130 STRANGE STORIES FROM
that he had seen, asserting positively that Ch'eng was not dead. His mother, however, looked upon the story as a make-up, and never ceased reviling him ; and, as he had no means of proving his innocence, and his neck was now quite healed, he got up from the bed and said to his father, " I am going away to seek for my brother throughout the universe ; if I do not find him, never expect to see me again, but I pray you regard me as dead." His father drew him aside and wept bitterly. However, he would not interfere with his son's design, and Na accordingly set off. Whenever he came to a large town or populous place he used to ask for news of Ch'eng ; and by-and-by, when his money was all spent, he begged his way on foot. A year had passed away before he reached Nanking, and his clothes were all in tatters — as rStgged as a quail's tail,* when suddenly he met some ten or a dozen horsemen, and drew away to the roadside. Among them was a gentleman of about forty, who appeared to be a mandarin, with numerous lusty attendants and fiery steeds accompanying him before and behind. One young man on a small palfrey, whom Na took to be the mandarin's son, and at whom, of coarse, he did not venture to stare, eyed him closely for some time, and at length stopped his steed, and, jumping off, cried out, " Are you not my brother ? " Na then, raised his head, and found that Ch'eng stood before him. Grasping each other's hands, the brothers burst into tears, and at length Ch'eng said, " My brother, how is it you have strayed so far as this ? " Na told him the circumstances, at which he was much affected ; and Ch'eng's companions, jumping off their horses to see what was the matter, went off and informed the mandarin. The latter ordered one of them to give up his horse to Na, and thus they rode together back to the mandarin's house. Ch'eng then told his brother how the tiger had carried him away, and how he had been thrown down in the road, where he had passed a whole night ; also how the mandarin, Mr. Chang,' on his return from the capital, had seen him there, and observing that he was no common-looking youth, had set to work and brought him round again. Also
- The usual similitude for a Chinese tatterdemalion.
^ The surnames Chang, Wang, and Li correspond in China to our Brown, Jones, and Robinson.
