been absent.

Having been inspired to this conclusion--which, when she later
examined her mind, she found not to be repulsive to her own inner
feelings--Mian returned to the house with dexterous speed, and calling
together the two attendants, she endeavoured by means of signs and
drawings to explain to them what she desired to accomplish. Succeeding
in this after some delay (for the persons in question, being very
illiterate and narrow-minded, were unable at first to understand the
existence of any recumbent male person other than the dead magician,
whom they thereupon commenced to bury in the garden with expressions
of great satisfaction at their own intelligence in comprehending
Mian's meaning so readily) they all journeyed to the wood, and bearing
Ling between them, they carried him to the house without further
adventure.


VIII

It was in the month of Hot Dragon Breaths, many weeks after the fight
in the woods of Ki, that Ling again opened his eyes to find himself in
an unknown chamber, and to recognize in the one who visited him from
time to time the incomparable maiden whose life he had saved in the
cypress glade. Not a day had passed in the meanwhile on which Mian had
neglected to offer sacrifices to Chang-Chung, the deity interested in
drugs and healing substances, nor had she wavered in her firm resolve
to bring Ling back to an ordinary existence even when the attendants
had protested that the person in question might without impropriety be
sent to the Restoring Establishment of the Last Chance, so little did
his hope of recovering rest upon the efforts of living beings.