hearted angel who battled nightly with the strong currents of the Mèinam, and brought, at the risk and peril of his life, some boiled rice and water in the hollow of a bamboo cane, which, as he floated beneath the iron cage, he held up to his late master's mouth, who sucked therefrom the scanty portion of food it contained.

The last night of the unfortunate prisoner's life, Rama set out as usual, ignoring the pain of his wounds, and, swimming manfully against the strong tide that threatened to bear him away with it, he reached the spot about three o'clock in the morning, stealthily approached the cage, keeping his head under water, but his heart above the clouds, with those heroic souls who follow in the path of the Son of Heaven. He swam right under the cage, and looking up in the darkness towards it, saw no shadow there. He held up the long bamboo, and rested it against the iron bars, but no eager, trembling hand grasped it, as it was wont to do. He called out in hoarse whispers, "P'hakha, p'hakha, soway tho" (master, master, pray eat). No sound, no movement, reached his anxious ears.

Ah, happy man! the loving voice of his devoted follower reached his ears, and penetrated far into his sinking heart, as he lay in his last agonies, coiled up on the floor of his cage, and in the double darkness of night and sightlessness, he saw the brave, strong face of this one great soul that loved him in spite of all his sin and misery; and, even as he caught the vision, a smile such as would have irradiated the throne of God, passed over that blind, distorted face, and the soul flitted away rejoicing, leaving behind it an expression of serenity and peace, as if that proud, turbulent, and ambitious spirit had at last been taught the meaning of a higher love, and through it had breasted the waters, and gained the shore "Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

After some years of service in the army, the premier,

Somdetch Ong Yai, being dead, Rama, having been regularly branded as the vassal of his eldest son, Chow P’haya Mândtree, obtained permission to return home to his wife. Just eight years after these events, and the very year after his return home, there was born to this brave man a daughter, who, as it sometimes happens, by some singular freak of nature, or, perhaps, by some higher law of development, was so wondrously beautiful, that when Rama, faithful to the custom of his ancestors, handed to his wife, a few hours after her delivery, a ball of opium to be rubbed on her breasts, she turned up to him a scared and wondering look, muttering, "She is, — she is the smile of God," the deadly ball dropped from her pulseless hands, and her spirit passed away; and he, broken hearted and baffled, rightly interpreted the significance of her dying words, not only spared the child's life, but named her. Devo Smâyátee (the God smiles). Thus a new life stole into the heart and the arms of the old warrior of Orissa.

CHAPTER X.

THE GRANDSON OF SOMDETCH ONG YAI, AND HIS TUTOR P'HRA CHOW SADUMAN.

THEN Rama and his daughter were carried off to

W prison, poor Småyåtee hardly realized what was

going to happen. But when a couple of Amazons forced her away from her father, and she understood the full meaning of what had befallen them, she began to shout and scream aloud for help. But none came.

A child of the mountains and hills, she had as yet developed none but the natural instincts of what civilization would call a savage. Combined with her fine organization, she inherited a passionate nature, and an intense love for the mountains and woods, the earth and sky, which were to her so many beautiful gods. To some she had been accustomed to offer flowers, to others fruit, oil, wine, honey, water. She always set apart a portion of every meal for her favorite god Dâvee, the earth-goddess. To such a nature only to live was worship. To see, to hear, to gather thoughts and pictures, to feel the throbbing pulses; to fill the eye with images of beauty, the heart with impulses of love and joy; to place the mind face to face with the unwritten mysteries which nature unfolds to it, — is, indeed, the highest sphere of contemplation and worship, as well for the savage as the child of civilization.

The Amazons who guarded the cell chatted together in a low tone, while Smâyâtee, exhausted by her cries and screams for help, had sunk into a deep sleep. They remarked on the beauty of her skin, the roundness of her limbs, the softness of her cheeks, and the superb lashes

that rested so lightly upon them, and wondered who she could be; for though her dress bespoke her of the peasant class of the Loatians, her form and face betokened high birth.

"He must have stolen her," said one of the women; "she cannot be his daughter, though she calls him father." "He has brought her here for sale, of course," added another; "else why should he have chosen such a place as this, so near the royal palace, for encampment."

Ah, well! whatever be her lot, poor child, let us not . add to her sufferings; she will have enough of them in this life," rejoined the kind-hearted chief officer.

The bell above the prison gate, with its brazen tongue, tolled out twelve (i. e., five in the morning); the girl, aroused as it were by the voice of an angel, started, rubbed her eyes, and looking around seemed to recall the events of the last night. She then made several profound salutations and invocations to a gleam of sunlight that came straggling into her cell, wrapped her saree over her head and face, and placed herself near the door, so as to be able to pass out the moment it should be opened.

"Take something to eat, child," said the chief of the Amazons on guard, who was partaking of a breakfast of cold rice and fish, "and wait till the sun is higher in the heavens, and I will go with you; it is not fit that one so young and beautiful should go out alone and unprotected."

She was too kind-hearted to tell her that she was a prisoner, and no longer free to go in and out.

Smâyâtee had hardly swallowed a few mouthfuls of rice, when the guardsman of the previous night appeared, with orders to the Amazons to take her to the Sala of the Grand Duke, Chow P'haya Mândtree; as they, on discovering from the mark on the old man's arm that he was a vassal of that nobleman, had resigned him to the custody of his officers.

The Amazons led the way, and Smâyâtee followed with faltering steps. Nobody noticed her. Everybody seemed excited and eager. Every one hurried towards the same spot.

In her uncertainty the girl could see nothing in the world but the river running strong, yet running calmly on. After a little while she began to trace the opposite bank; a little way to the left something hanging midway in the sky, as she supposed, or rather in mid-distance; there being as yet no sky, no heaven, no earth; nothing ́but the river. This was a bridge; they cross the bridge.. Where does it lead to? Whither flows this mysterious stream, of which the coming and the going are equally full of wonder and dread to her? What mysterious, enchanted palaces and temples are those looming out yonder on the other side? To her ignorance they are but infinitude and the unknown. Now they near the duke's palace; the odors of orange-flowers and spice-groves reach them, like airs that breathe from paradise.

Having come to the great hall, the Amazons take their places on one of the lowest steps, Smâyâtee seated between them; they are contented to chew their betel and to wait.

The hall is full of men. The work of branding and enrolling goes briskly on under the orders of a young nobleman, called Nai Dhamaphat, the grandson of Somdetch Ong Yai. Every now and then some persons are brought forward to be admonished, fined, or whipped. Sometimes from among this crowd a boy is dragged out forcibly, and branded.

Through the masses of men, lighted up now by the full blaze of sunlight, Smâyâtee sought one form and one figure only, and he was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly the Grand Duke was announced; he entered the hall with conscious swagger, followed by a long train of attendants and slaves.