Fresher flowers beyond are found,
My husband to the Flood is bound.”
Whenever a member needs assistance in a fight, he holds up the right hand with thumb, first, and second fingers expanded an equal distance apart, while the third and fourth fingers are closed; at the same time, the thumb and the first two fingers of the left hand are placed open on the right elbow. To call to battle is to hold the right hand over the head with the thumb pointing upwards. We know of nothing more terrifying than this pointing up of thumbs to Heaven.
When a fight is about to take place, the queue is looped over the right shoulder after having been brought around the neck and fastened in what is called the sign of Shou. A cry rises from those that have laid upon themselves this sign. It is not thunder, not a moan. It is the growl of Eternity, “Hung Shun Tien”—The Deluge obeys Heaven.
This vast Brotherhood is subject to twenty-one rules: Ten Prohibitions; Ten Punishable Offences. In addition there are thirty-six oaths bequeathed by the Five Patriarchs. Death is the inevitable punishment for those that break them.
Oath Seven reads: “If any brother is unable to escape you swear to assist him, no matter what are the consequences. If there are any that do not adhere to these feelings of kinship, let thunder annihilate them.”
Number Twenty reads: “If officials arrest a brother, his escape is most important. You swear to see to this. Those that refuse to give such aid shall die beneath ten thousand knives.”
The last of the Great Oaths is the Apocalypse of this Empire in its gloom. “All ye that enter the Deluge Family, scholars, husbandmen, merchants, industrious labourers, mechanics, Confucianists, Buddhists, Taoists, physicians, astrologers, geomancers, lictors, thieves, pirates, officials, executioners, and all others, swear loyalty above all things. Ye are the hands and feet of one body, obedient to the Head. Ye must bow down to the Five Seal-bearers and obey them. If any show duplicity or fail to exert themselves, let them die beneath ten thousand knives.”
Such is the Tien Tu Hin, the Association of Heaven and Earth: enormous, unseen; filled with terror and serenity; vast, invisible; its labyrinths endless as are the veins of the earth, and like the earth’s depths, asurge with molten lava; calm, portentous, peaceful, terrible; born to avenge a crime; fostered to destroy a dynasty; matured to establish Universal Peace.
By the hand of thoughtful Fate the Breton was led into its labyrinths and became part of it and of its terror.