“That,” replied Pe-lung affably, “it will be your engaging task to unravel, and to this end will be your opportunity of closely watching Fuh-sang’s unsuspecting movements in my absence through the night.”

“Yet how should I, to whom the way of either maiden is as yet no more than the title-page of a many-volumed book, succeed where the father native to one has failed?”

“Because in your case the incentive will be deeper.  Destined, as you doubtless are, to espouse Melodious Vision, the Forces connected with marriage and its Rites will certainly endeavour to inspire you.  This person admittedly has no desire to nurture one who should prove to be of merely human seed, but your objection to propagating a race of dragonets turns on a keener edge.  Added to all, a not unnatural disinclination to be dropped from so great a height as this into so deep and rocky a valley as that will conceivably lend wings to your usually nimble-footed mind.”

While speaking to Chang Tao in this encouraging strain, Pe-lung was also conversing suitably with Fuh-sang, who had by this time joined them, warning her of his absence until the dawn, and the like.  When he had completed his instruction he stroked her face affectionately, greeting Chang Tao with a short but appropriate farewell, and changing his form projected himself downwards into the darkness of the valley below.  Recognizing that the situation into which he had been drawn possessed no other outlet, Chang Tao followed Fuh-sang on her backward path, and with her passed unsuspected into the dragon’s cave.

Early as was Pe-lung’s return on the ensuing morning, Chang Tao stood on a rocky eminence to greet him, and the outline of his face, though not altogether free of doubt, was by no means hopeless.  Pe-lung still retained the impressive form of a gigantic dragon as he cleft the Middle Air, shining and iridescent, each beat of his majestic wings being as a roll of thunder and the skittering of sand and water from his crepitant scales leaving blights and rain-storms in his wake.  When he saw Chang Tao he drove an earthward angle and alighting near at hand considerately changed into the semblance of an affluent merchant as he approached.

“Greeting,” he remarked cheerfully.  “Did you find your early rice?”

“It has sufficed,” replied Chang Tao.  “How is your own incomparable stomach?”

Pe-lung pointed to the empty bed of the deflected river and moved his head from side to side as one who draws an analogy to his own condition.  “But of your more pressing enterprise,” he continued, with sympathetic concern:  “have you persevered to a fruitful end, or will it be necessary—?” And with tactful feeling he indicated the gesture of propelling an antagonist over the side of a precipice rather than allude to the disagreeable contingency in spoken words.

“When the oil is exhausted the lamp goes out,” admitted Chang Tao, “but my time is not yet come.  During the visionary watches of the night my poising mind was sustained by Forces as you so presciently foretold, and my groping hand was led to an inspired solution of the truth.”