“O most honourable and dearly loved one! This insignificant person fades away for a sight of her lover’s form, for the sound of his voice, for the clasp of his arms. Come, come, my lord, your slave awaits you at sundown between the third house and the paved way. Come! Come! Your handmaid faints and desires you as the sailor desires the land, as the beggar desires clothing, as the famished desires rice.”
Although not particularly elegant in its phrases, still this letter filled On Yick’s breast with the liveliest sensations of love and joy, and he watched the westering of the sun with the greatest impatience.
Meanwhile affairs had proceeded in the house of Tak Wo somewhat unsmoothly. Tak Wo, in consequence of his previous night’s libations, awoke somewhat late and withal surly. For a considerable time he searched about the house, and at last addressed his daughter, demanding of her the whereabouts of his pipe. Hoo was thereupon obliged, at some length, to explain that during the previous night she had been awakened by a small but benevolent dragon who, it appeared, lived in the kang, or oven, on which Tak Wo slept; that the dragon had requested her to give him Tak Wo’s pipe; that she had done so, thrusting the pipe into the glowing embers of millet stalks in the flue; and that the dragon appeared highly pleased.
Tak was highly annoyed at this recital, and left the house to seek some of his cronies to obtain a much-desired smoke. Finding congenial companions, and having told them the news of his daughter’s approaching marriage, he was suitably entertained with tobacco and fiery spirits, and so remained absent the whole day.
The love-sick Hoo’s directions to On Yick had been somewhat indefinite, and the latter, through an insufficient knowledge of the topographical specialities of the village of Tai Kok and the rapidly falling darkness, took a wrong direction, which resulted in a breaking of the lover’s tryst. There were only three houses in Tai Kok which stood on the sea-shore. Having passed these the wayfarer either passed inland to other houses of the village, or continued his way along a stone-flagged causeway which ran along the coast. Inshore this causeway was lined by a hedge of screw-pines, and inside this again was a narrow pathway, and then swamp between it and the remainder of the village. Hoo’s intention was to meet On Yick on the pathway between the swamp and the hedge of screw-pines, but On Yick continued along the causeway to seaward, which misunderstanding led to disaster. The screw-pine from a distance is a picturesque addition to any landscape, but a too close acquaintance with this form of vegetation is trying. If the Infernal Regions possess any forms of vegetation, the screw-pine probably figures amongst the flora of that region. For instance, it will grow in a swamp or on waterless sand; it seems indifferent whether the water that laves its roots is born of fever-laden mud swamps or of the pure salt sea. Its stem is of a gnarled and twisted hardness, but useless as timber; its pretty green leaves are furnished with spikes that hold like fish-hooks, and hurt the flesh of human beings like hot needles. No animal will eat its leaves, and if burnt by fire it grows again as if nothing had injured it; and to crown all, it possesses a fruit which, to the ordinary observer, differs little from the luscious and juicy pine-apple, but which possesses no usefulness whatever, it being about as nourishing and juicy as a lump of mahogany. To prevent the inroads of cattle or the advance of an enemy the screw-pine ranks high amongst nature’s impassable obstacles. But enough of this digression into matters which are more suitable for a work on Botany or Forestry.
At sundown, true to her appointment, the love-sick Hoo proceeded slowly along the mud path by the swamp, and the no less impetuous On Yick arrived at the third house of the village, and with a masterful stride proceeded along the stone causeway to meet the object of his adoration in the rapidly forming dusk.
Hoo nervously ran along the mud path, and at last heard footsteps approaching. The felt-soled boots of On Yick made but little noise on the stone causeway, and consequently in the dark Hoo imagined that he approached her along the mud path.
“Is it my lord who approaches his slave?” softly cried Hoo.
“I come, pearl worth a thousand taels, dove with golden wings, little fawn with horns of jade!” replied On Yick in his most loving tones.
“But your humble handmaid sees not the light of her life, the stream that satisfies her soul’s thirst. Where art thou? Come to me, or I faint from desire.”