up their eyes and hearts to make drinks is all a foolish lie.  Did we not open one of the graves of one of the children to see if the eyes and hearts were there?  And they were.  A nephew of mine, the son of my sister Luli, who was exposed twelve years ago by his mother, because her husband was drowned and she had no means of bringing him up, was taken to the great house and now he is a splendid big boy.  From there they sent him to the school, and he can speak and write the Chinese language and also that of the West.  Some day I shall go and get him and bring him back to live with our family.—­Ah! here we stand and gossip like old women, while the sun is sinking.  It is time to take the fish and the oysters to the market.  Whose turn is it to go?”

Four men stepped forward and raised the wooden yoke having attached to it buckets of oysters and baskets of fish.  The sack containing the crabs Lihoa himself swung over his shoulder, and they started at a quick pace up the hill over which the path to Victoria lay.  The women as they turned to go with the children to the huts to prepare the evening meal bade them farewell and called out, “A fortunate sale!”

Night settled down quickly, for in a tropical climate the twilight does not last so long as with us.  In Hongkong the sun hardly sets before it is dark, and this evening as the moon, almost at the full, stood high in the heavens, Lihoa had no occasion to light the little lantern which he carried with him.  He found the footpath leading up the hill without difficulty, and his people followed after him goose-fashion in single file.  Almost at the top they came to the cell in the rock occupied by the priest of the God of the Golden Fish, and in the moonlight to their astonishment saw in the broad open space in front of it a group of men from the neighboring villages.  At a signal from Lihoa the carriers placed their burden upon the ground and all went forward to see what the gathering meant.

“Have you heard nothing, Lihoa, of the great scheme which is on foot?” asked the leader of the most important of the villages on the north coast of Hongkong.  “Has not the recruiting officer of the rich Natse been to your village?—­Oh, it is so small and hidden away that he does not deem it worth his while to go to you, and then, besides, the three hundred who are wanted have announced their intention to go, for who would remain here and tiresomely drag out existence with the niggardly sums to be made from fishing when elsewhere the gold lies in such heaps that one can pick up whole bags full in a few days?”

“How?  What?  For heaven’s sake!—­sacks full of gold in a few days?” cried Lihoa, who, like all Chinamen, was covetous of great wealth.  “Speak, Lohe, tell us, can we get some of the gold,—­at least a handful or two?  It is just as you say, our village is the last and the very least in the world, and not a soul has come to us with the good news.  Tell us the road to fortune.”