A little fiend held it up on a spear, and Silver-Horn pointed with his finger: "This one on the white horse is the Tang Monk; this hairy-faced one is Sun the Pilgrim...."

用槍挑著, yòng qiāng tiǎo zhe, "held up on a spear-point" — 挑 read tiǎo, to lift on something, not the tiāo of carrying a load; 著 is zhe. The identification parade begins, and Silver-Horn works down the picture with his finger.

Eight Rules, overhearing, muttered: "City God — leave me out of it, and there'll be a pig's head and the three sacrifices, and a purification-rite of twenty-four shares for you."

Eight Rules starts bargaining with heaven. 城隍, chéng huáng, is the City God — literally "wall and moat" — the divine magistrate of a walled town, with an office, a jurisdiction and a temple in every county of Ming China. 三牲 are the three sacrificial animals of a full offering; 清醮 is a Daoist purification rite, and twenty-four shares of one is a lavish commission. Note what he offers: a pig's head. It is the standard sacrifice, and he is a pig, and the novel does not draw attention to this at all.

So he mumbled on, doing nothing but make vows.

嘮叨, láo dāo, "to mumble on and on"; 許願, "to vow an offering" — the ordinary transaction of Chinese popular religion, where you promise the god a payment against delivery. He is doing it in a whisper, surrounded, with nothing to bargain with.

The fiend went on: "This dark, tall one is Sha Monk; this long-snouted, big-eared one is Zhu Eight Rules."

The description reaches him. 黑長 and 長嘴大耳, hēi cháng / cháng zuǐ dà ěr, "dark and tall" and "long-snouted, big-eared" — both take 長 as cháng, length, not the zhǎng of seniority. 那 is nà.

Hearing himself named, the blockhead took fright and tucked his snout away into his bosom to hide it.

揣在懷裡藏了, chuāi zài huái lǐ cáng le, "tucked into the robe and hid it" — 藏 read cáng, to conceal, not the zàng of the Tripitaka. 慌得 takes 得 as de. The same manoeuvre he used against the woodpecker, deployed now against thirty armed fiends.

The fiend called: "Monk, stick out your snout."

伸出嘴, shēn chū zuǐ, "stick the snout out." 那 is nà. The demand is not unreasonable.

Said Eight Rules: "It's a birth defect — I can't stick it out."

胎裡病, tāi lǐ bìng, "an illness from the womb" — a congenital defect. It is a real Ming expression, and it is a magnificent lie: he is claiming a medical condition that prevents snout-extension.

The fiend ordered a little fiend to hook it out.

使鉤子鉤出來, shǐ gōu zi gōu chū lái, "get a hook and hook it out." The fiend declines to accept the diagnosis.

The blockhead, in a fright, stuck his snout out and said: "What a petty fuss! Here it is, isn't it? Look if you want to look — what's the good of hooking?"

小家形, xiǎo jiā xíng, "small-household behaviour" — petty, cheap, the conduct of people with no breeding. Cornered and about to be hooked, he produces the snout and covers with bluster: look if you want to look, what is all this hooking about? 慌得 takes 得 as de.