THE BELL WITH A CHILD'S VOICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 72

THE BELL WITH A CHILD'S VOICE.

By H. Irving King.

In the great Chinese city of Canton there is a beautiful pagoda. Its roof is cevered with glazed tiles of red and blue and yellow, which shine in the sun. Below, in a dim temple, the Buddhist priests bum joss sticks before ugly idols. Outside of the temple, on a wooden crossbeam between two uprights, is a great bell ; and when an officer of the temple comes out, rustling in his dress of plumcoloured or white silk, and taps the great bell with a hammer, it gives out a sound which is heard all over Canton.

First, the bell calls out "Ko-Ngai, KoNgai," and then, after a little pause, "Hi,

l.i! Hi, Hi!" in a wailing undertone that sounds like the voice of a child.

All the millions who live in Canton and barrow in the dark and dirty streets of that crowded city bear the sound of the bell; and the children pause in their play or their work and say : "There is Ko-Ngai crying for her slipper." And this is the story the Chinese mothers tell their little moon-faced, slant-eyed, pigtailed children when, t-hey rock them in their arms at nightfall — the story of the great bell and the losrt: slipper."'

A great many years ago, when the Emperor Tsi Chi ruled over China and built the great wall, lie journeyed to Canton, where h-e was received in great state by ihe Viceroy and the people.

Thousands ot banners floated everywhere, and the sky was filled with gaily-coloured kite?. The soldiers, -with their gleaming spears and their bows and arrows, shook the walls of the city with their tread, and the Viceroy gave a great feast at the pplaoe, at which, there were 58 courses, beginning with sweatmeats and ending with the very best kind of bird's nest soup.

But what Tsi Chi desired most was to see the bell-maker, Wang Ho, who. dwelt just outside the city, and whose fame had gone abroad through all the land. So, after going to the temple and burning great quantities of coloured paper with writing on it to the spirits of his ancestors and setting up any quantity of joss sticfts before the ugly idols, he passed out of the porcelain-covered city gates into the rice fields and so to the azalea-covered hills, until he came to where Wang Ho was sitting under a flowering plum tree before his house. The house was close to the forge where he melted his metal and cast his famous bells — bells of the clearest and most beautiful tones which were ever heard, so that people hearing them ring would say that they heard the singing of birds in springtime, or the sound of the sea on sunny beaches, or the wailing of the wind through leafless branches, or the rustling of leaves and the sound of falling waters.

Wang Ho fell to the earth and knocked his head three times in the dust, making the kowtow, as all well-bred Chinese are supposed to do when they see the Emperor.

"Wang Ho,"' said the Emperor, "they tell me that you can make the most musical bells of any man- in my kingdom. I myself have heard some of your bells speak, and they say pleasant things to me. I have heard the waves and the winds, and the waterfalls and the singing of the birds. Now, I would have you make for me a great bell and hang it by the temple where to-day I burned joss sticks and paper writing to my ancestors. And I would have the sound of this bell different from that of all other bells which you have made. Let it sound, not of birds, nor winds, nor singing beaches, nor yet of waterfalls- that drop by moonlight in leafy glens. Sing me a new song with your bell, oh, Wang Ho, and great shall be your reward." At this Wang Ho was troubled, for he did not know just what sort of sound would please the Emperor's fancy ; and in China, "when one tries to catch the Emperor's fancy and fails, he goes out and makes an end of himself to save trouble.

Just then the music of a child's laugh came from behind "the plum tree and a little girl danced out into the sunshine, clapping her hands with joy. It was Wang Ho's little daughter, Ko-Xgai, who had been hiding there. She had been frightened by all the great people and the soldiers, but now she was so glad to hear that her father was to get this great order from the Emperor himself — an order which was sure to make him rich — that she forgot her fright and cried out : "Thanks, good Emperor, we will make the bell." And then, recollecting her manners, she ti'ied to kowtow, but the Emperor caught her up in his arms and asked her questions, arrt listened to her prattle for twenty minutes, so that the old soldiers and Mie old courtiers whispered together saying : "Surely our great Tsi Chsi is beginning to show his age. Ah, yes, his intellect is certainly failing." Finally the Emperor put ' the little girl down and said to Wang Ho : "I have found what I want, Wang Ho. Make me a bell that shall repeal the voice of a child ; even the voice of Ko-Ngai."

Then he went away, after leaving a handful of gold with the bell-maker, and journeyed far north to his capital of Peking. The first thing the bell-maker did was to go to the city and spend a part of the Emperor's gold in purchasing a pair of slippers for Ko-Ngai. They were the most beautiful little slippers he could get in.__£lanton, and were covered with pearls. Ko-Ngai was immensely pleased with them and did little else but admire them for two whole days. «■

D-ay by day Wang Ho laboured about his furnace, melting iron for the bell and throwing in pieces of gold and silver and the other ingredients of which he alone possessed the secret. In the earth he made a great matrix or moiud, into which he would let the molten metal run. when the proper time should come, and take the form of the bell as it cooled.

All the time Wang Ho was working at the mould and at the furnace, little KoNgai played about chatting and laughing. So in the shaping of the mould and the melting of the metals the father kept constantly in mind the sound of her voice, so that it should be reproduced by his art in the sound of the bell. But day by day he became more and more despondent, 'fearing that, with all his wonderful skill, he would be unable to reproduce the music of the child's voice.

At last the day came when the molten metal was to be released from the furnace and run down the trough prepared for it into the mould. In honour of the occasion Ko-Ngai had put on her pearl slippers, and stood laughing, to see the bright stream shooting off its myriad of

little scintillating stars as it poured H3 white-hot torrent from the furnace door to the matrix

But Wang Ho, as he heard the laugh, was filled with despair, and lifting up his voice, he cried : "Woe is me. My work is a failure. T can catch the sound of tha waves on shining beaches, of waterfalls in moonlit glens, of singing birds and

rushing winds, but never the sound of the voice of a child.''

Little Ko-Ngai heard, and was filled with grief. Then, suddenly, she said : 'Tear not, father ! The voice of a child shall be in the Emperor's bell !"

And at once she sprang into the glowing metal and was consumed in it.

As she sprang, Wang Ho reached forth his hand to stop her, but he only succeeded in catching hold of one of the pearl slippers, which came away in his hand.

And that is the reason why, when the great bell of Canton is struck, it calls out "Ko-Ngai, Ko-Ngai !" and then, after a little pause, in a wailing undertone like the voice of a child, "Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! Hi !"

And the people pause to say to one another, "There is Ko-Ngai crying for her slipper. Who will give Ko-Ngai back her slipper?"