"I am sufficiently armed," replied Nicholas showing the hilt of a small dagger beneath his robe, adding, "Now let us proceed."
They then passed through the streets, which swarmed with people who were as busy as bees in a hive, some making purchases of itinerant tradespeople, viewing the wonderful feats of jugglers, mountebanks, or players, listening to the marvelous narratives of vivà voce novelists, or testing their fates with cheating fortune-tellers. As they approached the palace, they found crowds of people gazing at the great observatory, upon the top of which the astronomers of the court, in full dress, were engaged in watching the heavens. When they arrived at the wall which confined the city of buildings that made up the imperial residence, Nicholas dismissed the chairman, and they passed into the first court, which was as large and full of houses as a small country town. It took half an hour to walk through; and as they had to traverse seven more of these courts, which took them three hours, you may imagine the great extent of the whole palace. The last but one was surrounded with the palaces of the princes of the red girdle, or those more distant in blood from the throne. This court was crowded with mandarins, officers, eunuchs, and soldiers of the Emperor, who were earnestly peering through telescopes at the sun, which from a deep blood red became yellow and dim, and gradually more and more opaque, till the whole world seemed to be enveloped in darkness, and darkness blacker than midnight, for there was no moon.
When the earth's light became extinguished, the mandarins fell flat upon their faces, moaning aloud, while the noise from thousands of drums shook the very walls.
"Let us fall upon our faces, O my master, and pray to the terrible dragon," exclaimed Chow, suiting the action to the word, and endeavoring to drag Nicholas with him. As, however, Nicholas was averse to this superstition, he refused to comply, and stood looking upon the people as if they had been performing for his especial and solitary benefit.
Whatever was the superstition, it laid firm hold of Chow, who, long after the light had returned to the heavens and the other people to their feet, continued to moan, kick his legs, and knock the earth with his forehead. At length, after repeatedly calling to him in vain, Nicholas turned him upon his back, when, opening his eyes and finding the light had returned, he jumped upon his feet, and, as the sweat of fear rolled from his brow, said, "Thank the gods, the greedy monster of a dragon has not swallowed the sun and moon. O master, what would become of us all; what would become of day and night without the sun and moon?"
"Art thou foolish, O Chow, to believe that this eclipse was caused by the effort of a monster dragon to swallow the heavenly luminaries?"
"Who is thy servant, O noble Nicholas, that he should doubt, when learned mandarins believe?" said Chow.
"Know, O Chow, that the mandarins believe in it no more than thy master, but perform a ceremony handed down to them by their ancestors."
When the people who had been praying of the dragon not to swallow the poor sun and moon began to disperse, the boys continued their journey till they came to the outer or prohibited wall of the inner palace, when, pointing to a soldier who stood at the gate with a naked sabre in his hand, Chow said. "Look, my master, to pass yon tiger of war will be to seek Yen-Vang in the other world," and at the same moment the soldier said, "Are the slaves tired of their lives that they approach the prohibited wall without bowing to the earth?"
Having performed the required ceremony, Nicholas presented the merchant's ring to the soldier, saying, "Let the eyes of the war tiger rest upon this token, for by its means his servant would seek the illustrious yellow girdle, Woo-san-Kwei."