On the day on which the crosses had been erected on the Cathedral of
the Holy Saviour Lihoa and his people had had a miserably small catch
of fish.
"My children," cried Lihoa, "what crime against the God of the Golden
Fish have you committed? So small a haul as this we have not had for a
year and a day. The New Year is at hand. How can we have our usual
celebration with only a sapeck or two in our pockets?"
"How shall we celebrate the New Year?" cried one. "How shall we
appease the God?" wailed others mournfully.
An old Chinaman, whose wrinkled face looked like parchment cried out:
"Why do you even ask the cause of our bad luck? Do you not know why it
has come upon us? Were not those white-faced women here again
yesterday whose God is the enemy of our God? Again they have carried
off bur babies to the great white house in Hongkong. Why do not the
people kill the superfluous children according to the old custom of the
land? Why let living children get into the hands of these foreign
women to be murdered and to have their eyes and hearts stewed up into
magic drinks? The God of the Golden Fish is angry with us.
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