"Nothing proceeds from the machinations of men," he said, "but the whole of our lives is planned by destiny."
"Yes, Mr. Ah, and destiny has willed that my father's persecutor and your hunter are the same man—the Russian general there."
"Ch'hoy! May his posterity be cut off! May the five thunders strike him dead! May the village constable attend to his remains! May he be born again as a hog! When we pitch our camp, I will cut out his tongue, fry him in a caldron of oil, rip——"
"Stay, stay, Mr. Ah!" cried Jack, aghast at this unwonted fury in his scholarly friend. "You forget that he is a European, and I am an Englishman; we don't do such things in my country."
"But it is an imperative duty. Your duty to your father demands that you should heap on the villain the direst curses, and inflict on him the most terrible torture."
"No, Mr. Ah, the books of our sages teach us differently. Besides, my father would not approve: he would most strongly disapprove."
This was a new aspect, and one that Ah Lum took time to consider.
"That alters the case," he at length reluctantly admitted. "A son may not act contrary to his father's wishes. What does the poet Tu Fu so beautifully say?—
"'Happy the Father, yea, and doubly blest,
Whose Son, though absent, doeth his Behest'.
Yes, it is a pity; but when inclination and the counsel of sages agree, there is but one course."