“With the title,” continued Kai Lung cheerfully, “there goes a sufficiency of taels; also a vat of a potent wine of a certain kind.”

“If,” suggested Li-loe, looking anxiously around, “you have really discovered hidden about this place a secret store of wine, consider well whether it would not be prudent to entrust it to a faithful friend before it is too late.”

It was indeed as Li-loe had foretold.  On the following day, at the second gong-stroke after noon, the order came and, closely guarded, Kai Lung was led forth.  The middle court had been duly arranged, with a formidable display of chains, weights, presses, saws, branding irons and other implements for securing justice.  At the head of a table draped with red sat the Mandarin Shan Tien, on his right the secretary of his hand, the contemptible Ming-shu.  Round about were positioned others who in one necessity or another might be relied upon to play an ordered part.  After a lavish explosion of fire-crackers had been discharged, sonorous bells rung and gongs beaten, a venerable geomancer disclosed by means of certain tests that all doubtful influences had been driven off and that truth and impartiality alone remained.

“Except on the part of the prisoners, doubtless,” remarked the Mandarin, thereby imperilling the gravity of all who stood around.

“The first of those to prostrate themselves before your enlightened clemency, Excellence, is a notorious assassin who, under another name, has committed many crimes,” began the execrable Ming-shu.  “He confesses that, now calling himself Kai Lung, he has recently journeyed from Loo-chow, where treason ever wears a smiling face.”

“Perchance he is saddened by our city’s loyalty,” interposed the benign Shan Tien, “for if he is smiling now it is on the side of his face removed from this one’s gaze.”

“The other side of his face is assuredly where he will be made to smile ere long,” acquiesced Ming-shu, not altogether to his chief’s approval, as the analogy was already his.  “Furthermore, he has been detected lurking in secret meeting-places by the wayside, and on reaching Yu-ping he raised his rebellious voice inviting all to gather round and join his unlawful band.  The usual remedy in such cases during periods of stress, Excellence, is strangulation.”

“The times are indeed pressing,” remarked the agile-minded Mandarin, “and the penalty would appear to be adequate.”  As no one suffered inconvenience at his attitude, however, Shan Tien’s expression assumed a more unbending cast.

“Let the witnesses appear,” he commanded sharply.

“In so clear a case it has not been thought necessary to incur the expense of hiring the usual witnesses,” urged Ming-shu; “but they are doubtless clustered about the opium floor and will, if necessary, testify to whatever is required.”

“The argument is a timely one,” admitted the Mandarin.  “As the result cannot fail to be the same in either case, perhaps the accommodating prisoner will assist the ends of justice by making a full confession of his crimes?”