If I am fated to stand in the presence of the Lord Taou-tai, it must be accomplished by ruse and stratagem.
Luckily for me, the shades of night now began to fall, for, although the gateway and corridors of the governor’s palace might be illumined by ten thousand lanterns—as in truth I found them to be, when I reached them—yet the light they shed was soft and uncertain.
Counting upon the almost lightning celerity of my movements and the utterly noiselessness of my footsteps, I succeeded quite easily in flitting by the group of sentries who were stationed at the outer gate.
Delighted with my good fortune, I sprang lightly up the steps of the portico, and, closely followed by Bulger, strode into the main corridor with dignified mien and stately air.
Eight towering fellows, armed with savage-looking pikes—for one of whom it would have been no more trouble to spit me and toss me out of the window, than for a boy to impale a frog on the end of his pointed stick and toss it on dry land—now blocked my advance.
So noiseless had been my step that I had approached within a few feet of them before they became aware of my presence. Had I dropped from the clouds, their astonishment could not have been greater and more ludicrous to behold.
They clutched each other by the arm, leveled their index fingers at me, and whispered in a hoarse voice, as one man:
“A little devil!”
“Nay, my good men,” I replied, with a most gracious smile, “not a little devil, but a soldier like yourselves; one who has fought ’neath many skies, knows what a good sword is, what good wine is, would rather fight than run, can tell a good story, and loves war as a hunter loves the chase!”
The eight men looked at each other, tapped their foreheads significantly, and then fixed their gaze upon me as if they were in doubt whether my next move would be to jump down their throats, vanish into thin air, or expand into an awful ogre, and gulp them all down without pepper or salt.