came out of the cottage with him.
"Remember it is the Feast of Lanterns to-night, father," she said.
"Don't fall asleep up on the mountain; we want you to come back and
light them for us."
She had a lantern in the shape of a fish, painted red and black and
yellow, and Han Chung had got a big round one, all bright crimson, to
carry in the procession; and, besides that, there were two large
lanterns to be hung outside the cottage door as soon at it grew dark.
Wang Chih was not likely to forget the Feast of Lanterns, for the
children had talked of nothing else for a month, and he promised to
come home as early as he could.
At noontide, when his fellow-labourers gave up working, and sat down
to rest and eat, Wang Chih took his axe and went up the mountain
slope to find a small tree he might cut down for fuel.
He walked a long way, and at last saw one growing at the mouth of a
cave.
"This will be just the thing," he said to himself. But, before
striking the first blow, he peeped into the cave to see if it were
empty.
To his surprise, two old men, with long, white beards, were sitting
inside playing chess, as quietly as mice, with their eyes fixed on the
chessboard.
Wang Chih knew something of chess, and he stepped in and watched them
for a few minutes.
"As soon as they look up I can ask them if I may chop down a tree," he
said to himself. But they did not look up, and by and by Wang Chih got
so interested in the game that he put down his axe, and sat on the
floor to watch it better.
The two old men sat cross-legged on the ground, and the chessboard
rested on a slab, like a stone table, between them.
On one corner of the slab lay a heap of small, brown objects which
Wang Chih took at first to be date stones; but after a time the
chess-players ate one each, and put one in Wang Chih's mouth; and he
found it was not a date stone at all.
It was a delicious kind of sweetmeat, the like of which he had never
tasted before; and the strangest thing about it was that it took his
hunger and thirst away.
He had been both hungry and thirsty when he came into the cave, as he
had not waited to have his midday meal with the other field-workers;
but now he felt quite comforted and refreshed.
He sat there some time longer, and noticed that as the old men frowned
over the chessboard, their beards grew longer and longer, until they
swept the floor of the cave, and even found their way out of the door.
"I hope my beard will never grow as quickly," said Wang Chih, as he
rose and took up his axe again.
Then one of the old men spoke, for the first time. "Our beards have
not grown quickly, young man. How long is it since you came here?"
"About half an hour, I dare say," replied Wang Chih. But as he spoke,
the axe crumbled to dust beneath his fingers, and the second
chess-player laughed, and pointed to the little brown sweetmeats on
the table.
"Half an hour, or half a century--aye, half a thousand years, are all
alike to him who tastes of these. Go down into your village and see
what has happened since you left it."
So Wang Chih went down as quickly as he could from the mountain, and
found the fields where he had worked covered with houses, and a busy
town where his own little village had been. In vain he looked for his
house, his wife, and his children.
There were strange faces everywhere; and although when evening came
the Feast of Lanterns was being held once more, there was no
Ho-Seen-Ko carrying her red and yellow fish, or Han Chung with his
flaming red ball.
At last he found a woman, a very, very old woman, who told him that
when she was a tiny girl she remembered her grandmother saying how,
when _she_ was a tiny girl, a poor young man had been spirited away by
the Genii of the mountains, on the day of the Feast of Lanterns,
leaving his wife and little children with only a few handfuls of rice
in the house.
"Moreover, if you wait while the procession passes, you will see two
children dressed to represent Han Chung and Ho-Seen-Ko, and their
mother carrying the empty rice-bowl between them; for this is done
every year to remind people to take care of the widow and fatherless,"
she said. So Wang Chih waited in the street; and in a little while the
procession came to an end; and the last three figures in it were a boy
and a girl, dressed like his own two children, walking on either side
of a young woman carrying a rice-bowl. But she was not like his wife
in anything but her dress, and the children were not at all like Han
Chung and Ho-Seen-Ko; and poor Wang Chih's heart was very heavy as he
walked away out of the town.
He slept out on the mountain, and early in the morning found his way
back to the cave where the two old men were playing chess.
At first they said they could do nothing for him, and told him to go
away and not disturb them; but Wang Chih would not go, and they soon
found the only way to get rid of him was to give him some really good
advice.
"You must go to the White Hare of the Moon, and ask him for a bottle
of the elixir of life. If you drink that you will live forever," said
one of them.
"But I don't want to live forever," objected Wang Chih. "I wish to go
back and live in the days when my wife and children were here."
"Ah, well! For that you must mix the elixir of life with some water
out of the sky-dragon's mouth."
"And where is the sky-dragon to be found?" inquired Wang Chih.
"In the sky, of course. You really ask very stupid questions. He lives
in a cloud-cave. And when he comes out of it he breathes fire, and
sometimes water. If he is breathing fire you will be burnt up, but if
it is only water, you will easily be able to catch some in a little
bottle. What else do you want?"
For Wang Chih still lingered at the mouth of the cave.
"I want a pair of wings to fly with, and a bottle to catch the water
in," he replied boldly.
So they gave him a little bottle; and before he had time to say "Thank
you!" a white crane came sailing past, and lighted on the ground close
to the cave.
"The crane will take you wherever you like," said the old men. "Go
now, and leave us in peace."
So Wang Chih sat on the white crane's back, and was taken up, and up,
and up through the sky to the cloud-cave where the sky-dragon lived.
And the dragon had the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the eyes
of a rabbit, the ears of a cow and the claws of a hawk.
Besides this, he had whiskers and a beard, and in his beard was a
bright pearl.
All these things show that he was a real, genuine dragon, and if you
ever meet a dragon who is not exactly like this, you will know he is
only a make-believe one.
Wang Chih felt rather frightened when he perceived the cave in the
distance, and if it had not been for the thought of seeing his wife
again, and his little boy and girl, he would have been glad to turn
back.
While he was far away the cloud-cave looked like a dark hole in the
midst of a soft, white, woolly mass, such as one sees in the sky on an
April day; but as he came nearer he found the cloud was as hard as a
rock, and covered with a kind of dry, white grass.
When he got there, he sat down on a tuft of grass near the cave, and
considered what he should do next.
The first thing was, of course, to bring the dragon out, and the next
to make him breathe water instead of fire.
"I have it!" cried Wang Chih at last; and he nodded his head so many
times that the white crane expected to see it fall off.
He struck a light, and set the grass on fire, and it was so dry that
the flames spread all around the entrance to the cave, and made such a
smoke and crackling that the sky-dragon put his head out to see what
was the matter.
"Ho! ho!" cried the dragon, when he saw what Wang Chih had done, "I
can soon put this to rights." And he breathed once, and the water came
out his nose and mouth in three streams.
But this was not enough to put the fire out. Then he breathed twice,
and the water came out in three mighty rivers, and Wang Chih, who had
taken care to fill his bottle when the first stream began to flow,
sailed away on the white crane's back as fast as he could, to escape
being drowned.
The rivers poured over the cloud rock, until there was not a spark
left alight, and rushed down through the sky into the sea below.
Fortunately, the sea lay right underneath the dragon's cave, or he
would have done some nice mischief. As it was, the people on the
coast looked out across the water toward Japan, and saw three
inky-black clouds stretching from the sky into the sea.
"My word! There is a fine rain-storm out at sea!" they said to each
other.
But, of course, it was nothing of the kind; it was only the sky-dragon
putting out the fire Wang Chih had kindled.
Meanwhile, Wang Chih was on his way to the moon, and when he got there
he went straight to the hut where the Hare of the Moon lived, and
knocked at the door.
The Hare was busy pounding the drugs which make up the elixir of life;
but he left his work, and opened the door, and invited Wang Chih to
come in.
He was not ugly, like the dragon; his fur was quite white and soft and
glossy, and he had lovely, gentle brown eyes.
The Hare of the Moon lives a thousand years, as you know, and when he
is five hundred years old he changes his colour, from brown to white,
and becomes, if possible, better tempered and nicer than he was
before.
As soon as he heard what Wang Chih wanted, he opened two windows at
the back of the hut, and told him to look through each of them in
turn.
"Tell me what you see," said the Hare, going back to the table where
he was pounding the drugs.
"I can see a great many houses and people," said Wang Chih, "and
streets--why, this is the town I was in yesterday, the one which has
taken the place of my old village."
Wang Chih stared, and grew more and more puzzled. Here he was up in
the moon, and yet he could have thrown a stone into the busy street of
the Chinese town below his window.
"How does it come here?" he stammered, at last.
"Oh, that is my secret," replied the wise old Hare. "I know how to do
a great many things which would surprise you. But the question is, do
you want to go back there?"
Wang Chih shook his head.
"Then close the window. It is the window of the Present. And look
through the other, which is the window of the Past."
Wang Chih obeyed, and through this window he saw his own dear little
village, and his wife, and Han Chung and Ho-Seen-Ko jumping about her
as she hung up the coloured lanterns outside the door.
"Father won't be in time to light them for us, after all," Han Chung
was saying.
Wang Chih turned, and looked eagerly at the White Hare.
"Let me go to them," he said. "I have got a bottle of water from the
sky-dragon's mouth, and--"
"That's all right," said the White Hare. "Give it to me."
He opened the bottle, and mixed the contents carefully with a few
drops of the elixir of life, which was clear as crystal, and of which
each drop shone like a diamond as he poured it in.
"Now, drink this," he said to Wang Chih, "and it will give you the
power of living once more in the past, as you desire."
Wang Chih held out his hand, and drank every drop.
The moment he had done so, the window grew larger, and he saw some
steps leading from it down into the village street.
Thanking the Hare, he rushed through it, and ran toward his own house,
arriving in time to take the taper from his wife's hand with which she
was about to light the red and yellow lanterns which swung over the
door.
"What has kept you so long, father? Where have you been?" asked Han
Chung, while little Ho-Seen-Ko wondered why he kissed and embraced
them all so eagerly.
But Wang Chih did not tell them his adventures just then; only when
darkness fell, and the Feast of Lanterns began, he took his part in it
with a merry heart.
_The Lake of Gems_
Once upon a time, so very long ago that even the great-grandfathers of
our great-grandmothers had not been born, there lived in the city of
Kwen-lu a little Chinese boy named Pei-Hang.
His father and mother loved him dearly, and did all they could to
shield him from the power of the evil Genii, or spirits, of whom there
were a great many in China. Of course, there were some good Genii too,
but most of them were very much the reverse, and Pei-Hang's mother was
always taking precautions against them.
Now it is said that a wicked Geni will not come near a Chinese boy if
he has some red silk braided in with his pigtail, or if he wears a
silver chain round his neck.
And the most daring Geni has a great dread of old fishing-nets.
Pei-Hang's mother made him a little shirt out of an old fishing-net to
wear next to his skin, and she took care that his pigtail should be
plaited with the brightest red silk she could buy.
She was particular in having his head shaved in exactly the right way,
too, and to have a tuft left sticking up in the luckiest place.
With all these precautions Pei-Hang got safely over the troubles of
his babyhood, and grew from a little boy into a big one, and from a
boy to a tall and handsome youth; and he left off wearing his netted
shirt, although the silver chain still hung round his neck and there
was red silk in his pigtail.
"It is time that Pei-Hang saw a little more," said his father. "He
must go to Chang-ngan, and study under the wise men there, and find
out what the world is thinking about."
Chang-ngan was the old capital of China, a very great city indeed,
and Pin-Too, the master to whom Pei-Hang was sent was the wisest man
in it.
And there Pei-Hang soon learned what the world was thinking about, and
many things besides. And as soon as he was eighteen he took the red
silk out of his pigtail and the silver chain from his neck; for
grown-up people do not need charms to protect them from the
Genii--they can generally protect themselves.
When he was twenty, Pin-Too told him he could not teach him any more.
"It is time for you to go back to your parents, and comfort them in
their old age," he said.
He looked very sorry as he said it, for Pei-Hang had been his
favourite pupil.
"I will start to-morrow, Master," replied Pei-Hang, obediently. "I
will leave the city by the Golden Bridge."
"No, you must go by the Indigo Bridge, for there you will meet your
future wife," said Pin-Too.
"I was not thinking of a wife," observed Pei-Hang, with some dismay.
And Pin-Too wrinkled up his eyes and laughed.
"All the better!" he said. "Because, when you have once seen her, you
will be able to think of nothing else."
It was very hot weather, and Pei-Hang ought to have started early in
the morning; but he sat so long over his books the night before his
journey that he fell fast asleep just before sunrise, and slept all
through the coolest hours of the day.
When he awoke, the sun was blazing down upon the streets of
Chang-ngan, and making the town like a furnace.
However, Pei-Hang took up his stick and set off, because he had
promised his father and mother to start that day.
"I will rest a little at the Indigo Bridge, and walk on again in the
cool of the evening," he said to himself.
But on the bridge he fell asleep again, so tired was he with the many
sleepless nights he had spent in study.
While he slept he had a dream, in which a tall and beautiful maiden
appeared to him, and showed him her right foot, round which a red cord
was bound.
"What is the meaning of it?" asked Pei-Hang, who could hardly take his
eyes away from her face to look at her foot.
"What is the meaning of the red cord around your foot, too?" replied
the girl.
Then Pei-Hang glanced at his right foot, and saw that his foot and the
girl's were tied together by the same thin red cord; and by this he
knew that she must be his future wife.
"I have heard my mother say," he said, "that when a boy is born, the
Fairy of the Moon ties an invisible red cord round his right foot, and
the other end of the cord round the foot of the girl-baby whom he is
to marry."
"That is quite true," said the maiden; "and _this_ is an invisible
cord to people who are awake. Now I will tell you my name, and
remember it when you hear it again. It is Yun-Ying."
"And I will tell you mine," began Pei-Hang, but Yun-Ying stopped him,
smiling.
"Ah, I know yours, and all about you," she said.
This surprised Pei-Hang very much; but he need not have been greatly
astonished, for everyone in Chang-ngan knew that Pei-Hang was the
handsomest and wisest and best loved pupil the wise Pin-Too had ever
had.
And Yun-Ying lived quite close to the city, and had often seen
Pei-Hang walking through the streets with his books.
When Pei-Hang awoke, he found, as she had said, that there was no red
cord around his foot, and no fair maiden looking down at him, either.
"I wonder if she is real, or only a dream-maiden, after all," he said
to himself.
But Yun-Ying was quite real; only her mother, who knew something of
magic, had given her the power of stepping in and out of people's
dreams just as she chose.
Pei-Hang got up and went on his way, thinking of Yun-Ying all the
time.
It was still very hot, and he grew so thirsty that he went to a little
hut by the roadside, and asked an old woman who was sitting in the
doorway to give him a drink.
The old dame told her daughter to fill their best goblet with fresh
spring water, and bring it out to the stranger; and when the daughter
appeared, it was none other than Yun-Ying herself.
"Oh!" cried Pei-Hang, "I thought perhaps I should never see you again,
and I have found you almost directly."
"And what is my name?" asked the girl, laughing.
"Yun-Ying," replied Pei-Hang. "Yun-Ying, Yun-Ying," he repeated, in a
singing tone, just as he had been saying it all the time as he walked
along, as if he loved the sound of it.
Yun-Ying was dressed in white underneath, but her over-dress was
bright blue, embroidered with beautiful flowers which she had worked
herself; and she stood in the door of the hut, with a peach tree in
full bloom over her head, making such a picture of youth and
loveliness that Pei-Hang's heart seemed to jump up into his throat,
and beat there fast enough to choke him.
"Who are you? And how do you come to know Yun-Ying?" asked the old
woman peering and blinking at him, with her hand over her eyes, to
shade them from the sun.
And when she heard about the dream, and the red cord, and that
Pei-Hang wanted to marry her daughter, she did not look at all
pleased.
"If I had two daughters you might have one of them, and welcome," she
grumbled.
For Pei-Hang was not by any means a bad match. His parents were well
off, and he was their only child.
But Yun-Ying was a very pretty girl, and a mandarin of Chang-ngan was
anxious to make her his wife.
"He is four times her age, it is true," said her mother, explaining
this to Pei-Hang; "but he is very rich. All his dishes and plates are
gold, and they say his drinking-cups are gold, set with diamonds."
"He is old and wrinkled, like a little brown monkey," said Yun-Ying.
"_I_ don't want to marry him! And, besides, the Fairy of the Moon
didn't tie my foot to his."
"No, that's true enough," sighed her mother.
She would have liked to tell Pei-Hang to go about his business, but
she knew if the red cord had really been tied between his foot and
Yun-Ying's, it would not be safe to do that.
"Come inside," she said at last; "I'll see what I can promise."
The inside of the hut was fragrant with the scent of herbs which were
strewn all over the floor, and on a wooden stool in the middle lay a
broken pestle and mortar.
"Now," said Yun-Ying's mother, "on this stool I pound magic drugs
given to me by the Genii; but my pestle and mortar is broken. I want a
new one."
"That I can easily buy in Chang-ngan," replied Pei-Hang.
"No; for it is a pestle and mortar of jade, and you can only get one
like it by going to the home of the Genii, which is on a mountain
above the Lake of Gems. If you will do that, and bring it back to me,
you shall marry Yun-Ying."
"Yes, I will do that," said Pei-Hang, after a moment's thought. "But I
must see my parents first."
He had not the least idea where the home of the Genii was; but
Yun-Ying took him out into the garden, and showed him, in the far
distance, a range of snow-capped mountains, with one peak towering
above the rest.
"That is Mount Sumi," she said, "and it is there the Genii live,
sitting on the snow-peaks, and looking down at the Lake of Gems."
"But to reach it you must cross the Blue River, the White River, the
Red River, and the Black River, which are all full of monstrous
fishes. That is why my mother is sending you," sighed Yun-Ying. "She
thinks you will never come back alive."
"I know how to swim," said Pei-Hang, "and fishes don't frighten me."
"Promise me you won't try to swim," said Yun-Ying, earnestly. "You
would be devoured in a moment. Take this box with you. In it you will
find six red seeds. Throw one into each river as you come to it, and
it will shrink into a little brook, over which you can jump."
Pei-Hang opened the box, and saw inside six round, red seeds, each
about the size of a pea; and he agreed to use them as Yun-Ying
directed. Then he kissed her, and set out on his journey to Mount
Sumi.
But on his way across the plain he passed through the town where his
parents lived, and he went to see them, and told them all that had
happened since he left Chang-ngan.
His mother, who was a very wise woman, as mothers generally are, told
him the Genii would be angry if he turned their four great rivers into
brooks, and would probably refuse to give him a pestle and mortar made
of jade.
"I never thought of that," said Pei-Hang.
"Never mind," said his mother, "I will give you a box containing six
white seeds. Cast one into each brook when you have crossed it on your
way home, and the brook will expand into a river again."
Early the next morning Pei-Hang kissed her and went on his way.
He rested during the midday heat, and continued his journey when it
grew cool again; and in this way, at the end of seven days, he came to
the Blue River.
It was a quarter of a mile wide, and as blue as the sky of midsummer,
and fishes were popping their heads out of the water in every
direction. The head of every fish was twice as large as a football,
and had two rows of teeth. But Pei-Hang threw a red seed into the
waves which were lapping the shore, and in a moment, instead of the
wide blue river, a little brook lay at his feet.
The huge fishes were changed into tiny creatures like tadpoles, and he
hopped across the brook on one foot.
Soon afterward he came to the White River, which was half a mile wide,
so rapid that it was covered with foam, like new milk, and full of
immense sea serpents. "I shan't be able to hop over _this_ on one
foot," thought Pei-Hang, throwing his red seed into the water.
But to his surprise the White River shrank just as rapidly as the Blue
River into a tiny rippling brook, with some wee wriggling eels at the
bottom.
Pei-Hang leaped lightly over it, and walked a long way before he came
in sight of the Red River.
This was three-quarters of a mile wide, and bright scarlet. It looked
like a flood of melted sealing-wax, and a row of alligators, with
their mouths wide open, stretched right across it like a bridge.
"Now for my little red seed!" said Pei-Hang, opening his box quite
cheerfully.
The nearest alligator made a snap at the seed as it sank in the river,
but he missed it, and the next minute he found himself no bigger than
a lizard, sitting at the bottom of a stream not half a yard across. At
the other side of it Pei-Hang was met by one of the Genii, who had
come down from his snow-peak to see who it was that had dared to play
such tricks with the three mighty rivers.
Pei-Hang showed him the round white seeds in his other box.
"It is all right," he said, "I can make them as large as they were
before, on my way back. But first I must find the home of the Genii,
and get a pestle and mortar of jade for my future mother-in-law to
pound her magic drugs in."
"First you must cross the Black River," replied the Geni, with rather
a scornful laugh. "It is a mile wide, and the fish in it are six yards
long, and covered with spikes like porcupines."
"How did you get across?" inquired Pei-Hang.
"I? Oh, I can fly," said the Geni.
"And I can jump," retorted Pei-Hang, sturdily.
The Geni walked with him as far as the Black River, and when our hero
saw the great waste of water as black as ink, stretching away in front
of him, it must be confessed his heart sank a little.
But he took out his fourth seed, and watched it disappear beneath a
coal-black wave.
In an instant, to the Geni's astonishment, the river dried up, leaving
only a shallow stream running through the grass at their feet.