“All this is plainly part of an orderly scheme for my advancement, brought about by my friends in the Upper World,” remarked Ning, with some complacency.  “Lin Fa has been influenced to the extent of providing us with the means for our immediate need; Sun Wei has been opportunely removed to the end that this person may now retire to a hidden spot and there suffer his dishonoured nails to grow again:  Ah-tang has been impelled to raise the banner of insurrection outside Ti-foo so that Tian may make use of the necessities of either side in pursuit of his design.  Assuredly the long line of our misfortunes is now practically at an end.”

iv.  Events round walled Ti-foo

Nevertheless, the alternative forced on Tian was not an alluring one.  If he joined the band of Ah-tang and the usurper failed, Tian himself might never get inside Ti-foo; if, however, he allied himself with the defenders of Ti-foo and Ah-tang did not fail, he might never get out of Ti-foo.  Doubtless he would have reverently submitted his cause to the inspired decision of the Sticks, or some other reliable augur, had he not, while immersed in the consideration, walked into the camp of Ah-tang.  The omen of this occurrence was of too specific a nature not to be regarded as conclusive.

Ah-tang was one who had neglected the Classics from his youth upwards.  For this reason his detestable name is never mentioned in the Histories, and the various catastrophes he wrought are charitably ascribed to the action of earthquakes, thunderbolts and other admitted forces.  He himself, with his lamentable absence of literary style, was wont to declare that while confessedly weak in analogies he was strong in holocausts.  In the end he drove the sublime emperor from his capital and into the Outer Lands; with true refinement the annalists of the period explain that the condescending monarch made a journey of inspection among the barbarian tribes on the confines of his Empire.

When Tian, charged with being a hostile spy, was led into the presence of Ah-tang, it was the youth’s intention to relate somewhat of his history, but the usurper, excusing himself on the ground of literary deficiency, merely commanded five of his immediate guard to bear the prisoner away and to return with his head after a fitting interval.  Misunderstanding the exact requirement, Tian returned at the appointed time with the heads of the five who had charge of him and the excuse that in those times of scarcity it was easier to keep one head than five.  This aptitude so pleased Ah-tang (who had expected at the most a farewell apophthegm) that he at once made Tian captain of a chosen band.