The
joss had been sitting in solemn state in his sanctum sanctorum for a
week, while the priests appeased him hourly with plenteous libations
of rice brandy, sacrifices of snow-white pigeons, and offerings of
varnished pork. Clouds of incense had regaled his expansive mahogany
nostrils, while his ears of ivory inlaid with gold and bronze had
been stimulated with the ceaseless clashing of gongs and wailings of
Chinese fiddles. Such homage and such worship would have touched a
heart of stone, and that of the joss was penetrable sandalwood; so as
the days of preparation wore away the smile on the teakwood lips of
the idol certainly became more propitious. This was greatly to the
satisfaction of the augurs and the high priest; for a mighty joss is
not always in a sunny humour on feast-days, and to parade a sulky god
through the streets is a very depressing ceremony, foretelling to the
initiated a season of dire misfortune. So his godship smiled and
shook his plume of peacock feathers benignantly on Yeong Wo's
birthday, and therefore the pageant in which Atlantic and Pacific
bore a part was more gorgeous than anything that ever took place out
of the Flowery Kingdom itself.
Fortune smiled upon the naughty creatures at the very outset, for
Pacific picked up a stick of candy in the street, and gave half of it
to a pretty Chinese maiden whose name in English would have been
Spring Blossom, and who looked, in any language, like a tropical
flower, in her gown of blue-and-gold-embroidered satin and the sheaf
of tiny fans in her glossy black hair.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107