  Nicholas was led into the hall between two inferior mandarins, and had no sooner prostrated himself at the foot of the throne, than the Prince Li-Kong said, "Surely the eyes of the Emperor of the earth are too holy to be darkened by such mean dogs as this. Let the common executioner deal with him, for there can be no doubt of his guilt." "Stop not the fountain of justice at its very source, O my sovereign, for when was it that a good king refused to listen to the meanest of his slaves?" said Woo; but before the Emperor could reply, one of the great officers of the palace ran up to the steps of the throne, performed the prostrations, and being commanded to speak, "The great and beautiful princess, thy daughter, begs an audience of her illustrious father," said the officer. The Emperor having signified his assent, the princess, accompanied by the Lady Candida, and both veiled, knelt before the Emperor, who, lifting her from her kneeling position, said affectionately, "Truly my daughter must have matter of weighty import upon her lips, thus to break through the delicacy of her sex and rank." "Pardon, great prince, if thy daughter has forgotten what is due either to her parent or her sex, but it is a common saying, 'that those who forget favors conferred upon them are unfit to live,' and therefore thy daughter would protect the life of one who saved her from a cruel death," said the princess. "Has the safety of the pearl of my life been endangered?" said the Emperor, trembling at the possibility of such a catastrophe, and placing his hands upon her head; adding, "What words are these, my daughter, for is not the empire crowded with those who would deem happiness if it were to save their princess from danger." "Not one of whom could have saved her from the savage sin-fin, who, having escaped from his cage, had seized her, when yonder bold youth slew the beast." The Lady Candida then described the whole scene in the gardens to the Emperor, who forgetful of the desecration of the place by the profane feet of Nicholas, nay, of every thing but the escape of his beloved child from a fearful death, commanded the release of Nicholas; but again the general Li-Kong stepped forward. "It is true," said he, "that the beautiful and illustrious princess has been saved from great peril, and the whole empire will rejoice; yet it is a maxim, 'that the laws should be enforced even upon the imperial kindred.' Moreover, my sovereign, in his generosity, forgets that the cage of the beast could not have opened itself, and that the slave merits death for being in the garden." "Though not generous, the words of the rebel-exterminating general are just," replied the weak prince; adding, to Nicholas, sternly, "What says the boy; what traitorous errand brought him within the sacred gardens of our palace?" "The life of the slave belongs to the master. The personal safety of thy servant, O great prince, was nothing when he desired to place in thy hands a letter of the greatest moment, from one far greater than the lords around thy throne." "These are wild words, O youth; for know you not that it was the duty of our chief colao to receive thy letter?" said the Emperor, interrupting. "Mean as is thy servant, O prince, he knew that treason was within the palace, and that the letter would never reach thy royal hands; therefore, that it should not fail to do so, I sought the imperial gardens with the daring hope of meeting thy royal daughter, knowing that if my life were sacrificed, my mission would be fulfilled," said Nicholas; adding, "Such has been the crime, and the criminal awaits his punishment." "This letter," said the Emperor. "Is here, great prince," and Nicholas presented the document to Wey-t-song, who tore open the seals, and for some minutes became lost in the perusal of its contents, after which, to the surprise of the court, he placed it beneath his vest, saying, "This letter must be for the consideration of our inner council. Youth, thy honesty and loyalty are beyond doubt, and we permit thee to name thy own reward." "Thy slave, O prince, would ask one so great, that the greatest of thy tributaries would seek it upon his knees," was the reply, to the astonishment of the lords, who expected it would be nothing less than the hand of the princess. "No less, indeed, than a private audience," added Nicholas, which, with a smile at this novel and modest request, the Emperor granted. "May this not be a trap, O my prince, to beguile thy person within reach of the assassin's dagger?" said the artful but baffled Li-Kong. "The dagger to be feared by thy sovereign, base prince, is beneath thine own vest," said Nicholas. "Dares the dog so far?" said the exasperated Li-Kong. "Forget not thy dignity, O noble Li," said Woo-san-Kwei, touching that prince upon the shoulder, and adding, "Yet it is but just that such an assertion, made in the very presence of the Emperor, should be verified." The Emperor came to the rescue, saying, "Open thy lips, youth, for, well as we think of thy honesty, thou hast uttered words against the noblest of our yellow girdles, which as they are true or false merit reward or punishment." Thus challenged Nicholas fell upon his knees, and related his adventure at the palace of retirement, declaring that the two men were plotting the dethronement of the Emperor, and that the chief of the two was the Prince Li-Kong himself. At this bold and circumstantial accusation, the young Prince Yong-Li and the great lords on the steps of the throne, placed their hands upon their swords, and alternately glancing at Li-Kong and Nicholas, awaited the command of the Emperor to seize either accuser or accused. For an instant the lips of Li-Kong quivered with fear or rage, but, recovering his equanimity, he gave a signal with his hand, when a large body of military mandarins came around him, and fell upon their knees before the Emperor, when Li said, "Are the services of thy servant so soon forgotten, have the rebels been no sooner chastised, and peace restored within the empire, that the exterminator and his officers should be as mice before the words of this less than a dog? O my sovereign! let these officers be questioned, and they will prove that on the night of which the dog speaks, their general was engaged in discovering a new conspiracy among the Fan-Kwi priests." "What words are these, O prince?" said the Emperor, whose alarm had been artfully turned in another direction. "Have we not honored these priests, even to making their chief the president of our high board of mathematics?" "Yet such is the ingratitude of the barbarians, O my Emperor, that, in league with the outer barbarians, they seek to overthrow the empire." "Let my guards instantly secure every villain priest within the walls of the city," said the terrified Emperor. "Thy slaves have been diligent, and thy command anticipated, O Emperor; the miserable chief of the mathematics and his brethren have been carried before the three tribunals, their guilt proved, and most mercifully adjudged to be strangled; the sentence but awaits the vermilion pencil of the Emperor," said Li-Kong. "The judges have failed in the duties of their office by so mild a sentence, for which let them all be degraded three degrees of rank, and the priests be cut into ten thousand pieces," said the Emperor. "If the crime be proved, the sentence is light; if not, terrible must be thy remorse, O my sovereign, for the learned father's services have been great. Surely, then, thy wisdom alone should seek to discover the guilt or innocence of this enormous culprit, or much-injured priest," said Woo. "The words of the venerable Woo, O my royal father, are worthy of his years and the imperial dignity; let not thy indignation rather than thy justice adjudge this priest, but command that he be brought before thee," said the young prince, earnestly. "Thy words are but reasonable, my son; we will examine the Christian dog ourselves," said the Emperor. When, at a signal, the aged missionary, Adam Schaal, was brought before the throne, so laden with iron chains that his form was bent to the shape of a bow; still, with his long white hair and beard, and the unflinching, piercing blue eye of his German race, he looked, as he was, a willing martyr for the cause of his Saviour. At the sight of his old favorite thus humiliated, even the Emperor melted with pity and doubt as to his guilt. "Can it be under heaven," said he, "that so holy a body should contain so vile a heart? Have we not protected and fostered thee and thy companions in the heart of our empire, giving thee permission to build thy temples and even to convert the people to thy religion; nay, moreover, raised thee to the first rank among the learned? Canst thou answer, thou villainous old man?" "It is even these favors, O mighty Emperor, that have raised the envy of the enemies of Christ, who, jealous of the success of thy servant's cause, seek to destroy him, that they may triumph over his religion; and if their malice should prevail, the Christian priest will die blessing the great Emperor who enabled him to do so much good." "What says the accuser to these words?" said the Emperor, sternly, more than half believing in the father's innocence. "Stand forth, O Hung," said Li-Kong; when a mandarin of the second degree fell before the throne and held above his head some medals, a book, and a chaplet of beads, saying, "Are not these proofs of the old rogue's guilt?" "They are, O my sovereign, the mysterious symbols and secret marks used by the initiated in the great conspiracy, which is now insidiously spreading throughout the empire, and known to each other." "How! what dog's words are these, thou ignorant slave? Dost thou not know that these are the symbols of the Lord of heaven's religion?" replied the Emperor, who, at the beginning of his reign, having befriended the missionaries, and made himself master of the mysteries and symbols of their religion, was far beyond most of his nobles in intelligence. "It is so alleged, O dread sovereign, by the villains, for their own vile ends, and should it be even so, the Son of Heaven can not doubt this proof of guilt," replied the mandarin, placing a letter in the Emperor's hands. For some time there was a dread silence; when, however, the Emperor had perused the document, his eye sparkled with rage, and he exclaimed, "Truly the proof is overwhelming, and it is to the viceroy of Quang-Tung the Emperor owes the discovery of this villainy. Bring hither the petition of the criminal tribunal for the villain's execution. Moreover, let it go forth through the earth that every Christian dog be exterminated;" and the court having prostrated themselves three times in token of obedience, one of the colaos presented the petition or sentence to the Emperor, which as he was about to confirm, by affixing the signature of the vermilion pencil, Nicholas threw himself at the foot of the throne, crying at the risk of his life, "O great Emperor, thy slave dares proclaim the extreme villainy of the great viceroy of Quang-Tung, whose jealousy and envy of the favors his royal master has bestowed upon the good father has caused him to seek his life." "Is the boy pirate mad that he dares so insolently presume upon his small services, as to interrupt the course of justice?" exclaimed the angry Emperor. Taking from his vest the letter his father had given him for Father Adam, Nicholas said, boldly, "This letter, O great sovereign, thy servant was commanded by his parent to place in the hands of the priest Adam. Should it contain treason, the Emperor can punish on the spot, for both the priest and the son of the writer are in his hands. Should it be otherwise, his royal generosity will know how to reward." No less surprised than appeased by the boy's vehemence, Wey-t-song commanded the censor Woo to proclaim aloud its contents, to which the nobles, as they were friends or enemies of the priests of Christ, listened with divided attention. The document was lengthy and tedious, and directed by Chin-Chi-Loong, the merchant of the south, to his illustrious teacher and religious parent, the Father Adam Schaal, warning him that the viceroy of Quang-Tung, in conjunction with the bonzes of the court, whom he had bribed at Pekin, had organized such a scheme that it could not fail to appear clear that the Christian priests in China were at the head of a conspiracy to dethrone the Emperor, at whose feet he advised the Father Adam immediately to prostrate himself and demand an investigation, promising speedily to send proofs of the viceroy's villainy to Pekin. "The wickedness of this viceroy must be great, O my sovereign," said Woo, when he had concluded. "Truly the great father of the empire will not believe the miserable charge of a wretched pirate against one of his highest officers," said Li-Kong savagely; but making an angry motion to the prince for silence, the Emperor said, "What says the priest?" "Truth, O great sovereign, is deeply emeshed in falsehood, that time alone can unravel; yet, had that letter reached thy servant's hands, his imperial master would have been saved an act of injustice; of, not receiving the great merchant's warning, the cruel viceroy succeeded, the storm of persecution burst over Hang-tcheou-fou, the churches of Christ were destroyed, and their priests loaded with chains whipped, tortured upon the rack, and otherwise degraded, it being only by the providence of the Almighty that thy servant was enabled to escape and reach Pekin in safety—where, alas! the persecution followed, and burst out with redoubled fury; thy servant, the head of his Church, being the first to feel and glory that he was the first to suffer for the cause of Christ." "Can these words be true, O Woo? Has such villainy taken place in the land?" said the Emperor. "Such things, O great prince, have been done in thy holy name by roguish ministers, who (may I be pardoned for my boldness) have taken advantage of the luxurious retirement of their Emperor to serve their own vile ends," replied Woo. "Then be it the care of the upright censor to see that these miserable mandarins, who have so traitorously brought their Emperor's name into contempt and hatred, be exterminated with their whole families," said Wey-t-song, who was as impulsive for good as for bad. "Surely my great father may be upon the brink of great injustice; he may be sacrificing the lives of many devoted servants. It would be but justice that accusers and accused should be confined till the matter is sifted, and the truth discovered," said the young prince. "The prince, our heir, has wisdom beyond his years; his words are good, and shall be followed," said the Emperor. At which there was an indecorous murmur of satisfaction, which was, however, instantly suppressed by the Emperor making the signal with his sleeves, that the audience was at an end. |
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