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34 The Linked Caves

This cooled Bajie's anger, and he dragged his rake on ahead to scout the way. Wukong helped his master into the saddle, Sandy shouldered the luggage, and the three of them followed Bajie into the mountains. Now the old demon, back in his cave after the rout, was wounded in spirit and heavy of heart, and sat in sullen silence. The Wolf Vanguard offered a plan. "My king, choose three lesser demons skilled in transformation, let them take your shape and fight the Tang Monk's disciples in three places at once. Once they are drawn off, you may reach down a cloud-catching hand from mid-air and seize the Tang Monk." The old demon was overjoyed, and cried again and again, "A wonderful plan!" He picked out three lesser demons, made them all take his shape, and laid them in ambush at three places to await the coming of the Tang Monk and his disciples. The master and his disciples were making their way along the mountain road when a figure of the old demon sprang from the roadside and struck at Bajie with a club. Bajie could not tell true from false; he raised his rake and gave chase, raining blows, while the false demon fought and fell back by turns. Even as they fought without pause on that side, another false demon leapt out of the grass on the far side and ran straight at the Tang Monk. Wukong saw it, sprang into the air and brought his rod down. The Tang Monk was watching in terror when yet another false demon sprang from behind the hill. Sandy cried in alarm, "Master, how have your brothers let a demon through to you? Sit you still, and old Sandy will take him!" While the three battles raged on that side, the real old demon hung hidden in mid-air; seeing the Tang Monk sitting alone upon his horse, he swiftly reached down five steel hooks and caught him up at one grasp. Taken utterly by surprise, the Tang Monk lost his horse and his stirrups, and was carried off by the old demon upon a gust of wind. The old demon brought his wind to earth, bore the Tang Monk into the cave, and set the lesser demons to fetch water and scour the pot and carry firewood and kindle the fire, meaning to steam him and wash him down with wine. The Wolf Vanguard urged him against it. "My king, you must not! If we eat the Tang Monk, that ape Sun will never let it rest. Better to shut him up for now; when the monkey troubles us no more, it will be time enough to eat." The old demon nodded again and again. Roped and bound to a tree behind the cave, the Tang Monk wondered when his disciples would ever come to rescue him, and was grieving to himself when he heard someone weeping bitterly. He looked, and saw a woodcutter hanging bound from a tree nearby. The woodcutter had been seized by the demons and had hung there three days. He thought of his aged mother at home with no one to care for her, and that was why he wept. Each man had his own sorrow, and the two of them wept face to face without ceasing. As for Wukong, he drove off the lesser demons at the foot of the grassy slope and came back to find only the white horse and the baggage, with his master gone. In great alarm he caught up the horse and the load and searched the whole mountain over. By then Bajie and Sandy had come back from their separate searches. The three brothers compared notes, told how things had gone, and knew at last that the demon's ruse had caught them. There was nothing for it but to go into the mountains and hunt.

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