empires and no emperors; and when only the humble till, the blameless sow, the pure reap; and when only the teachers teach in the shadow of the Tree, and when the Thinker sits unstirring under the high stars, then, from the dark edges of the world I let go my grasp and drop into those immeasurable deeps from which I came—I, Erlik, Ruler of All that Was.’”

After a silence the Reverend Mr. Carew asked whether the figure was a very old one.

“It is before the period called ‘Han’—a dynasty during which the Mongols were a mighty people. This inscription is Mongol. Erlik was the Yellow Devil of the Mongols.”

“Not a heathen god, then?”

“No, a heathen devil. Their Prince of Darkness.”

Ruhannah, pencil in hand, looked curiously at this heathen Prince of Darkness, arrived out of the dark ages to sit to her for his scowling portrait.

“I wonder what he thinks of America,” she said, partly to herself.

The native missionary smiled, picked up the Yellow Devil, shook the figure, listening.

“There is something inside,” he said; “perhaps jewels. If you drilled a hole in him you could find out.”

The Reverend Mr. Carew nodded absently: 37

37

“Yes; it might be worth while,” he said.

“If there is a jewel,” repeated the missionary, “you had better take it, then cast away the figure. Erlik brings disaster to the land where his image is set up.”

The Reverend Mr. Carew smiled at his Chinese and Christian confrère’s ineradicable vein of superstition.

38

CHAPTER IV

THE TRODDEN WAY

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