"
Trembling beyond all power of restraint, Yang removed the mask which
had hitherto concealed his face.
"Father or race has this person none," he said, looking into Ping
Siang's features with an all-engaging hope, tempered in a measure by a
soul-benumbing dread; "nor memory or tradition of an earlier state
than when he herded goats and sought for jade in the southern
mountains."
"Nevertheless," exclaimed the Mandarin, whose countenance was
lightened with an interest and a benevolent emotion which had never
been seen there before, "beyond all possibility of doubting, you are
this person's lost and greatly-desired son, stolen away many years ago
by the treacherous conduct of an unworthy woman, yet now happily and
miraculously restored to cherish his declining years and perpetuate an
honourable name and race."
"Happily!" exclaimed Yang, with fervent indications of uncontrollable
bitterness. "Oh, my illustrious sire, at whose venerated feet this
unworthy person now prostrates himself with well-merited marks of
reverence and self-abasement, has the errand upon which an ignoble son
entered--the every memory of which now causes him the acutest agony of
the lost, but which nevertheless he is pledged to Tung Fel by the
Unutterable Oath to perform--has this unnatural and eternally cursed
thing escaped your versatile mind?"
"Tung Fel!" cried Ping Siang.
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