“He had traveled far and learned many things.”
“It is true.”
“Also he had learned how to read men’s hearts, and he saw that the heart of Mai Lo had changed since he had mixed with foreign people, and become acquainted with foreign ways. Therefore the Prince no longer trusted Mai Lo.”
“Yet Mai Lo has been faithful and brought the body of his master many thousand li, that it may rest in peace in the halls of his ancestors,” remarked Wi.
“True,” I acknowledged.
“Had the governor wished to be faithless he could have remained in foreign lands and so preserved his life. By returning here he is forced, as soon as his affairs and those of his Prince are arranged, to kill himself—or be killed,” said the eunuch, thoughtfully.
“He has done all this,” I replied, “and Prince Kai, who distrusted him, expected him to act in this way. For the governor is very crafty and full of tricks. To remain abroad would make him a poor man. Mai Lo wants to be rich, and to pass his life in Europe, with many slaves and all the luxuries of the Western civilization. So Prince Kai said to me that the governor would come back to Kai-Nong, to get much treasure and with it flee from this empire to Europe.”
Wi-to seemed genuinely astonished.
“Where could Mai Lo get such treasure?” he asked.
“His duty is to convert all the fortune of Prince Kai into cash and deposit it in the ancestral chih, or tombs.”