Then the yogi raised a shout of wild delight, and all the company re-echoed it with intense satisfaction and pleasure. And, in accordance with the king's instructions,being fully acquitted of any complicity with the devil in the abduction of the princess, the prisoners received each a sum of money, and were set at liberty.
The planks, which in any other court would have been one of the most tangible evidences that some person had thereby scaled the palace walls, were never even thought of during this singular trial. So irrational and so superstitious is the native character, that they preferred to believe in the supernatural rather than in any rational cause for the disappearance of the princess; and for once in my life I was led to rejoice in their ignorance.
It was sunset before this inconceivably grotesque and self-deluded and deluding set of maniacs dispersed. The yogi went back to the solitude of his unknown cave to sleep by day and pray alone by night. And I sent my syce home, and remained behind under a jamoon-tree, to which my pony was tied, in the hope of getting an opportunity of speaking alone with the women who still lingered with May-Peâh in the hall.
When May-Peâh at length saw me, she rushed into my arms, and laid her head upon my shoulder, uttering the most doleful and piteous of cries; they were not cries of sorrow, but of the wildest joy! I embraced her with something of the tenderness and sorrow with which a mother takes a brave but reckless child to her heart.
May-Peâh's friends then told me, what I had all along surmised, that it was she who scaled the walls by means of the two planks, terrified the Amazons, opened the prison doors with the keys she had provided, and led her mistress forcibly out. After assisting her to climb the walls on the inner side, she sat on the top of the outer wall until she saw her safely on the other side. She then dropped the keys to her, to be flung into the river. Here the prince and his two friends received the princess, and led her to a small craft that was ready to convey them toMaulmain. In vain they entreated May-Peâh to come down from the wall and join their flight. She resolutely refused to leave the companions of her beloved mistress in peril, and, full of dread lest, by the dreadful torture which she knew awaited her, she might be forced to betray those who were dearer to her than her own life, she with one stroke of her sharp dagger deprived herself forever of the power of uttering a single intelligible sound.
"O, but why did you not all go off with the princess?" I inquired.
"Because we were too many, and we should have only delayed and perhaps imperilled the success of the enterprise," said the women; "and May-Peâh had promised not to leave us to bear the penalty of her doings."
It was difficult to tear myself away from her. I was at once proud to be loved by her, and heart-broken to think that she would never speak again.
But at length we parted, and she, raising her hands high above her head, waved them to and fro, and smiled a joyful adieu, in spite of the pain she still suffered from her cruel mutilation.
They took the way to the river to hire a boat for Pak Laut, whence they were to sail to Maulmain to join the fugitive prince and princess.
Assuredly, so long as men and women shall hold dear human courage and devotion in what they believe to be a just cause, so long will the memory of this brave and self-sacrificing slave-girl be cherished.
FOOTNOTES:[35]The Hindoos besmear these sculptures with oil on festive occasions.[36]A large short-horned antelope found in Northern India. The males are of a beautiful slaty blue, and the females of a rusty red.[37]A prayer from the "Hindoo Liturgy," embodying some of the remarkable formulas of the Brahminical worship.[38]A Hindoo mystic.[39]Similar boats were used by the ancient Egyptians.
FOOTNOTES:
[35]The Hindoos besmear these sculptures with oil on festive occasions.
[35]The Hindoos besmear these sculptures with oil on festive occasions.
[36]A large short-horned antelope found in Northern India. The males are of a beautiful slaty blue, and the females of a rusty red.
[36]A large short-horned antelope found in Northern India. The males are of a beautiful slaty blue, and the females of a rusty red.
[37]A prayer from the "Hindoo Liturgy," embodying some of the remarkable formulas of the Brahminical worship.
[37]A prayer from the "Hindoo Liturgy," embodying some of the remarkable formulas of the Brahminical worship.
[38]A Hindoo mystic.
[38]A Hindoo mystic.
[39]Similar boats were used by the ancient Egyptians.
[39]Similar boats were used by the ancient Egyptians.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CHRISTIAN VILLAGE OF TÂMSÈNG, OR OF THOMAS THE SAINT.
It was on a bright Sunday morning in the month of May that a handsome boat with four young women at the oars conveyed me and my boy to the residence of Mrs. Rosa Hunter, situated in the village of Tâmsèng.
My friend Mrs. Hunter was a native of Siam, but of Portuguese parentage. Her husband, Robert Hunter, was private secretary to the supreme king. She had two sons, who had been taken away from her in their infancy by their Protestant father,—lest they should be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith,—and shipped off secretly to Scotland, in order that they might be educated under the influences of the Free Church of Scotland, in which he had himself been brought up. This occasioned a breach between the husband and wife which led to their ultimate separation, and Rosa returned all but heart-broken to the home of her childhood, where I visited her at short intervals to write the long, loving letters which she dictated to me in Siamese, and which I wrote in English to her absent boys.
A day at her house was always a pleasant change. On one of these visits, which I remember well, the table had been spread by the window that looked up the river, and lost it amid high banks and the projecting spires of the Roman Catholic and the Buddhist temples adjoining.
I had finished and sealed her loving messages to her absent children; the moon was rising, and we needed no other light, as the conversation between us, often shiftingand often pausing, had gradually become grave, and we fell into confiding talk of what we hoped and what we feared, as we saw the future of our children stretched before us in deep shadows.
"There is so much power in faith," said Rosa, "even in relation to earthly things, that I am surprised you are not a Roman Catholic. I believe in my church; when I go to confession and receive the holy communion, I am filled with peace and trust, and have no fears for the future."
"There is a great deal in what you say, Rosa," I replied; "but I am afraid that I should not make a good Catholic, since I am disposed to question everything that does not accord with my own perceptions of the right and the true."
"Well, I suppose," said Rosa, "that our natures differ; all my life has its roots in the Roman Catholic Church. I never doubt, therefore I never question. The Holy Virgin and her Son are sufficient for me, and the good priest who absolves me from my sins. My only one sorrow is that my children are cast out of the pale of salvation by the foolish prejudices of their father."
This was said in a voice of much feeling, and tears gathered to her eyes. I moved to her side, and tried to comfort her by saying, "After all, Rosa, you seem to let your fears for your children cloud your faith in that Saviour who died for them as well as for you."
While I was speaking, my eyes fell upon a long, narrow canoe, called by the natives Rua Keng, in which was seated a tall, slender, and shapely young girl, who was slowly, with the aid of two short paddles, making her way towards us through the water, while her face was raised to the moonlight that fell brightly upon her. It was nearly high tide; a fleet of canoes, boats, and barges was moving in all directions over the broad waters.
We watched the girl as her paddles rose and fell softly and slowly, silver-tipped by the moonlight, now dippinginto the water, now rising above it, like the white wings of some lazy bird. Nearer and nearer came the long boat, and clearer shone the fair face that was still uplifted, and reflected back the moonlight, till it almost looked as if divinely inspired. It is impossible to do any kind of justice to this beautiful moonlight picture. Gently the boat shot under our window, and was lost to our sight.
I bade my friend adieu, and hastened to the pier, where I met the girl again. She had fastened her canoe to one of the posts that supported the quay, and was crossing the street: in one hand she held a bunch of lilies, and in the other a lotus-shaped vase full of flowers.
Yielding to the impulse of the moment, instead of stepping into my boat I took my boy's hand and followed her graceful figure.
It was not yet seven o'clock. A number of people were in the squalid, dirty streets of Tâmsèng. The twinkling evening lights were stealing out one by one, and the girl drew over her face a veil or covering which was attached to her hair by a large and beautiful pin. A dozen or more steps, and we stood in the porch of the Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to "Tomas the Saint."
Lights were burning on the altar, over which were two figures of the Christ: one suspended above it with a crown of thorns, bleeding, and nailed to the cross; the other, of magnificent stature, was enveloped in a costume as gorgeous as the coronation robes of an emperor, the vestment being a sort of Indian brocade of woven gold arabesqued with jewels and scented with spikenard; a diadem lavishly adorned with emeralds and diamonds pressed its forehead, in some measure confining the hair which streamed down in abundant tresses upon the shoulders, and mingled with a beard no darker than the glossy hue of the chestnut. On either side of the altar weretwo other figures, one of the Virgin Mother, in the same regal attire, and crowned as the queen of heaven; while the other was the patron saint, with a flowing beard and a benevolent face. Suspended over the altar was a grand Japanese lamp.
The priest, a dark, heavily built man, a native, but of Portuguese parentage, was standing before it, with his cap on his head and his back to the congregation.
The moment the girl beheld the glory of the altar and the lights that shot up and quivered and were reflected in a thousand beautiful tints upon the magnificent figure of the Christ, she dropped on her knees and held down her head in mute adoration. After a little while she rose, and, advancing a few steps nearer, placed her golden lotus-shaped vase of flowers on the bare floor, dropped on her knees again, and, holding the white lilies between her folded hands, seemed absorbed in her devotions.
In her attitude and bearing there was a depth of feeling which, harmonizing with her beautiful figure, arrested the eye of the observer, and cast every other object in the shade.
I withdrew reluctantly and returned to my boat, wondering who she could be. On my way home I gathered from the women at the oars that she was known by the name of Nang Rungeâh (Lady Rungeâh);[40]that her parents were Buddhists and Cambodians, proprietors of a large plantation east of Tâmsèng. Her father, Chow Suah P'hagunn, was a distinguished noble, and her mother a Cambodian lady of high birth, who claimed to be descended from the rulers of that ancient and almost unknown kingdom, and that her only brother was a Buddhist priest. But the Nang Rungeâh had become deeply impressed with the beauty of the Christian religion, and was at this moment the only candidate who had offered herself, for a number of years, for baptism into the Roman Catholic Church.
"Tomas Saint," the founder of the beautiful church around which had grown up this Christian village, was a Portuguese gentleman renowned for his piety and his wealth. He had obtained the title of "saint," even in his lifetime; but the good people, fearing to arouse the jealousy of the Apostle of Christ, after whom he was named, placed the title after, instead of before, his name, and out of it had grown the name of "Tâmsèng."
On the very next Saturday following, it being the first holiday that offered itself to me, I set out with my boy very early in the morning to explore the village of Tâmsèng.
We chose for our head-quarters one of the most beautiful Buddhist temples in the neighborhood, the grounds and monasteries bounded the Catholic village on the northeast side of the river.
This temple, called Adi Buddha Annando, i.e. The First Buddha, or The Infinite, was embowered in a grove of trees of luxuriant growth, affording a delicious shade. It must have been, in its best days, a magnificent building; for even now, though much of its beauty was obliterated, it was covered from its massive base to its tapering summits with sculptures, and frescoed within and without with marvellous effect, so that wherever you turned your eyes the impression of a more subtle and a finer spirituality dawned upon you, as it was meet it should, in a temple dedicated to One whom the pious Buddhists will never even name, so great is their reverence for the First or Supreme Intelligence.
After a simple breakfast of fruit and milk, we strolled about the village and its surroundings, making notes and sketches of all that could be seen.
It was surprising to me that it looked so well in the early sunshine. The places that had struck me as foul and repulsive in the dim twilight now wore a different aspect, as if bent on looking their brightest and best in acknowledgment of the prodigal sunlight.
But the farther we penetrated into the heart of the village the more we were disappointed, and my first impressions were more than realized. We soon came upon scenes of the most squalid misery and filth, poverty and destitution, amid heaps of refuse and puddles of mud that caused us to shrink aside with disgust.
It is natural to demand that beautiful ideas should be clothed with beautiful forms. It was therefore to me an outrage on the name of Christianity to find that while all around lay scenes of luxuriant beauty which brightened the eye and cheered the heart, the only Christian village in the vicinity of Bangkok, which should have been an embodiment of all that is pure and lovely, had been transformed by the greed and oppression of the local officers to a pestilential spot to fester and poison the pure air of heaven. Some few native Christian women were about milking their goats, others were seated on their doorsteps, unwashed and uncombed; they seemed even to have lost the virtue of personal cleanliness, which with the Indian covers a multitude of sins. Stray packs of pariah dogs and herds of swine were barking and grunting in the ill-kept streets, and all kinds of poultry were picking a scanty breakfast from the heaps of garbage. Every now and then we were compelled to cross a stagnant pool or a muddy gutter alive with insects.
I never saw anything like the mud; it was a black liquid, sticky, slimy, and yet hard, hurting like hail when it struck the flesh.
And now we reached the quaint little chapel of "Tomas Saint." Its glories were sadly obscured by wet and damp,and the painting and gilding on the outside looked cold and dull.
A colored priest, a descendant of the renowned Tomas, was officiating. It was some saint's day. An assemblage of men, women, and children was seated on the floor, some in groups and some on rude benches. The priest bends over his missal, and pours forth in execrable Latin the exquisite prayers of the Church of Rome; and all the congregation, in their silks, and in their rags and wretchedness, are hushed and silent, with bent heads and folded hands, while the sound of the prayers—which they do not understand, beyond that it is the voice of prayer—fills their unenlightened but reverent hearts with mysterious dread and worship.
On quitting the chapel, we were at once beset by a numerous horde of beggars. It was not food or money that they craved, but, strange to say, it was justice. They followed us all the way back to the temple, importuning me to redress their wrongs and find a remedy for their grievances. Some of the poor wretches were half-witted, and not a few were crazed. An elderly lady, evidently once of superior rank, came crawling up to me, and clasped my feet, making a painful noise in a language that I could not understand, and piteously gesticulating some incomprehensible request. The people of the place denied all knowledge of her. At last she insisted on my giving her a leaf out of my note-book full of writing, which she apparently considered as a charm, for she attached it to a cord round her neck, and seemed to be perfectly happy in its possession. God only knows what the poor thing wanted to tell me, but likely enough her story was one of some great wrong, of some cruel injustice. If the smallest details of what I heard that day might be credited, the wrongs of these people were of the most harrowing nature, and altogether without hope of remedy underthe twofold and inveterately vicious system of Siamese and Portugo-Siamese administration that prevailed there.
I was alarmed when I found that my visit was thought to be one secretly intended "to spy out the land," in the service of the king of Siam, and that I was expected to wipe away the tears from all eyes. In vain I protested to the contrary; no one would listen to me, but the crowds kept coming and going, and pleading and praying, and promising me fabulous sums of money if I would only see their wrongs redressed.
Many a heart-rending tale was told to me that day, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, as I rested beneath the porch of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, by women who had been plundered of all they once possessed, their children sold into slavery or tortured to death, their habitations despoiled, merely because they happened to have property, and presumed to live independently upon lands which their more powerful neighbors coveted.
The greater number of these depredators were Siamese of influence, who had enrolled themselves as Christians under the French or the Portuguese flags, and unless the sufferer could claim the protection of either the one or the other, it seemed a cruel mockery to refer them for redress to any existing local authority, so long as P'haya Visate, a high but unprincipled Roman Catholic dignitary, was the governor of this district; and the saddest part of it all was, that the sufferers themselves felt there was no use in applying for justice to him.
In talking with some Buddhist men and women who were land proprietors in the vicinity, they told me that they were afraid of their Christian brethren, and would not, if they could prevent it, permit them to lease farms on their estates.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because, if they once get hold of a house or a farm, they manage in time to turn us out."
"But how?"
"Well, they lease small bits of land, year after year, expend money on it, and then, when they have a sufficiently large plantation to settle upon, they refuse to pay rent, go to law, and bring false witnesses to prove they have purchased the land of the owners, while the local authorities either take the part of the wrong-doers or imprison both parties until they have squeezed all they can out of them. The Buddhist does not dare," said they, "to lay his hand upon the sacred tree[41]and swear falsely, because the god who lives in it sees all, and he dreads his vengeance. But the Christian may swear to as many lies as he pleases, for the priests of the P'hra Jesu will give him absolution for them. Where, then, is the harm to him?"
I observed among the crowd a highly respectable looking and handsomely dressed woman, who sat apart, taking no share in the conversation, but listening with apparent interest to all that was said. Her eyes were very dark and very fine, but filled with rather a sad expression.
Towards evening she rose to go away, but, as if on second thought, she turned to me and greeted me in a peculiarly sweet voice, that sounded like music to my ears after all the voices of the crowd, inviting us to go and take our evening meal at her house, to which she at once led the way.
A narrow, gravelled walk led to the house, situated in a lovely garden, and separated by a wilderness of wild plants and prickly-pears from the neighboring Christian village. A long veranda with stone steps led down to the gravelled path. Just in front stood an old banyan-tree,lusty and burly in the full strength of its gnarled trunk, and vigorous, long boughs and branches forming arched and leafy bowers all round it.
The pathway ran through a shrubbery luxuriant with oleanders, jessamine, roses, laurel, and the Indian myrtle. Beneath these small wild rabbits had formed a colony, and it was curious to see a leaf moved upwards mysteriously, a head and ears protrude themselves, or a tail and legs, and then disappear as suddenly. This road ran to a great distance behind the house, and led through nearly three miles of ground, laid out in sugar, rice, cocoanut, and tobacco plantations. A small stream trickled through these, stagnating here and there into deep, green pools.
In passing near one of these pools I noticed that my hostess turned away her face, and in answer to my questions, she told me that it was once a large tank, but was now called Tâlataie, the Pool of Death. On further inquiry, I learned that this name had been given it from a tragic circumstance which had happened in her family; that shortly after her eldest daughter's engagement to a young Siamese Christian, the betrothed pair went out for a ramble along the banks of the streamlet. Night descended, and the shadows deepened into midnight, but her daughter and her lover did not return. At length her fears were aroused, and the whole household set out with lanterns to search the grounds; but nowhere could they find a trace of the absent couple until morning dawned upon their fruitless search, when her daughter was found lying on her face in the dark pool, stripped of all the beautiful jewels in which she had arrayed herself on the previous evening; and her Christian lover was never seen or heard of again. "But her spirit still haunts the spot," said the sad mother to me, "and on moonlight nights I see her pale form floating in the pool and crying to us for help."
The lady then wiped away her tears with her black p'ha hom, or scarf, and led us into the house. Her husband, a much older and more melancholy-looking person, now appeared, and the slaves brought us a great many delicacies on silver trays.
While we partook of them, our hostess asked me a number of questions about my home, friends, children, and relatives. She then informed me that her family now consisted of one son and a daughter, and that the former was a Buddhist priest, serving in the very temple where she had met me.
"Where is your daughter now?" I inquired.
She pointed to a window which opened into an inner chamber. I looked in, and to my glad surprise saw seated on a low stool, holding an open book in which she seemed wholly absorbed, the same girl who had so attracted me on the Sunday evening previous.
Her face was very fine and seemingly full of spiritual beauty, and her figure surpassingly beautiful. While we stood gazing at her, some sudden and apparently painful emotion flitted rapidly across her face as she read in the book, like the shadow of a dark cloud over the quiet water.
The mother was silent, evidently making an effort to master the feelings which this sight occasioned in her breast, so as to speak calmly about it.
I sat down again, and inquired the name of the book in which her daughter was so absorbed.
"It is a book called Beeble," said the woman. "What kind of a book is it?"
I assured her that it was a very good book, the Book above all others ever printed; that her daughter did well to read it, and that it would help to develop her into a lovely and beautiful character.
I then left my kind hostess, satisfied and yet saddened by my trip to Tâmsèng.
FOOTNOTES:[40]Rungeâh, a sort of magenta-colored lotus, found in the pools and marshes of Siam.[41]Boh, or bogara-tree.
FOOTNOTES:
[40]Rungeâh, a sort of magenta-colored lotus, found in the pools and marshes of Siam.
[40]Rungeâh, a sort of magenta-colored lotus, found in the pools and marshes of Siam.
[41]Boh, or bogara-tree.
[41]Boh, or bogara-tree.
CHAPTER XXVII.
NANG RUNGEAH, THE CAMBODIAN PROSELYTE.
TÂMSÈNG presented a picture of the sea at the moment when the tide is on the turn: there is always a lull, and sometimes a profound calm, before the mighty currents shift and set in another direction. The eager child who is piling up castles of sand one upon another on its shores pauses in wonder and astonishment at the sight. That strong angel, the tide, that he had watched in breathless delight advancing resistlessly, ever onward, nearer and nearer, rushing on to kiss with its foaming mouth his wayward feet, then rolling back, and "laughing from its lips the audacious brine," is suddenly arrested. The dull, surging roar that filled his ear, as if it were the voice of some mysterious sea-god, is hushed; the great sea has become silent and still, and the strong angel has expired. His last faint effort, and his feeble dying moan, fall upon the child's attentive eye and listening ear like a death-knell, for he has been told that this "tide" keeps the salt sea fresh and its shores healthful. He sets up a shout of despair, and prays the strong angel to return and trouble again the still waters, to renew the life which has passed away, and prevent that in-setting of stagnation that must bring with it mortal disease to the earth.
Religions have their tides as well as the ocean, and all life has its grand cyclical currents, whether in the church, the state, the individual, or the nation. Thus this little village of Tâmsèng seemed long since to have arrived at the period of that reaction which marks the disappearance of the tide from the sea, and the influx of that sluggish insensibility which foretells the beginning of the stagnation, which, if not removed, must inevitably end in mortification and death.
But now, after the torpor of nearly half a century, and through the death-like stagnation of the decaying village, there is heard a voice of general rejoicing. The main features of the place undergo a slight change; a gentle flow of life stirs its corpse-like visage; a beautiful and wealthy Cambodian heiress, the Lady Nang Rungeah is a candidate for baptism in the Roman Catholic Church.
On the 25th of June, it being the morning of her first confessional, the bells are set in motion and ring all day till sunset, as is the custom for a new convert, resounding in the glens and hollows and amid the spires of the Buddhist and Roman Catholic temples.
The chamber into which I had looked at a young girl reading with her heart and eyes a copy of the New Testament—translated, not by a Roman Catholic, but by an American Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. Mr. Mattoon—is now the centre of a most animated scene. Khoon P'hagunn and his wife Jethamas are seated in the little room in earnest conversation. They are interrupted by their daughter Rungeah, who comes quietly in, throws her arms around her mother, kneels before her and lays her head in her lap. The mother folds her arms tenderly around her child, and caresses her lovingly, smoothing her soft hair.
"Ah! Rungeah, art thou dressed already? Thou dost not need much adornment." And the old man's eyes brightened with pride and love as they lighted on the pleasant beauty and the graceful proportions of his daughter.
Nang Rungeah, the bright lotus-flower, was indeed pleasant to look upon. Hers was the half Indian and half Cambodian beauty so rare in Siam,—the large, long,drooping eye, round, oval face, and clear complexion, with a touch of healthful ruddiness in her cheeks, purple-black hair, soft and rich, falling loosely in long curls over her shoulders. The charms of her face and feature, however, were as naught to the brightness and kindliness that played over them like a sunny gleam. Her figure was remarkable, tall and lithe, yet perfectly rounded, and swelling fairly beneath the graceful bodice and the full skirt that fell in soft folds to her sandalled feet. The pin by which her veil was fastened was set off with a number of brilliants; her arms were ornamented with gold bangles, and on her neck she wore a new chain, a gift from her sad and loving mother, a rosary of gold and black coral beads, to which was attached a massive gold figure of the Christ on the cross.
"Alas! my child," said the mother at length, "I pray P'hra Buddh the Chow that no harm will come to thee through this new religion."
"I wonder to hear you speak thus, dear mother," replied the young girl, lifting her eyes reproachfully to her mother's face. "O, I wish you could be brought to see how much more beautiful this religion of P'hra Jesu is than that of Buddha; and then think of the beautiful 'Marie,' his Holy Mother, who is ever at his side, ready to whisper words of tender love and pity in behalf of such poor sinners as we are. I feel as if I should never go astray, or do any evil thing, now that I have the good priest to pray for me, and the Holy Mother and her Son to be my gods."
"P'hra Buddha forbid that I should mistrust your gods, my child; but I do mistrust the priests and my own heart," said the anxious mother.
In spite of her love and her faith, Rungeah's cheek grew pale and her eyes filled with tears as she reached the chapel of Tâmsèng. With a palpitating heart sheknelt at the confessional-box, waiting for the priest to take his place within, and open the small window through which he heard the confessions of the congregation.
She hears a footstep on the other side. The priest enters, he shuts the door upon himself and takes his place; he then pulls a cord which opens the little window of the confessional-box, and shuts at the same time the door which she had left ajar as she came into the chamber.
The confessional window is open, and the priest coughs a slight cough; but Rungeah kneels there with her heart beating and her hands folded, gazing on that ideal and perfect manhood who has given up his life to save hers.
After a long interval of silence, the voice of the priest breaks upon her ear, like the boom of a cannon amid a garden of flowers.
"My daughter," said the voice, "confess your sins."
"My father," replies Rungeah, her love and joy breathing from her heart and struggling for utterance on her lips, "whenever I think of Him, His goodness and His love, of which I never tire reading, I am filled with gladness and praise; I am now never weary, never cast down, never afflicted, nor does my heart or my pulse ever fail me in loving and adoring Him."
"My daughter," interrupted the priest, suddenly, "this is not confession; you must tell me of your secret sins, the guilty thoughts, words, and acts you have cherished, spoken, or committed, when you were still a believer in the false and horrible doctrines of the Buddha."
A deep flush of pride, which the girl herself does not quite understand, overspreads her beautiful face, and her lips, still quivering, remain parted in surprise. Her secret sins and guilty thoughts! Why blame her for not remembering them?
She was as pure as the snow-flake upon the mountain-top.
She turned her thoughts upon herself, and tried to recall some sin; she would have given the world to find some grave fault which she could justly own as hers, to pour into the ears of the impatient priest. But she could not recall a single one.
"My memory is treacherous, good father," said she; "I cannot now recall any one of my sins in particular, though I must have done many, many wrong things, unless, indeed, it is the one I have committed in forsaking my dear old god Buddha, whom I did truly love and reverence until I heard and read of the beautiful P'hra Jesu?"
"This is not satisfactory," said the priest, dryly; "you will have to do penance for such thoughts as these; and where did you read of P'hra Jesu?"
"Ah!" said the girl, "I have a beautiful book which tells me all about him."
"But who gave it to you?" persisted the priest.
"I found it in the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, where it was left for my brother by an American priest."
The priest of Tâmsèng turned uneasily in his seat, and coughed a low cough preparatory to what he was going to say.
"My daughter," said he at length, in a voice of grave reproof, "this last is a dreadful sin. That book is dangerous, and those American priests are our enemies. They lie in wait to deceive the children of the true Church. They deny the divinity of the Holy Mother of God, and they go about the country preaching their false doctrines and giving away their books only to delude the simple-hearted natives. Be sure that you never listen to them, and that you abstain from looking into that book again. Bring the book to me, and you will be saved from this great temptation."
The girl listened, abashed, hanging down her head, and with tears of repentance in her eyes.
He then proceeded to state the penance she would have to perform.
To repeat fiftypaternosters, walk, on the following Sabbath morning, barefooted, and dressed in her meanest garb, to the chapel of Tâmsèng, and be admitted thus by baptism into the true Church.
The priest again pulled the cord; the window was shut, the door stood ajar, and the girl rose and passed out to join her attendants. Her bright face was overcast, unbidden tears were in her eyes, and all her love and joy in the beautiful Saviour she had found blighted like autumn leaves before the wind. When she gained her boat, great black clouds lowered in the sky, the winds rose into a squall, and the waves tossed and tumbled and rolled high upon the banks. It was one of those sudden hurricanes that are so common in Siam. The boat proved unmanageable, and, in spite of all the combined efforts of the three women, she was capsized in the middle of the angry, surging waters. Long and desperately the women struggle for life, again and again they try to swim towards the bank, but the stronger waters carry them away in their irresistible grasp.
The high-priest of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando has taken shelter beneath the porch of his temple. He sees the empty boat and the struggling women; he hesitates. His vows forbid him to touch a woman, even his own mother, and still hold his office as a priest of Buddha. He sees the women throw up their arms as if imploring his aid. He casts aside his upper yellow robe, and plunges in to their rescue, regardless of his vows, his office, of everything else.
And now a sudden dizziness veils the eyes of the Nang Rungeah; while her companions are safe on the bank, she relaxes her efforts; a sickness like that of death overcomes her, and she sinks. But again the strong manplunges and dives deeper and deeper, and at last holds her firmly in his herculean arms. She hears, or she thinks she hears, the voice of the priest reproving her, and the jubilant chimes of Tâmsèng clang at her fainting heart as she is home out of the dark waters and laid upon the flowery bank; but at length she opens her eyes on Maha Sâp, the chief priest of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, her brother's tutor and guide. A slight shudder, and then a blush of shame passes over her as she recognizes her early religious teacher. But he, stooping, gathers a handful of flowers, hands them to her, and says: "Sadly and heavily did my heart ache to see thee in the grasp of the strong demons of the storm, and to save thee I have violated the vows of my order. But if thou wilt return to me one of these flowers as a token, I will neither regret the loss of my sanctity nor yet of my priestly office, but rejoice in the fates that have blessed me with a new life."
To the sonorous rushing and wild dash of the waters is joined the deep melodious voice of the priest, urging her to give him a token from his flowers; and the chimes now seem to swell into joyful choruses of jubilant anthems as she gives him the sweet token.
After the fury of the storm had abated, the priest left them and set off to confess himself to the Archbishop of the Ecclesiastical Court; and the women returned home.
The first thing Nang Rungeah did was to relate to her mother all that had befallen her from the time she entered the chapel of Tâmsèng to her return home. She then took the "dangerous book" from under her pillow and laid it on a high shelf out of her reach, but put in its place her crumpled flowers. Then she knelt down and repeated her fiftypaternosterswith lessening fervor, and tried to believe that she was a better woman. But how was it that her thoughts would stray from the morrow's bright vision, when she would publicly be baptized intothe Church of Christ, to the dark face of Maha Sâp and the tenderness she had seen in his eyes.
She shut herself up in her chamber to weep and pray in agonizing doubts and fears, because of that something which has come between her and her beautiful P'hra Jesu.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AD OGNI UCCELLO SUO NIDO È BELLO,—"TO EVERY BIRD ITS OWN NEST IS CHARMING."
When Rungeah awoke on the following morning, it seemed to her that she had just thrown off some wondrous and powerful spell that had somehow girt its strong and mysterious illusions about her heart. A new soul from within that inmost chamber had started into life. She faltered, hesitated, and dropped on her knees and raised her eyes towards heaven, and felt as she had never done before.
In her visions—strange contradiction of human nature—and in her holiest thoughts of the beloved Mother and her Son, the face of the priest of Buddha would intrude.
Her prayers finished, she put on her most faded and meanest robe, laid aside all her customary adornments and jewels, save only her veil and her rosary, and, attended by a host of fond relatives and slaves, and among them the priest her brother, and Maha Sâp in a layman's dress, went her way barefooted to the chapel, where she solemnly recanted the errors of Buddhism, and was baptized into the church of Christ.
Again the merry bells were rung, and on the dark face of the priest of Tâmsèng might be seen
"The slow wise smile, that round aboutHis dusty forehead dryly curled,Seemed half within and half without,And full of dealings with the world."
A month after her baptism, Mariâ, as Rungeah was now named, was selected, on account of her great piety anddevotion, to be one of the female wardens of the chapel.
This distinction she enjoyed with six other girls, whose duty it was to dust and sweep the chapel, clean the lamps and the gold and silver candlesticks, and to dress the altar with fresh flowers.[42]
Saturday was the day appointed to Mariâ to serve in the chapel, and a lovely warden was the gentle Cambodian girl. She had given up the dangerous book to her father confessor. But the handful of crumpled flowers still nestled under her pillow, and her secret preference for Maha-Sâp was deeply hidden in her heart; and yet it proved an impenetrable barrier, as long as she lived, between her and her confessor.
It was touching to see this girl at her duties in the chapel. After the floor had been swept, and the candlesticks polished and replenished with fresh candles, and the flowers arranged in the vases in the niches, and the garlands hung over the images of the gods and the saints, she would kneel at the foot of the sad Christ, after having touched with her lips the nailed and bleeding feet, praying to him to make her as noble and as self-sacrificing as himself, and to the tender Mother to intercede for her at the throne of grace.
One Saturday evening, Mariâ, having spent a comfortless day within herself, repaired to the chapel as usual, attended only by the oars-women, to open it for the evening service. She opened wide the doors, and sat herself down under the cross. There were rays of comfort emanating from that figure nailed on it forever, that had now become very precious to her.
Long after the congregation had dispersed, she knelt onthe floor of the sanctuary. All the religion of the place and the hour came over her, and a strange yearning sorrow, for which she could not account. And as she knelt there she fancied that a shadow darkened the lights that streamed down from the altar upon her, but only for a moment, for the next found the shadow gone, and tears gathering in her eyes. "Alas! what is it that steals my thoughts from Thee to Buddha, and the temple in which I once loved to worship?" muttered the girl, conscience-stricken at her own depravity.
The chapel bell suddenly "flung out" the hour of five, i.e. ten o'clock. She rose from her knees, put out the lights, and, locking the doors, turned into the dark deserted street; but somehow a sudden fear overcame her, and a feeling that somebody was watching her, perhaps following her. She drew her veil over her face and ran breathlessly towards the river, where she gained her boat and returned home for the night.
The Roman Catholic Missionary Society at Bangkok consisted of one bishop and from fifteen to twenty priests, besides a number of proselytes from the Siamese and the Chinese, who also were admitted into the priesthood. Of the former, most of the priests were endowed with every talent that a strict collegiate education could furnish; but the latter were particularly useful, because, besides being professing and, some of them, sincere Christians, they possessed the power of expounding the doctrines of the Church to their native brethren in a language natural to themselves from their birth. Nor was this all; they were nearly all well skilled in medicine and surgery, which gave them more power than the French priests in winning over the discontented followers of the Buddha to lend a willing ear to the marvellous facts of the Christian faith. And, moreover, as the teachings and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church arein many respects almost identical with the Buddhist teachings and ceremonies, the Roman Catholic priests are more successful in making proselytes than their Protestant colaborers in the same field.
When a poor ignorant Buddhist goes into his temples he sees the images of the Buddha, and he sees certain forms and prostrations practised, the burning of incense, the bowing before the well-lit shrines, and hears prayers uttered in an unknown tongue, and he knows also that the most heinous sin that can be committed by the Buddhist priest is the violation of his oath of celibacy. And if from idle curiosity he should be induced to enter a Roman Catholic chapel or church, to his surprise and delight he observes not only forms and ceremonies very nearly approaching to those used in his own temple, but also images and pictures far more beautiful and attractive than those of his own gods. On inquiring he finds that the priests of this faith also do not marry, that they have the marvellous power to absolve the transgressor from the consequences of his deadly sins, and that the only thing necessary to escape the irresistible "wheel of the law" is faith in Christ. So the poor, timorous, trembling soul, that feels a certain consciousness of a fearful retribution awaiting his sins, and yet knows not where or to whom to fly, hails with joy the name of Christ, the all-atoning sacrifice, as a rock on which to rest his weary wings, and fears no more the inexorable "wheel" of the Divine vengeance.
It is not to be wondered at, then, that the Siamese, Peguans, and Cambodians readily give ear to the native Catholic priests, and particularly when even the French and Portuguese priests adapt themselves, in many instances, to the usages and customs of the natives themselves, the most striking of which are in employing the children of the rich as wardens and keepers of thechurches, and of never wearing any covering on their heads.
On the morning following the night on which Mariâ had lingered so late in the chapel, Khoon Jethamas had risen at daybreak; for ever since the day of the eventful thunder-storm she had troubled dreams accompanied with signs and omens that foretold approaching calamity; and now she sat alone on the doorstep, meditating sadly on the future of her dear child.
It had been predicted by a wise old man, in the days of Rungeah's infancy, that "she was born under the fatal star Sathimara, who would assume the form of a fair and beautiful angel to lead her on to her own destruction."
The pagan mother could not discern between the heavenly and the earthly church of Christ, nor between the true and the false ministers of the gospel. And now the prophecy seemed in a way of being fulfilled, but, like all prophecies, in the most unlooked-for manner.
Suddenly the dark priest of Tâmsèng with a band of officers appeared on the gravel walk. The lady gave a cry of alarm that brought nearly the whole household to her side, and, as the priest with the officers persisted in forcing an immediate entrance into the house, there ensued a violent scuffle between the officers of the law and the slaves of P'hagunn.
"Very good," said the padre, doggedly; "it is certain, however, that the chapel of Tâmsèng has been plundered by Mariâ and a vile pagan who was seen lurking in its vicinity last night."
On hearing this the blood rushed violently to the mother's temples, and she fell back in a death-like swoon.
P'hagunn and his numerous attendants were also stupefied by horror and dismay at this dreadful accusation; and the officers, headed by the padre, proceeded coolly to search the house for the missing jewels and the gold and silvercandlesticks, censers, and vases that had ornamented the altar of the chapel of Tâmsèng.
At last they reached Mariâ's chamber. She had just risen, and was now on her knees before the open window. The door was burst open, and she turned, still kneeling and holding her breath, her fixed and terrified gaze upon the intruders.
The chapel and the convent bells struck six. It was the hour when she usually set out to perform her small round of sacred offices and to open the church doors. But she had no power to move. She saw the padre dash aside her pillow and then her mattress, and with it her crumpled flowers. One of the men came towards her and demanded the key of the chapel. But she could not open her lips to speak; she knelt there petrified in the morning sunlight.
"To think thatyoushould have connived at such an outrageous sacrilege upon the altar of God!" said the padre; and he ordered the men to handcuff her and carry her away to the prison at Tâmsèng.
She made no resistance, but let them do whatever they wished with her; she seemed even to have lost the power of comprehension. She sees the trees, the thatched roofs, the plantations, the fields, the tapering spires of the Temple of the Infinite, and a thousand small objects; she hears voices and cries that would have escaped her at another time, as she is dragged from the home of her parents to the prison cell of the doomed, but she cannot speak, or cry, or even think where she put the key. She knows that her mother is seated outside of the prison door, wailing and crying, and protesting that her child is innocent of the dreadful crime of which she is accused; and this is all that is clear to the stricken girl.
Twilight was falling just as I was coming out of the palace,—for I had been detained there all day helping the secretary to despatch the royal mail,—when Khoon Jethamas came running up to me, took both my hands in hers, and told me the story of her daughter's imprisonment.
What was to be done? The woman was frantic with grief, and I was almost as much confounded as she.
"You must come with me to-night, dear lady, this very evening. I cannot rest till I get her out of that dreadful place."
I at last persuaded her to come to my house and take a cup of tea, and when I had soothed her so that she could make herself intelligible, I thought the affair did not look quite so hopeless as she supposed, and I tried to make her take a more cheerful view of the matter. The only thing that seemed strange was that Mariâ could give no account of what she had done with the key of the chapel door.
Whoever robbed the chapel had got possession of the key. The locks on the chapel were of European manufacture, and there were only two keys that could open them, one in the possession of the padre Tomas, and the other in the keeping of the young wardens, who transferred it to the next person on duty after the morning service.
In a short time Khoon Jethamas and I were rowing against the tide for the village of Tâmsèng. On cross-questioning the lady, I discovered that the late priest Maha-Sâp had been seen prowling about the chapel when Rungeah, as the mother still called her, was at her devotions, and that on the following morning he was going towards the same spot when he was taken prisoner.
I confess that now I began to feel anxious, for the value of the jewels, etc., that were stolen was fixed at several laks or millions of ticals, an incredible sum which no person could pay. I hardly knew what to think.
Amid hopes and fears, and innumerable plans, which were abandoned as soon as formed for new ones that seemed equally impracticable, we reached the prison of Tâmsèng.
What a dreadful spot it was in the night-time! And the very darkness was aggravated by the people around, who looked more savage and fiercer than wild beasts. Before and behind and on all sides there were rags and filth and wretchedness crowding upon us with the double darkness of night and misery. Some hideous women were jailers; for a few ticals and a promise not to tell upon them, they allowed us to go in and see the girl.
Rungeah sat as one entranced, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, as if she expected Jesus or the Mother to rise up out of it to vindicate her cause. We could not get her to say a word, to utter a cry or even a moan. We were almost as much overwhelmed at her grief as she was by the padre's accusation.
What was to be done?
Leaving Rungeah, we set off for the convent of Tâmsèng.
The clock had long before struck eight, when we came to the convent gate, and we were full of hope. But no light was to be seen, and a high wooden fence ran all round the house. Groping our way, we came to a gate at last, but it was locked. We began to knock, and we knocked loudly for a quarter of an hour, and then we waited to see if any one would come to open it. No one came. We were uncertain what to do, the night came on full of clouds, clothing with darkness even the star-filled depths. The convent clock struck nine, and the thought of poor Rungeah struggling with her anguish came with redoubled force upon the mother's heart, and again we both knocked together more and more loudly. At length lights appeared amid the gloom, and three women withlanterns approached and demanded who we were and what we wanted. On hearing that I was a Christian woman, they opened the gate, and after surveying us carefully, passing their lanterns up and down our persons from head to foot, they led the way to the apartments of the Lady Abbess. When we entered, we found a morose-looking old lady of Portuguese descent seated on a tall high-backed chair, with nine or ten young women, mostly Siamese, sewing scapulars. All round the room were dreadful pictures of the Christ and the Mother in all kinds of agonizing attitudes.
We proceeded to make our business known, which was only to go bail for Rungeah until the trial should come off, and to ask the Abbess's influence with the padre Tomas in urging our request.
The old lady coolly replied that it was her duty to wait upon the Lord Jesus, and not to rush about the country, as some folks did, intermeddling with other people's business.
We left her with clouded hearts, and set out for the house of the padre. As we were women, which we in our distress of mind had quite forgotten, the servants or slaves of this holy individual drove us from the doorstep with scorn and contemptuous language for our indelicacy in going there at all.
We then, but less hopefully, turned our almost fainting steps to the house of the Governor P'haya Visate. Khoon Jethamas was afraid to enter, but I was not going away without seeing him. I climbed the steps and entered the veranda; two slaves went before to report our arrival. I saw the great man seated on a cushion in a room adjoining, with women and men crouching in all sorts of abject attitudes before him. I walked in, ready, at the mother's request, to double and treble the bail if necessary. As soon as he saw me approaching, the governor rose, retiredto his bedchamber, and shut the door violently in my face.
I came away completely cast down and defeated; as for the poor mother, she wrung her hands and wept piteously. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and we went back to the prison. The unhappy Khoon Jethamas took up her abode near the only window of the cell where her daughter was immured. I left her sitting on a strip of matting, with her hands over her face, shutting out the outer darkness, in order to realize the utter darkness that had fallen upon her life and upon the light of her home.
Nights and days succeeded each other in regular succession, and day after day I went to the prison to find the patient, loving mother living under the shadow of its roof, so as to be ever near her child, and once a day she was admitted to see her loved one visibly wasting away. The only change that had taken place in the prisoner, that was hopeful, was, that now it was she who comforted her mother every day, by relating to her her bright visions, and assuring her that she felt the time was not far distant when the Mother and her Son would come down from heaven to proclaim her innocence; that the holy angels descended at night to bless and comfort her with loving promises of speedy justice, and that now the prison-house had been transformed by them into a paradise.
There are mysteries in all religions, which the uninitiated cannot penetrate, and we stood abashed and silent on the other side of the veil that was lifted for the spiritual consolation of this strange girl.
The burning July sun shone daily on the tiled roof of the prison of Tâmsèng. The ground on one side was full of muddy pools, and the river on the other was the cesspool of the village,—a liquid mass of poison from which rose the pestilence and the cholera that brooded with theirdeath-like wings over the inhabitants of Tâmsèng. The evening air was either heavy with noxious vapors or it came in fitful burning gusts across the river, and brought no balm to the suffering prisoners within.
Rungeah languished day after day, for the case was to be tried before the International Court of Siam, and the days and the weeks and the months passed away like
"A stream whose waters scarcely seem to stray,And yet they glide like happiness away."
With them poor Rungeah's bright faith began to grow dim, and her nightly prayers to the Mother and her holy Son were less and less hopeful, but yet she still strove with each returning day to revive her drooping spirits, and with sweet self-deceit "to paint elysium" upon the darkness of her prison-walls.
The mother bribed the jailers to take to her daughter some little delicacies every day, for the coarse prison food disgusted the girl, and she was gradually being starved to death; and now a low cough and a hectic fever had set in.
The judicial courts of Siam, one and all included, were neither better nor worse than that of other Oriental and despotic kingdoms; and the judges of the outer city, with the exception, as far as I know, of only one man, his Highness Mom Kratai Rajoday, were very far from being model judges. They aimed no higher than the traditional policy of the empire, "the good old rule" that "might makes right," which had guided the rulers of Siam ever since Siam began to exist as a kingdom and a nation; so that everybody preyed upon his weaker neighbor, and everybody was obliged to suffer, without hope of redress, the wrongs which one stronger than himself could inflict.
Meanwhile the mother grew more and more impatient for her daughter's trial, which seemed to her as if purposely delayed, and in an unguarded moment she accusedthe padre Tomas of having secreted the jewels and ornaments of the altar of Tâmsèng, and of having made a false accusation against her daughter for the sole purpose of laying claim to her estate. The padre became exasperated and brought a charge of libel against the mother; and poor Rungeah was more and more hopelessly a prisoner.
The timid P'hagunn shut himself up in his house, and left it to his brave wife to threaten the Christian officials, and to haunt the courts with her complaints, expending large sums of money, but without result.
At length, as Rungeah was really very ill, and I feared she would die, I accompanied Khoon Jethamas on a private visit to his Highness Mom Kratai Rajoday, the chief judge of the International Court, taking with me a private letter from the king, which simply stated that I wished to be made personally acquainted with him.
The judge received us very cordially indeed, and the unhappy Jethamas threw herself at his feet, and with tears and sobs implored of him to hasten the trial of her child, which he most kindly promised to do.
It was now December, and three days after our visit to the chief judge the trial came on.
I could not attend on the two first days, but on Saturday, the 10th of December, 1864, I accompanied Khoon Jethamas and the feeble and wasted Rungeah to the court, where I was rejoiced to see his Highness Mom Kratai Rajoday presiding in person. All the preliminaries had been gone through with on the two previous days. The court-house was crammed with native Christians, Buddhists, and Cambodians, so that there was not even standing room to be had anywhere.
After going through a great many forms and ceremonies, such as laying the right hand on a branch of the boh-tree, and thence on his left side, and taking theBuddhist's oath, Maha-Sâp's innocence was clearly proved. He confessed, however, that he was in the habit of repairing to the chapel morning and evening, but that his sole motive was to be near by to protect Rungeah from any danger that might threaten her.
The judge then turned and asked Rungeah to relate again all that she had done on the night of the robbery.
All her natural grace of feature, all her excellences of mind and soul, shone out as she calmly repeated her story; the only thing she could not account for was where she had dropped the key. "But," said she, "my soul and my conscience acquit me of this sin. How then shall I plead guilty to that which I have not done? Will it not be accounted a sin against myself by P'hra Jesu and his Holy Mother in heaven?"
The beating hearts of the crowd were suspended in breathless expectation; some being interested for and some against the prisoners. The next moment the judge declared that Rungeah and Maha-Sâp had been imprisoned on insufficient grounds; that their innocence was quite apparent, even without or rather before the trial, and that the case was dismissed.
Scarcely were these words articulated, when a shout like that of a great hurricane broke from the excited masses of the people; the boarded floor seemed to thrill and ripple as with the throes of an earthquake, and the crowd staggered to and fro as if inebriated with the sudden paroxysm of joy. It was to them not so much the cause of a young and beautiful Cambodian lady of high rank, as the cause of Buddhism against Roman Catholicism.
I was stunned with their deafening roar. But poor Rungeah was too feeble to bear the sudden and overwhelming joy of her acquittal; an exclamation of thewildest delight broke from her pale lips, and she fell back insensible.
The excited crowd unable to master their now as sudden agony at the sight of the apparently lifeless girl, were hushed, and a lull as profound as death succeeded. They bore her to the boat and laid her down in it, and her mother implored me to go home with them. In the fresh air, as we rowed slowly along, the girl soon revived, and, putting out her arms, drew her mother down to her, and held her firmly to her breast.
Maha-Sâp, her brother, both noble-looking men, and a crowd of people, followed in another boat.
As we approached the temple of Adi Buddha Annando, Rungeah whispered to her mother to take her in there to rest; that she was weary, and that it would comfort her to enter its sacred precincts once more.
The sun is near his setting, and broad lights and shadows are lying upon and veiling the grand proportions of the temple of the "Infinite."
Now the boats are fastened to the pier, and a little group follows the women who are bearing the form of Rungeah into the temple.
It is the hour of the Buddhists' evening prayer. They bring a small mat, and she is laid in the middle of the temple, while the bonzes are seated on either side, waiting for the high-priest to open the vesper service.
During the service the girl lies there with her eyes closed.
Sunshine is reflected in wonderful glory from the head of the great silver image of the Adi Buddh. Sunshine is flooding the temple, glorifying the stolid idols that are standing around, and streaming on the floor and over the quiet figure of the girl. Her face assumes an ashy hue, and she again puts out her arms and draws her mother down to her.
"O mother, pray to the Virgin Mother for me," says the girl, "to tell P'hra Jesu that I am innocent."
The pagan mother makes no reply, but bends an agonized look on her dear child's face, and the girl's face becomes grayer in the floods of sunlight. Her fingers twitch and quiver around her mother's neck.
The priests are hushed, and the temple is more and more flooded with light; and the faint, sweet, pleading voice of the girl is again heard: "Mother, dear mother, pray to P'hra Jesu that he shut not the heavenly gates upon me"; and the strong love of the mother conquers her religious scruples, and, lying there with her head cushioned on the bosom of her dying child, she raises her voice and prays:—
"O thou who art called P'hra Jesu, free my child from sin. O forgive her, sacred One. She has loved thee to the last. She believes in none but thee. Be thou her God, and shut not, O shut not thy heavenly gates upon her, even though they shut her out forever from my sorrowing heart and eyes."
At the utterance of those strange syllables falling from the lips of a Buddhist mother in the most solemn of the temples of the Buddha, a marvellous change passed over the face of the dying girl; the gray pallor of death gave place to a heavenly light, and a faint but lovely smile irradiated her pale lips. She opened her eyes and gazed enraptured upon some vision that seemed to float before her. "O mother, mother," cried the exulting voice of the girl, "I see P'hra Jesu and P'hra Buddha; P'hra Jesu is above and P'hra Buddha is below, and the two mothers, Marie and Maia[43]are sitting side by side, and they are all smiling and calling me upward, upward." And Rungeah stretched out her arms and closed her eyes, the gray pallor returned; her spirit fluttered for a moment,and then was gone forever. But the smile never left her lips.
She was buried with the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, with her rosary and the golden image of Christ on her bosom, by a French priest from the other side of the village of Tâmsèng.
Two years after, a man was taken in the act of plundering the jewels of a princess of Siam, as she was travelling in her boat to Ayudia, and on his trial he confessed that he was a Christian, that he had been betrothed to Rungeah's sister, whom he had murdered for the sake of her jewels, and then fled to Ayudia, whence having gambled away all the proceeds of his spoils, he once more returned to Bangkok and robbed the chapel of Tâmsèng. He offered to deliver up the jewels, etc., if his life should be spared. His request was granted, but he was condemned to life-long imprisonment, while the crown and the diadem are once more to be seen on the brows of the figure of the Christ and the Virgin Mary, and the gold and silver candlesticks again light up the altar of the little chapel of Tâmsèng.