" Cheng-hu would certainly have
quickly found the necessity of a weapon of three-times hardened steel
if he had lived among these barbarians, who are insensible to the
higher forms of politeness, in addition to acting in a contrary and
illogical manner on all occasions. Instead of being repelled and
discouraged by Fang's outrageous behaviour, they clamoured to be
admitted into the tent more vehemently than before, and so
successfully established the venture that the one to whom I must now
allude throughout as Fang signified to me his covetous intention of
reducing the performance by a further two and a half minutes in order
to reap an added profit and to garner all his rice before the Hoang Ho
rose.
As for myself, revered, it would be immature to hold the gauze screen
of prevarication between your all-discerning mind and my own
trepidation. From the moment when I first saw the expression of
utterly depraved malignity and deep-seared hate which he had cunningly
engraved upon his face by means of the coloured inks, I was far from
being comfortably settled within myself. Even the society of the not
inelegant being of the inner chamber, whom it was now my part to
console with alluring words and movements, could not for some time
retain my face from a back-way instinct at every sound; but when the
detail was reached that she sank into my grasp bereft of all energy,
and for the first time I was just succeeding in forgetting the
unpropitious surroundings, the one Fang, who had entered with unseemly
stealth, suddenly hurled his soul-freezing battle-cry upon my ear and
leapt forward with uplifted knife.
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