The truth was that the Rev. Jones in this season of famine found that the poor starving mothers were willing to sell him their children to save them from starvation. The missionary bought them, intending to bring them up in the Christian faith. Unfortunately most of the children when bought were moribund, and the Rev. Jones soon found that he was continually employed as grave-digger for the purpose of disposing of the pitiful corpses of his tiny converts. Owing to the famine, Hing Fai’s business went from bad to worse, his pecuniary losses were considerable, and he took to brooding over his misfortunes, so that the evil words of Wang soon took such a hold of his mind that he began to imagine that the Christians had bewitched him by the erection of their spire. Soon his hatred grew and grew, he took stimulants to assuage his troubles and promote sleep, but soon the idea that the missionaries had exerted an evil influence on the whole of his life became paramount in his mind. Suspicion now grew in the minds of all the neighbours of the mission. The Rev. Jones’ compound had become full of graves; he continued to purchase infants, and had found it necessary to bury the baby corpses outside his grounds. The accursed Wang took on himself one night to dig up one of the newly-buried babes. The eyeballs had fallen in in the ordinary course of decomposition, and this the beggar showed to all and pointed out as proof against the foreign devils. It was obvious to all that the missionary and his wife had bad eyes, as they wore spectacles, and here was an explanation of their purchase of babies, to take their healthy eyes to make medicine to cure their own diseased vision. The feeling became acute in the district,—such inhuman monsters must perish. The poor people, being already rendered desperate by hunger, were ready for any excess. Moreover, Wang, in an impassioned speech, said that their misfortunes, the famine even, were all produced by the workings of the foreign devils and the evil influence of their tower. The people were frenzied, mad, and made clamorous for blood by this speech. “We will go to the honourable Hing Fai,” said Wang, “and get him to lead us against our common enemy.”