“I was then taken back to my prison, and, as before, continued to be well fed. The same day the news came to me that the tao-tai had ordered a theatre of extreme magnificence to be built of bamboo and matting, all the previous actors were commanded to perform, an order was issued that every able-bodied man, woman, and child was to attend the performance, which would take place on the seventh of the seventh moon, and, finally, that their magistrate, the tao-tai himself, would perform the part in which I had previously scored such a success. A further order was issued the same evening that bare feet or soft shoes were _de rigueur_ for all who attended the performance. I failed to see how these matters could interest me, and even when my gaolers told me that the tao-tai was word perfect in his part, and had introduced lots of new ‘business,’ I failed to show more than a polite interest. “As soon, however, as the day of the performance dawned, I saw that the affair was one of the deepest importance to me. At daybreak my gaolers led me out to the hard sandy plain on which the theatre stood. The building itself was of enormous proportions, with two fine dragons fighting for a bright red sun on the roof. The matting forming the front was brightly painted, representing famous heroes of the past; all round were booths with hot rice, soups, pea-nuts, samshu, jellies, and sweetmeats for sale. “The unusual feature of this theatre was that it had but one entrance, which was approached by such a narrow passage that it allowed of only one person passing at a time. It was not long before I discovered the reason for this. My guards took me to the middle of this narrow passage, where there were four stakes driven into the earth, and then, making me lie on my back, they lashed my ankles and wrists flat on the ground. The play was to commence at seven in the morning and continue until nine at night, and soon after I had been securely bound in position the would-be spectators began to arrive. Their surprise was great on finding that there was no means of entering the theatre except by walking on me, but they all made suitable apologies, and I, in my turn, begged them not to mention it, so that the first few hundred passed over me fairly comfortably; but as the time for the performance drew near they came more thickly, apologies were dispensed with, and I thought that I should be surely killed. The majority of them, it is true, tried to tread on my chest, but some were old and blind, and these trod on my face or anywhere, and the suffocating dust nearly stifled me. I was afraid to breathe, as if I relaxed my chest I feared that my ribs would be crushed in, and during the last four minutes before the play began some twelve hundred people rushed over my body. So exhausted was I that I feared I should die, but soon the guards came and revived me with tea and rice. After that for some hours I was entirely alone, and by the continued