On the day when this story opens, just as the last horseman had passed
out of sight among the cedars, Bamboo chanced to look up toward one of
the smaller temple buildings of which his father was the keeper. It was
the house through which the visitors had just been shown. Could his eyes
be deceiving him? No, the great iron doors had been forgotten in the
hurry of the moment, and there they stood wide open, as if inviting him
to enter.

In great excitement he scurried toward the temple. How often he had
pressed his head against the bars and looked into the dark room, wishing
and hoping that some day he might go in. And yet, not once had he been
granted this favour. Almost every day since babyhood he had gazed at the
high stone shaft, or tablet, covered with Chinese writing, that stood
in the centre of the lofty room, reaching almost to the roof. But
with still greater surprise his eyes had feasted on the giant turtle
underneath, on whose back the column rested. There are many such tablets
to be seen in China, many such turtles patiently bearing their loads of
stone, but this was the only sight of the kind that Bamboo had seen. He
had never been outside the Hsi Ling forest, and, of course, knew very
little of the great world beyond.

It is no wonder then that the turtle and the tablet had always
astonished him. He had asked his father to explain the mystery. "Why
do they have a turtle? Why not a lion or an elephant?" For he had seen
stone figures of these animals in the park and had thought them much
better able than his friend, the turtle, to carry loads on their backs.
"Why it's just the custom," his father had replied--the answer always
given when Bamboo asked a question, "just the custom." The boy had tried
to imagine it all for himself, but had never been quite sure that he
was right, and now, joy of all joys, he was about to enter the very