But Rocky cared little, now, what they might be. Once again he had cleaned the black slate of his youth. His head was high again. He could speak to Hui Fei convincingly in the morning. His excellency, alone in his cabin, took from his hand-bag the book of precepts of Chuang Tzü; and seated on his pallet, by the small table on which burned a floating wick in its vessel of oil, read thoughtfully as follows: “Chuang Tzü one day saw an empty skull, bleached but intact, lying on the ground. Striking it with his riding whip, he cried, 'Wert thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country into ruin and perished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?--some beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the natural course of old age?' “When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and, placing it under his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night he dreamt that the skull appeared to him and said: 'You speak well, sir; but all you say has reference to the life of mortals and to mortal troubles. In death there are none of these.... In death there is no sovereign above, and no subject below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among men can not exceed that which we enjoy.' “Chuang Tzü, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to prevail upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and to the friends of your youth, would you be willing?' “At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said: 'How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?'” He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for a long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a small red book and a bottle of white pills. The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these he inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning “Everlasting happiness.” Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely in it one of the pills--these were morphine, of the familiar sort manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of the opium traffic--and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took another, and another, and another. Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. His head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging, everlasting Tao. CHAPTER XIII--HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS