“That cannot I,” she said.  “The secret was known only to my daughter.”

“Who is thy daughter?”

“The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern.”

“That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so fresh?

“Even so,” she said, “I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy years.  When I awoke she was withered and decrepit:  I youthful as when I closed my eyes.  But she had learned the secret, which I never knew.”

“The Bonze shall be crucified!” yelled the Emperor.

“It is too late,” said she; “he is torn in pieces already.”

“By whom?”

“By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee.”

And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people, headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor’s breast, exclaiming: 

“He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose the life which he has.”  Words, saith the historian Li, which have been thought worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of Confucius.

And the people were crying, “Kill the sorceress!” But she looked upon them, and they cried, “Be our Empress!”

“Remember,” said she, “that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred years!”

“Would,” said they, “that it might be a hundred thousand!”

So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously.  Among her good acts is enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze.  Since, however, they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild beasts have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with no less appetite than the members of other sects and denominations.

ABDALLAH THE ADITE

An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy.  Of his creed it could only be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper.  But the better informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness on account of differences with his brethren, who sought to poison him.

The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning the nature of demons.  But he found that Sergius could give him no information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and beautifully on holy things, that his pupil’s intellect was enlightened, and his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the Baphometites, and the Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient Manichees.