“All that is true.  But about the rest?”

The Governor here interrupted: 

“If one thing is true, the rest is also.  What is the use of arguing it?  Since he refuses to write, let him be given thirty strokes of the heavy bamboo, let him be cast into the cell for those who are condemned to death.”

Happily for Chang, his gaolers knew that he was very rich.  They but touched him with their blows, and led him to prison with as much care as they would a butterfly.  Each of them cried: 

“Uncle, how could you do such a thing?”

“O my elder brothers,” he lamented, “if it is true that I desired this girl, yet have I never met her.  Do you believe that I could be a murderer?  I know nothing about the murder.  Tell me of it.”

So he learned that, this very morning, Eternal Life on waking up had been surprised by the silence of the house.  From the ground-floor room where she had passed the night, she had gone up to the story where her parents slept, and had opened the door of their room.  In front of the bed, under the half-drawn curtains, the floor was a tarn of blood.

She was so frightened that she tumbled down the stairs and fell upon the street door, sobbing and crying out.  Neighbors heard her and ran up, and she said to them: 

“Yesterday, my parents went up to their room.  I do not know who has killed them both.”

The bolder ones went up the stairs to see.  They opened the bed-curtains, and there were the man and his wife, stiff and with their throats cut across.  They looked to right and left.  The window was shut, and nothing was disturbed.

“It is a serious matter,” they muttered.  “Let us not act hastily.”

One of them went at once to warn the district chief of police, who came and examined the scene of the crime.  He shut and sealed the house, and led Eternal Life to the Governor’s Court.  The girl knelt down and told all that she knew, and the Governor said: 

“If the door and windows were closed, and nothing has been stolen, the matter is dubious.  Had your father an enemy?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“That is strange!” murmured the Governor, and thought for a moment.

Suddenly he told the officers to take off the silken veil with which the young girl had half-covered her head.  He could then see her exceptional beauty.

“How old are you?  Are you not betrothed?”

“I am seventeen, and I am still free.”

“And you sleep on the ground-floor, while your parents have their room above?  That is very curious.”

“Until quite recently your slave slept above.  But fifteen days ago they made a change.  I do not know why.”

The judge again reflected.  Then he struck the table violently, crying out: 

“It is you who have killed your father and mother.  Or, rather, it is your lover.  Tell me his name.”

“Your slave never leaves the house.  How could she have a forbidden love?  Would not the neighbors know it?”