hoary; the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who might have seen
seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of admiration,
followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in colour,
breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger woman's arm
underneath the elder woman's neck, and her chin nestling on the other's
shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy dreams.

"Can this indeed be but a trance?" simultaneously questioned several of the
Bonze's followers.

"_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!_" exclaimed the Bonze; and he thrust
his long hunting spear into the elder woman's bosom. Blood poured forth
freely, but there was no change in the expression of the countenance. No
struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew chill and the limbs
stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed dead.

"Carry the young woman like porcelain," ordered the priest, and like the
most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from the cavern
smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the corpse of her aged
companion was abandoned to the hyænas. So often did the bearers pause to
look on her beauty that it was found necessary to drape the countenance
entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in which, vigilantly watched by
the Bonze, she was transported to the Imperial palace.

And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was laid
on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful was the
contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose, and the old
haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love of life.

"O Majesty," said his wisest counsellor, "is there any sect in thy