One evening in the distant past a fisherman anchored his boat near the
bank of a stream which flowed close by a great city, whose walls could
be seen rising grey and rugged in the near distance. The sound of life
fell upon his ear and kept him from feeling lonely. Coolies, with
bamboo carrying-poles on their shoulders, tired out with the heavy work
of the day, hurried by afraid lest the darkness should overtake them
before they reached their homes. The bearers of sedan-chairs, which
they had carried for many a weary mile, strode by with quickened step
and with an imperious shout at the foot passengers to get out of their
way and not block up the narrow road by which they would gain the city
walls before the great gates were closed for the night.
By the time that the afterglow had died out of the sky and the distant
hills were blotted out of the horizon, the fisherman had finished the
cooking of his evening meal. The rice sent a fragrant odour from the
wide-mouthed pan in which it lay white and appetizing. A few of the
very small fish he had caught in the river had been fried to a brown
and savoury-looking colour, and he was just about to sit down and enjoy
his supper when, happening to look round, he saw a stranger sitting in
the after part of the boat.
He was greatly amazed and was about to express his surprise, when
something about the appearance of this unexpected visitor kept him
spell-bound. For the stranger had a fine scholarly look about him, and
the air of a man belonging to a good family. He had, moreover, a
benevolent, kindly face, which could not fail to win the confidence of
anyone who gazed upon it.
Whilst the fisherman was wondering who his visitor was and how he had
managed to come so mysteriously into the boat, the stranger said:
"Allow me to explain who I am and to apologise for intruding on you
without first having got your permission to do so. I am the spirit of
a man who two years ago was drowned not very far from where your boat
is now anchored. Many attempts have I made to inveigle others into the
river, so that I might be free to leave the spot to which my miserable
fate binds me until another unhappy wretch shall take my place."
The spirit of a drowned person is condemned to hover round the spot
where his life was lost, until, either by accident or by the wiles of
the sufferer, someone else perishes in the water and thus takes the
place of the spirit, which then travels with lightning speed to the
Land of Shadows.
"I was so dull this evening," continued the stranger, "that I felt
impelled to come and have a chat with you for a short time. So I hope
you will take my visit in good part, and allow me to sit in your boat
until it is time for you to go to bed."
The fisherman, who was greatly taken with his courtly visitor,
expressed his great pleasure in receiving him, and invited him to share
his evening meal and to make himself quite at home for as long as he
liked.
After this the solitary spirit of the river used frequently to come and
spend an evening with the fisherman, until quite a friendship sprang up
between them. One evening this ghostly visitor appeared with a face
covered with smiles and with a glad note of joy in his voice. No
sooner had he sat down than he said, "This is the last evening I shall
be able to spend with you. The long weary time of waiting is now
nearly at an end, and to-morrow another victim to the river will give
me my release and you will see me no more."
Now, the fisherman was a deeply benevolent man, and he was most anxious
to see what unhappy person was to be drowned on the morrow. About
midday, as he was watching by the river-side, he saw a poor woman,
weeping and sobbing, come rushing with hasty steps towards the water.
Her hair was dishevelled, and her eyes red with tears, and frequent
cries of sorrow burst from her lips. Straight as an arrow she made for
the stream, and was just preparing to throw herself into it, when the
fisherman in a loud and commanding voice told her to stop.
He then asked her what was the matter and what reason there was for her
to sacrifice her life in the river.
"I am a most unhappy woman," she replied. "On my way home just now I
was waylaid by a footpad, who robbed me of some money that I was taking
back to my husband. This money was to pay a debt we owed to a man who
threatens us with the severest penalties if we do not give it to him
to-day. Far rather would I face death than see the sorrow which would
overwhelm my husband if I told him my sorrowful story."
Having asked her how much money had been taken from her, the fisherman
presented the woman with the exact amount, and soon she was proceeding
with joyful footsteps in the direction of her home.
That same evening the fisherman was again visited by the spirit who had
bidden him an eternal farewell the previous evening.
"What did you mean," asked the visitor, "by depriving me of the one
chance I had of gaining my freedom?"
"I could not bear to see the sorrow of the poor woman," replied the
fisherman, "nor to think of the tragedy to her home had she perished in
the stream, and so I saved her." With eloquent lips he proceeded to
describe the beauty of benevolence, and urged upon his guest the nobler
course of trying to save life even at the expense of his own happiness.
In the end the latter was so deeply moved that he promised never again
to make any attempt to gain his liberty through another's death, even
though this should mean that he would have to spend long ages of misery
in the fatal stream.
Years went by, and yet for the imprisoned spirit there came no release.
Cases of suicide or accidental drowning in the flowing stream ceased
altogether. Many a life that would have perished was saved from
destruction by mysterious warnings which came from the sullen water,
and which terrified away the would-be suicides as they were about to
hurl themselves into it.
At length Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy, moved by the sight of such a
generous sacrifice of self in order to save the souls of unfortunate
people who had become weary of life, released this noble spirit from
its watery prison. Moreover, as she felt convinced that such a man
could safely be entrusted with the destinies of those who might appear
before his tribunal, she made him a god and decreed that temples should
be erected to him in every town and city of the Empire, so that all who
were suffering wrong or injustice could have their causes righted at
the shrine of one who had shown such profound devotion and sympathy for
others in distress.
Such is the story of the God of the City.
Since he is regarded as the representative of the dread ruler of the
Land of Shadows, his temple has been erected very much in the same
style as the courts of the Mandarins. Its main entrance is large and
imposing, and the great gates suggest those of the yamen of some high
official.
Within these is an immense courtyard, paved with slabs of granite, and
on each side of this there are six life-size statues of the "runners,"
or policemen, of the god, who stand ready to carry out his decisions,
and to pursue and capture by invisible and mysterious processes those
whom he has condemned as guilty. The faces of these figures are
distorted by passion, and their attitudes are such as men might be
conceived to assume in apprehending some notorious criminal whom Yam-lo
had ordered to be seized.
At the end of this spacious courtyard is the shrine of the god, but he
is so hidden behind a yellow curtain that it is impossible to catch a
glimpse of his image. In front of him are statues of his two
secretaries, who, with huge pens in their hands, stand ready day and
night to take down the petitions and indictments laid before the god by
those who are in sorrow or who are suffering wrong.
One afternoon the peace of such a temple was suddenly disturbed by a
noisy clamour outside, and the sound of hurried footsteps as of a crowd
rushing through the main gates. Two men advanced with rapid, excited
strides straight past the demon policeman at the door, who seemed to
scowl with added ferocity as they gazed at the actors in a scene with
which they would have much to do by-and-by.
The two men were quite young, a little over twenty; and behind them
followed a string of idlers and loafers and street arabs, who seem to
spring up like magic when anything unusual happens. One of the young
men was slightly ahead of the crowd. His face was flushed and his
black eyes sparkled with excitement, whilst in his left hand he carried
a large white cock. He was the complainant, and his purpose in coming
to the temple was to appeal to the god to vindicate his honour.
He took his stand in front of the idol, and the secretaries, with pens
in their hands, seemed to put on a strained look of attention as the
young fellow produced a roll of paper and began to read the statement
he had drawn up. It was diffuse and wordy, as most of such documents
are, but the main facts were quite plain.
The two young men were assistants in a shop in the city. Some little
time before, the master of the shop, without telling either of them,
concealed in a chosen place a sum of one hundred dollars, which he
wished to have in readiness in order to pay for certain goods he had
purchased. The previous day, when he went to get the money on the
presentation of the bill, he found to his horror that it had
disappeared. He had told no one of this secret hoard, not even his
wife; and therefore he felt convinced that in some way or other one of
his two assistants had discovered his hiding-place. For some reason
his suspicions became aroused against the man who was now detailing his
grievances, and who was appealing to the god to set in motion all the
tremendous forces at his command, not only to proclaim his innocence
but also to bring condign punishment on the real culprit.
The scene was a weird and fascinating one, and became most exciting as
the young man neared the end of his appeal. He called upon the god to
hurl all the pains and penalties in his unseen armoury against the man
who had really stolen the money.
"Let his life be one long torture," he cried with uplifted hands. "May
every enterprise in which he engages end in disaster; may his father
and mother die, and let him be left desolate; may a subtle and
incurable disease lay its grip upon him; may misfortune pursue him in
every shape and form; may he become a beggar with ulcered legs and sit
on the roadside and beseech the passers-by, in sunshine and in storm,
for a few cash that will just help to keep him alive; may he never have
a son to perpetuate his name or to make offerings to his spirit in the
Land of Shadows; may madness seize upon him so that his reason shall
fly and he shall be a source of terror to his fellow-men; and finally,
may a tragic and horrible death bring his life to a sudden end, even as
I bring to an end the life of this white cock that I have brought with
me."
As he uttered these last words he grasped a chopper, and with one sharp
and vicious blow cut off the head of the struggling animal, which
wildly fluttered its wings in the agonies of death, whilst its
life-blood poured out in a stream on the ground.
He then took his petition, and advancing close up to the secretaries,
who seemed for the moment to gaze down upon him with a look of sympathy
on their faces, he set fire to it and burned it to ashes. In this way
it passed into the hands of the god, who would speedily set in motion
unseen machinery to bring down upon the head of the guilty one the
judgments which had just been invoked.
The sympathies of the crowd were with the man who had sworn a solemn
oath that he was innocent of the theft. The other young fellow, who
had said little or nothing during the proceedings, was believed to be
the real culprit, but there was no evidence upon which he could be
convicted. The god knew, however, and every one was satisfied that in
due time punishment would descend upon the transgressor.
In a few minutes the temple resumed its normal aspect, for with the
disappearance of the two principal actors in the scene, the idlers from
the street slowly dispersed, each one loudly expressing his opinion as
to the merits of the question in dispute. With the dissolving of the
crowd, it would have seemed to the casual observer that no further
proceedings were to be taken in the matter. The god's face wore its
usually placid look, unmoved by the shifting panorama of human life
which ebbed and flowed in front of him from morning till night. The
ghastly-looking policemen, with their grinning visages and ferocious
scowls and contorted bodies, remained in the same unchanging postures
by the main entrance.
A week or two had gone by since the appeal had been made to the god,
when those who were following the case and were looking out for some
grim evidence that the god was at work in bringing retribution on the
man whom everyone suspected of being the thief, were startled by a
heartrending catastrophe.
This man had a sister, just bursting into womanhood, who was the very
light of her home. Her merry laugh could be heard throughout the day,
so that sadness could not long abide in the same house. Her face, too,
seemed to have been formed to match her sunny smiles, and was a
constant inspiration that never failed to give those who looked upon it
a brighter view of life.
One morning she went down to the river-bank with several of her
neighbours to do the household washing. The stream was strong and
rapid in the centre, but the place which these women had selected for
their work had always been considered perfectly safe, for it was
outside the current and no accident had ever happened there.
They had finished all that they had purposed to do, and were ascending
the bank to return home, when they heard an agonized cry and turning
swiftly round they perceived that this young girl had stumbled and
fallen into the river. They were so horrified at the accident that
they lost all presence of mind and allowed the fast-flowing stream to
get a grip of her and drag her into the current. When help at last
came, her body could just be seen floating on the troubled waters, and
before a boat could be launched it had disappeared in the waves of the
sea which tumbled and roared about a quarter of a mile further down.
This terrible disaster, which brought unutterable gloom and sorrow upon
the home, was unquestionably the work of the god. With bated breath
people talked of the tragic end of this beautiful girl, who had won her
way into the hearts of all who knew her; but they recognized that her
death had been caused by no mere accident, but by the mysterious power
of the invisible forces which are always at work to bring punishment
upon those who have violated the Righteousness of Heaven.
About a month after this calamity, the monsoon rains began to fall.
The clouds gathered in dense masses upon the neighbouring hills, and
poured down such copious showers that the mountain streams were turned
into roaring avalanches, tearing their way down to the sea with an
impetuosity that nothing could resist.
One of these streams, which used to run by the side of the ancestral
property of the family of the man who was believed to have stolen the
hundred dollars, overflowed its banks and rushing along with mad and
headlong speed it swept away their fields, so that when the rains
ceased not a trace of them was to be found, but only sand and gravel,
from which no crop could ever be gathered in the future. The
consequence was that the family was utterly ruined.
This second disaster falling on the homestead was a clear indication to
everyone who knew the story of the stolen money that the god was still
at work in bringing retribution on the sinner. The fact that other
farms had come out of the flood undamaged was proof positive of this.
From this time, too, the young man who really was the culprit began to
be troubled in his mind because of the calamities that had fallen on
his family. The death of his sister by drowning, and the utter
destruction of his home by the flood, which had injured no other farmer
in the neighbourhood, were plain indications that the curses which his
falsely accused fellow-assistant had prayed the god to bring down on
the head of the guilty party were indeed coming fast and thick upon him.
A dread of coming evil took possession of him, and this so preyed upon
his mind that he began to lose his reason. He would go about muttering
to himself, and declaring that he saw devils. These fits grew upon
him, until at last he became raving mad, and had to be seized and bound
with ropes to prevent him doing injury to himself or to others. At
times he suffered from violent spasms of mania, while at others, again,
though undoubtedly insane, he was quiet and subdued. He would then
talk incessantly to himself, and bemoan the sad fact that the dread God
of the City was sending evil spirits to torment him because he had
purloined the hundred dollars belonging to his master.
By-and-by these random confessions attracted the attention of his
heart-broken father, who used to sit watching by his side, and they
became so frequent and so circumstantial, describing even where the
money had been hidden, that at last he determined to examine into the
matter. Investigations were made, and the whole sum was found in the
very place which the young man had mentioned in his delirium, and was
at once returned to the shopkeeper.
As the money had been given back, and the father and mother were
dependent upon their only son to provide for them in their old age, the
man who had entered the accusation before the god was entreated again
to appear before him in his temple and withdraw the charges that he had
previously made against his fellow-assistant. Only in this formal and
legal way could the god have official knowledge of the fact that
reparation had been made for the offence which had been committed; and
if this were not done he would still continue to send sorrow after
sorrow until the whole family were involved in absolute ruin or death.
Out of pity for the old couple the other young man consented to take
the necessary steps. He accordingly presented a petition to the god,
stating that he wished to withdraw the accusation which he had made
against a certain man who had been suspected of theft. The stolen
money had been returned to its owner, and the god was now besought to
stay all further proceedings and forgive the culprit for the wrong he
had done.
It was evident that this petition was granted, for at once the young
man began to recover, and soon all signs of madness left him. He had,
however, learned a lesson which he never forgot; and as long as he
lived he never committed another offence such as the theft which had
brought such serious consequences upon himself and his family.