Betwixt Two Seas :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poor Chung Ching Yü had been condemned to death,
But was allow'd to spend his latest breath
In conversation with his loving wife:
Now this was why he had to lose his life:

—When Chung Ching Yü became a Magistrate
He knew the risks attendant on his state,
Its penalties and forfeits, so, to-day,
Could not complain if Custom had her way.
—This was the law: If any one should die
By murder foul, it was his task to try
To find the miscreant who did the deed;
Nor this alone; he further must succeed

In making public, and in tracing out,
The way in which the murder came about,
And if he fail'd in this, then, woe betide
The hapless Magistrate! 'twas he who died!

Now, as it happen'd, in that very town,
A worthy citizen was stricken down
In all the pride of manhood. Not a sign
Of how the slayer compass'd his design!
No scratch, or puncture, strangulation-mark,
Or trace of poison, yet the man lay stark!
And no one seem'd to think that he might die
From natural causes, tho' I know not why.

So Chung Ching Yü was straight condemned to death,
Yet was allow'd to spend his latest breath
Amongst his family. Then said his wife:
“This man, for whom you have to lose your life—
When looking at his body, could you find
No marks of violence of any kind?”

“None!” sigh'd her husband sadly. “Did you look”
(Then said the lady, as she straightway took,
With tender hands, his plaited tail of hair
And held it upwards), “Did you look just there?”
(She pointed with her finger to the part
Just under where the pig-tail took its start.)
“No!” said her husband, wond'ring as he stood,
“Well,” said the lady, “then I think you should!”

Believing in his wife's superior wit
The corpse is sent for, and the lawyers sit
In solemn conclave round it. By-and-by,
The Magistrate, with eager straining eye,
Raises the braided tress, when, 'neath the tail,
The overjoy'd official finds—a nail! . . .

Now, all that follows is as clear as day!
—Who could thus kill him in this cruel way?
—Lift up his pig-tail, and, unhindered, drive
A nail into a waking man, alive,

Upright, and ready to defend his life? . . .
'Twas done whilst he was sleeping, by—his wife! . . .
And so it proved! . . . Now praise and honours wait,
Or, rather, pour, upon the Magistrate
Who thus, tho' late, has proved himself to be
Endow'd with wisdom of such high degree.
Exalted, courted, now behold him stand
Amongst the noblest persons in the land;
Joy follows mourning, stormy skies turn blue,
Nor does he fail to do as he should do,
But show'rs rich presents on his loving wife,
Who, by her cleverness, has saved his life.

But never, here below, was perfect bliss!
(How often have the sages told us this!)
Day follows day, and in a month's short span
He seems, once more, a sorrow-burden'd man.
—He muses thus: “How did she come to know
A wife would ever use her husband so?” . . .

Raised, praised, and flatter'd, e'en beyond his bent,
He thus endures a growing discontent;
One thought pursues him, like a gnawing ache,
And never leaves him, sleeping or awake.

—He soon grows moody—wanders off alone;
Eats next to nothing, shrinks to skin and bone;
Or, when it pleases him to stay at home,
Sits buried all day long in learnèd tome.
—He studies “Precedents,” “Effect and Cause”;
Reads thro' old compilations of the laws;
Pamphlets upon statistics, with all crimes
Reduced to average, from earliest times;
—Watches his wife attentively, and so
Comes to discover what he did not know
(Her wit and beauty having turn'd his head),
That she had been a widow when she wed
(A fact she had conceal'd). But why rehearse
The tale of his decline from bad to worse? . . .
—Officious neighbours stimulate his zeal;
Suspicion treads on mere Conjecture's heel;—

Fancy grows into Fact, and stands betray'd
In more than usual ugliness array'd;
Until, one day, in magisterial tones,
He orders up the former husband's bones,—
These they procure him, delved from underground,
In solemn state the men of law sit round
To view the skeleton, then, by-and-by,
The Magistrate, with eager-straining eye,
Raises the tress, when, wedged beneath the tail,
The horrified official finds—a nail!

I am indebted to Mr. G. N. E. Eliot, sometime a distinguished member of the British Embassy, Constantinople, for the foregoing story. It formed the plot of a domestic drama at which he had assisted when travelling near the Russo-Chinese Frontier.