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Song.

Knight on the Narrow Way,

Where wouldst thou ride?
"Onward," I heard him say,
"Love, to thy side!"

"Nay," sang a bird above,
"Stay, for I see

Death in the mask of Love
Waiting for thee."

Enter a MINSTREL, leading a
He pauses, confronted by the
The moonlight dazzles him.

[The song breaks off.
great white steed.
glittering fairy host.

He stares at them under his arched hand.]

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF.

Minstrel, art thou, too, free of fairy-land?

Where wouldst thou ride? What is thy name?

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Through all the world to seek and find my King! [He passes through the fairy host and goes into the woods on the further side of the glade, continuing his song, which dies away in the distance.]

SONG.

"Death? What is death?" he cried.

"I must ride on,

On to my true love's side,

Up to her throne!"

THE YAMEN PRISONER.

THE pleasantest part of the day was over. Pointed shadows lay across the yellow roadway and a little wind had arisen, puffing up the dust. The huge pile of wood and masonry that formed the city gates was crudely painted in black and white to represent the muzzles of cannon that should strike terror into the heart of any foe approaching the walls, and an English girl glanced up at it with a smile as she turned her pony homewards. To her it stood for an emblem of the old rotten form of civilisation that still held sway within. Her father was Consul of a flourishing port in another province, and at her earnest entreaty had allowed her to stay with a friend in this cold, unawakened city of Ch'ang-ming-hsien, five days from the railway. She knew China better than she knew her native land, but she had lived most of her life in the ports, and had never before been so far into the Interior, where the past, with its dead, was worshipped, and the present allowed to slip by unheeded. It was recorded that this city had been in existence in the days of Tsin Chi-hwangti, who built the Myriad Mile Wall, and its traditions and usages were age-old. A foreigner was like a breath from an outer world stirring the dust of men's minds as the evening air stirred that of the streets. But the dust soon settled again.

Progress was not allowed to disturb the peace of Ch'angming-hsien. The upstart foreigner was still hated.

Helen Braithwaite was fairly conversant with the ways of a Chinese city, yet there were things to which she could never grow accustomed, which she could never accept with equanimity. One of these was the exhibition of prisoners outside the Mandarin's residence. On going out she had ridden round another way to avoid it, but now she thought that this had been a weak-minded thing to do. She could neither help nor hurt them by passing them in the public street, and, as to herself, the fact that she did not actually see them did not wipe the knowledge of their existence from her mind. She would not flee from them again, but she decided that she would not look in their direction as she passed.

It was the groom who had told her that the criminals were outside the Yamen, accompanying his words with a glance of sharp curiosity. At the prompt reply, "Then I will go the other way!" the man's face had returned to passivity with a tinge of relief. Now, when he saw his mistress take the wide road that passed the official residence, his face changed again, and a look of uneasiness came into it.

Under the mud wall of the Yamen compound a long row of prisoners sat exposed to

public view in the ignominy of the stocks. At first sight they appeared to be sitting hand in hand, but a second glance showed that the hands that touched were bound together. Each man's neck was enclosed in a big square board, heavy and unmanageable, that tilted this way and that to the prisoner's extreme distress. The wide wooden collar lent them a grotesque air, as if they were pierrots in some sinister troupe of comedians.

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casual glance could he have been taken for a Chinese; one surprised stare was enough for a compatriot. But he took longer to place her, for the brain behind the vague eyes was very slow. He had suffered so many experiences on the other side of the mud wall that for the moment he thought that the angel of death was riding towards him in the guise of an Englishwoman. Then he comprehended. A look

of desperate intensity came into his eyes, and the heart under the blue poo coat began to patter with excitement when he saw that she had pulled up, dismounted, and was coming towards him.

She stooped over him, questioning in a clear, anxious voice. He turned his eyes away and compressed his lips. "What can I do?"

In the silence she tapped her switch impatiently against her foot.

"Nothing," he said at last. "Better not try.'

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"But I'm going to try. Tell me what's the best thing."

If the girl thought that she could ride by without looking at them, she had not learnt the power of that which is repellent to attract the eye. She was forced to look, could not keep her eyes from them, though they were not an edifying sight. She glanced at each human bead upon the string, her pity evident in her face. The mafoo watched her alertly. He saw her eyes move slowly from one to another of the miserable depraved faces. Then she pulled up short at sight of a man near the end of the line, and sat staring. The prisoner who had attracted her eyes gazed back vaguely. He looked more pierrot - like than the rest, because his features were more strongly marked. He was sitting in the same position as the others, with a hand out on either side coupled to the hands of his neighbours, and the back of He saw her compassion. He his wooden collar resting tried to say, "Don't risk youragainst the wall. He wore self." He struggled to utter the blue cotton clothing of the the words, but he did not know poor, calico stockings that if they were ever audible. A had once been white, and black mist floated over. The face cloth shoes. But only at a before him became blurred, but

"Go away-and forget." His voice discouraged her, but when he lifted his eyes they implored.

She stepped back a pace, for she had never before seen the eyes of a trapped animal look out of a disciplined English face.

making an effort not to allow himself to be dragged into unconsciousness he fought his way back to the light, and saw her still standing before him. Her face had changed; horror was upon it, and he guessed that she had seen his wrists. He could not see them himself because of the wide board round his neck, but he knew what they felt like and how they must appal her eyes. For the bonds had cut into them, and sand, which was always blowing along the ground, had got into the wounds. And as he watched her face he saw the horror melt into pity, so deep that he thought that it must be like the face of the Madonna when she gazed upon wounded Hands.

"Oh, how can I help you?" she cried.

Through all that had been sent him to endure he had remained master of himself, but now he began to quiver. He could not hide his hands from her sight, nor his blanched face. The board slipped and jarred his raw neck. He remembered his unkempt condition, his horrible clothes, his companions. The vicinity of the Yamen was no place for an English girl to set foot. He saw the Madonna eyes looking into his and felt fingers close round his own.

"My friend, I will try to do something, so be on the lookout. Where do they put you at night?"

But the mists were coming over him again. She was lost in the darkness. He gathered himself for an effort, and uttered

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Two or three officials and underlings came out of the Yamen compound into the road.

"If there was only one stone in all China, this pony would pick it up," said Helen clearly.

The mafoo knelt on one knee, and offered the other for her to mount by. She was quickly in the saddle. The official and his followers bowed to her. She considered this a liberty, and only responded distantly for the sake of the man under the wall.

She dared not look at him. She waited for an instant in case he found some way of telling her where he was housed, but as no word came she rode slowly on. The others looked after her and then at the prisoner. He had fallen forward with the edge of the board resting upon his knees,

and his head drooping. As he made no answer to contemptuous remarks or even to a kick, it was evidently a mere coincidence that the foreign woman's pony should have fallen lame at this particular spot.

Since a situation like this would have been impossible in an enlightened treaty port, its difficulties did not immediately reveal themselves.

Her missionary host and his wife were the only foreigners in the city, and but a few days before Mr Bemberry had started off on a fortnight's tour in a remote district. He had told Helen that he would not have gone if his wife had not had a friend with her, for though he trusted his household implicitly, he could not have left her and his children alone. A messenger would take two or three days to reach him.

There remained Mrs Bemberry, her school friend, charming, impetuous, nervous, and unwise. Helen felt that if she told her what she had seen Lucy would immediately talk about it to the servants, and news that plans were afoot for the foreign prisoner's escape would leak back to the Yamen. Mr Bemberry was a strong man with a weak wife. He had taken their destinies and those of his wavering converts into his big, honest hands, and Helen would have been glad to have put the prisoner's future there also. If word came to the Mandarin that the foreigners had knowledge of him and were planning his escape, he would never see the outside of

the Yamen again, of that she felt sure.

She sounded the groom. "They seem to think that they can treat a foreigner as they treat a coolie! Has the Mandarin run mad that he does such a thing?"

The man turned aside and muttered something under his breath.

"What are you saying?" He replied that he had said nothing.

She rode on, occupied by her own thoughts. Presently she said, "What reason could the Mandarin have had to do such a thing? How dare he treat a foreigner like that?”

Again the mafoo muttered. "But what has he done?” The answer was, "He has committed a crime, and he is now enduring punishment for it."

"What erime?" she demanded.

"I would not like to tell you."

The man's face was devoid of all expression; it was a mask of innocence. She knew the Chinese well enough to understand that he would not tell what he knew, and also that he considered the prisoner guilty of some horrible offence. "We must get him away,' she said. "I suppose money will do it."

There was no reply.

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Ch'ing, if I give you twenty dollars, will you go to the gatekeeper at the Yamen and make him let the prisoner go?"

Ch'ing muttered that the affair was not his business.

"No, but the chance of earn

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