Meeting an influence which I recognised
to be an indication of his presence, in the vicinity of the Eighth
Region, I obsequiously entreated that he would reveal himself without
delay, and then, convinced of his sympathetic intervention, I suffered
my spirit to recall itself, and revived into the condition of an
ordinary existence.
“We have among us this evening, my friends,” the one Pash was saying,
“a very remarkable lady--if I may use so democratic a term in the
connection--to whom the limits of Time and Space are empty words, and
before whose supreme Will the most portentous Forces of Occult Nature
mutely confess themselves her attending slaves--” But at that moment
the rolling drums of Kiang-ti’s thunder drowned his words, although he
subsequently raised his voice above it to entreat that any knives or
other articles of a bright and attractive kind should at once be removed
to a place of safety.
Heralded by these continuous sounds, and accompanied by innumerable
flashes of lightning, the genius presently manifested himself, leisurely
developing out of the air around. He appeared in his favourite guise of
an upright dragon, his scales being arranged in rows of nine each way,
a pearl showing within his throat, and upon his head the wooden bar. The
lights were extinguished incapably by the rain which fell continually in
his presence, but from his body there proceeded a luminous breath which
sufficiently revealed the various incidents.
“Kong Ho,” said this opportune vision, speaking with a voice like the
beating of a brass gong, “the course you have adopted is an unusual one,
but the weight and regularity of your offerings have merit in my eyes.
Nevertheless, if your invocation is only the outcome of a shallow vanity
or a profane love of display, nothing can save you from a painful death.
Speak now, fully and without evasion, and fear nothing.”
“Amiable Being,” said this person, kow-towing profoundly, “the matter
was designed to the end only that your incomparable versatility might
be fittingly displayed. These barbarians sought vainly to raise phantoms
capable of any useful purpose, whereupon I, jealous of your superior
omnipotence, judged it would be an unseemly neglect not to inform you of
the opportunity.”
“It is well,” said the demon affably. “All doubt in the matter shall
now be set at rest. Could any more convincing act be found than that
I should breath upon these barbarians and reduce them instantly to a
scattering of thin white ashes?”
“Assuredly it would be a conclusive testimony,” I replied; “yet in
that case consider how inadequate a witness could be borne to your
enlightened condescension, when none would be left but one to whom the
spoken language of this Island is more in the nature of a trap than a
comfortable vehicle.”
“Your reasoning is profound, Kong Ho,” he replied, “yet abundant
proof shall not be wanting.” With these words he raised his hand, and
immediately the air became filled with an overwhelming shower of
those productions with which Kwan Kiang-ti’s name is chiefly
associated--shells and pebbles of all kinds, lotus and other roots from
the river banks, weeds from seas of greater depths, fish of interminable
variety from both fresh and bitter waters, all falling in really
embarrassing abundance, and mingled with an incessant rain of sand and
water. In the midst of this the demon suddenly passed away, striking the
table as he went, so that it was scarred with the brand of a five-clawed
hand, shattering all the objects upon it (excepting the stone and
the books, which he doubtless regarded as sacred to some extent), and
leaving the room involved in a profound darkness.
“For the love av the saints--for the love av the saints, save us from
the yellow devils!” exclaimed a voice from the spot where last the
barbarian princess had reclined, and upon this person going to her
assistance with lights it was presently revealed that she alone had
remained seated, the others having all assembled themselves beneath the
table in spite of the incapability of the space at their disposal. Most
of the weightier evidences of Kwan Kiang-ti’s majestic presence had
faded away, though the table retained the print of his impressive hand,
many objects remained irretrievably torn apart, and in a distant corner
of the room an insignificant heap of shells and seaweed still lingered.
From the floor covering a sprinkling of the purest Fuh-chow sand rose
at every step, the salt dew of the Tung-Hai still dropped from
the surroundings, and, at a later period, a shore crab was found
endeavouring to make its escape undetected.
Convinced that the success of the manifestation would have enlarged
the one Glidder’s esteem towards me to an inexpressible degree, I now
approached him with words of self-deprecation ready on my tongue, but
before he spoke I became aware, from the nature of his glance, that
the provision had been unnecessary, for already his face had begun to
assume, to a most distended amount, the expression which I had long
recognised as a synonym that some detail had been regarded at a
different angle from that anticipated.
“May I ask,” he began in a somewhat heavily-laden voice, after he had
assured himself that the person who was speaking was himself, and his
external attributes unchanged, “May I ask, sir” (and at this title,
which is untranslatable in its many-sided significance when technically
employed, I recognised that all complimentary intercourse might be
regarded as having closed), “whether you accept the responsibility of
these proceedings?”
“Touching the appearance which has so essentially contributed to the
success of the occasion, it is undeniably due to this one’s foresight,”
I replied modestly.
“Then let me tell you, sir, that I consider it an outrage--a dastardly
outrage.”
“Yet,” protested this person with retiring assertiveness, “the expressed
object of the ceremony, as it stood before my intelligence, was for the
set purpose of invoking spirits and raising certain visions.”
“Spirits!” exclaimed the one before me with an accent of concentrated
aversion; “yes, spirits; impalpable, civilised, genuine spirits, who
manifest themselves through recognised media, and are conformable to the
usages of the best drawing-room society--yes. But not demons, sir; not
Chinese devils in the Camden Road--no. Truth and Light at any cost, not
paganism. It’s perfectly scandalous. Look at the mahogany table--ruined;
look at the wall-paper--conventional mackerels with a fishing-net
background, new this spring--soused; look at the Brussels carpet,
seventeen six by twenty-five--saturated!”
“I quite agree with you, Mr. Glidder,” here interposed the individual
Pash. “I was watching you, sir, closely the whole time, and I have my
suspicions about how it was done. I don’t know whether Mr. Glidder
has any legal redress, but I should certainly advise him to see his
solicitors to-morrow, and in the meantime--”
“He is my guest,” exclaimed the one whose hospitality I was enjoying,
“and while he is beneath my roof he is sacred.”
“But I do not think that it would be kind to detain him any longer in
his wet things,” said another of the household, with pointed malignity,
and accepting this as an omen of departure, I withdrew myself, bowing
repeatedly, but offering no closer cordiality.
“Through a torn sleeve one drops a purse of gold,” it is well said; and
as if to prove to a deeper end that misfortune is ever double-handed,
this incapable being, involved in thoughts of funereal density, bent
his footsteps to an inaccurate turning, and after much wandering was
compelled to pass the night upon a desolate heath--but that would be the
matter of another narrative.
With an insidious doubt whether, after all, the far-seeing Kwan
Kiang-ti’s first impulse would not have been the most satisfactory
conclusion to the enterprise.