"I shall never get there before the hour of the Rat, and my wife will say again; 'Wang The-tenth has drunk too many cups of wine.' She does not know the weight of that stuff!"
As he was thus thinking, two men suddenly jumped from either side of the road and held him by the arms.
"What do you want?" cried the poor man. "I am only an unhappy carrier, and my load is only salt, very common salt."
"We don't want your salt, and you had better throw it down. We are sent from the Regions below and we want you to come down with us."
"Am I dead already?" asked The-tenth. "I did not know. I must tell my wife. Can't you come again to-morrow night?"
"Impossible to wait. You must come immediately. But I don't think you are dead. It is only to work for a few days down below."
"This is rather strange," replied The-tenth. "With all the people who have died since the world has been the world you still want living men? We don't go and ask you to do our work, do we?"
While thus arguing, he felt himself suffocated by a heavy smell and lost consciousness.
When he awoke, he was on the bank of a fairly large river. Hundreds of men were standing in the water; some of them carried baskets; others, with spades and different utensils, were dragging out what they could from the bottom. Soldiers with heavy sticks struck those who stopped even for a second.
On the bank several men were standing, and a number of others came from time to time. A magistrate was sitting behind a big red table, turning over the pages of a book. At last, he called "Wang The-tenth."
"Wang The-tenth!" repeated the soldiers. And they threw the poor man down in a kneeling position in front of the magistrate, who looked on the book and said:
"You have been an undutiful son; do you remember the day when you told your father he was a fool?"
The guards pushed the man, gave him a basket, and ordered him to help in the cleaning of the river.
The water was red and thick; its stench was abominable; the bodies of the workmen were all red, and The-tenth discovered it was blood. He looked at the first basket he took to the bank; it was only putrid flesh and broken bones.
Thus he worked day by day without stopping. When he was not going fast enough, the guards struck him with their sticks, and their sticks were bones. In the deep places he had to put his head into the water and felt the filthy stuff fill his nostrils and mouth.