By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.
On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
which he advanced slowly towards me.
I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
against the law, so far as I knew.
He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without.
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