But they demanded still more. She laid aside her lute and intoned for them the noble lines of China's most famous writer:
"Thou that hast seen six kingdoms pass away——"
Then, warming to her audience, and herself thrilled with the spirit of the ancient splendour, she moved forward in her whispering silks, and, slightly bending, her finger lifted like one who hushes children with a magic tale, she spoke to them of Fei-yen, mistress of the Emperor; and told them how T'ai-Chên became an empress; sang for them the song of Yu Lao, the "Song of the Moon Moth":
"The great Night Moth that bears her name
Is winged in green,
Pale as the June moon's silver flame
Her silken sheen:
No other flame they know, these twain
Where dark dews rain—
This great Night Moth that bears her name
And my sweet Queen;
So let me light my Lantern flame
And breathe Her name."
She held her audience in the palm of her smooth little hand; she knew it, and tasted power. She told them of the Blue Mongol's song, reciting:
"From the Gray Plains I ride,
Where the gray hawks wheel,
In armour of lacquered hide,
Sabre and shield of steel;
The lance in my stirrup rattles,
And the quiver and bow at my back
Clatter! I sing of Battles,
Of Cities put to the sack!
Where is the Lord of the West,
The Golden Emperor's son?
I swung my Mongol sabre;—
He and the Dead are one.
For the tawny Lion of the Iort
And the Sun of the World are One!"
Then she told them the old Chinese tale called "The Never-Ending Wrong"—the immortal tragedy of that immortal maid, "a reed in motion and a rose in flame," from where she alights "in the white hibiscus bower" to where "death is drumming at the door" and "ten thousand battle-chariots on the wing" come clashing to a halt; and the trapped King, her lover, sends her forth
"Lily pale,
Between tall avenues of spears, to die."
And so, amid "the sullen soldiery," white as a flower, and all alone in soul, she "shines through tall avenues of spears, to die."
"The King has sought the darkness of his hands," standing in stricken grief, then turns and gazes at what lies there at his feet amid its scattered