A Story of Adventure on the North Sea and in China.
CHAPTER XIX.
When Ping Wang returned, he locked the door and signed to his friends to come and sit in the middle of the room.
'I have bought some offerings for us to make to the ghosts,' he said, and produced from his pocket a handful of pieces of coloured paper.
'It doesn't look very satisfying food,' Charlie remarked, 'but I dare say that it is good enough for ghosts.'
'This is not food,' Ping Wang replied—and, as he spoke, he took from the heap several round pieces of paper—'it is money. Our ghosts, according to the belief of our wise men, lead a life, in some invisible world, which is very much like what they lived here; but, as they don't appear to have a mint, we offer them money—this money. To-night we shall have the pleasure of burning those pieces of round paper, which my countrymen believe pass in the form of money into the ghosts' possession as they disappear from our sight. We will not, however, confine our gifts to money. Here are houses, carts, wheelbarrows, horses, and suits of clothes, all made of paper, to be burnt. The ghosts, my countrymen think, will find them very useful.'
Ping Wang was now in the humour for talking, and held his friends interested nearly the whole of the afternoon. Just before darkness came on they had some tea, and then paid the landlord and departed.
The people by now were flocking, or had already gone, to that part of the town where the feast was to be given, and consequently the Pages and Ping Wang found the track round the ten-foot wall of Chin Choo's house almost deserted. For this they were very thankful indeed, as it gave them a better opportunity for examining the wall.
'This will be the place,' Ping Wang said when they had gone about half-way round the wall. He pointed to several holes in it just large enough to insert the toes or fingers.