CHAP. XI - A TAIPING CAMP

Summary

“There are not two suns in the sky, nor two sovereigns over the people.”

Mencius.

It is an undoubted fact that cries of “Wolf!” have to be louder and louder each time in order to produce anything like the effect of the first cry. Science will investigate the matter some day, to find in all probability that the initial energy of such a cry must be multiplied by the number of times of its utterance. The effect produced seems to be in inverse ratio to that number of times, modified, of course, by the interval between each cry. At present the subject remains in the region of theory, for neither our (great) grandparents with their “Boney is coming after you if you do not behave yourself,” nor the alarmists of the Nine Recluses district with their blood-curdling cry of “The Longhaired are coming,” ever quite succeeded in reproducing the initial alarm.

A month had passed, and beyond the emptying of an extra wine jar or two at the tea-shop, and certain social and moral etceteras not fully recognised by the country folk, nothing of vital importance had happened. They were getting used to the near presence of the rebels, which reminds us that we must also include an inverse ratio of distance in the calculations already proposed. In this case “near” meant some miles beyond the hill.