CHAPTER I

The Encountering of Six within a Wood

Only at one point along the straight earth-road leading from Loo-chow
to Yu-ping was there any shade, a wood of stunted growth, and here Kai
Lung cast himself down in refuge from the noontide sun and slept.

When he woke it was with the sound of discreet laughter trickling
through his dreams. He sat up and looked around. Across the glade two
maidens stood in poised expectancy within the shadow of a wild
fig-tree, both their gaze and their manner denoting a fixed intention
to be prepared for any emergency. Not being desirous that this should
tend towards their abrupt departure, Kai Lung rose guardedly to his
feet, with many gestures of polite reassurance, and having bowed
several times to indicate his pacific nature, he stood in an attitude
of deferential admiration. At this display the elder and less
attractive of the maidens fled, uttering loud and continuous cries of
apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight. The
other remained, however, and even moved a few steps nearer to Kai
Lung, as though encouraged by his appearance, so that he was able to
regard her varying details more appreciably. As she advanced she
plucked a red blossom from a thorny bush, and from time to time she
shortened the broken stalk between her jade teeth.

"Courteous loiterer," she said, in a very pearl-like voice, when they
had thus regarded one another for a few beats of time, "what is your
honourable name, and who are you who tarry here, journeying neither to