TUPTIM'S TRIAL.
About seven o'clock on the following morning I was in the Sala or San
Shuang, which is within the second enclosure of the palace, but outside
of the third or inner wall, which is that of the harem. This building
is of one story only, and totally unlike that occupied for similar
purposes in the interior of the grand palace. The main entrance was
through a long, low corridor, on both sides of which opened apartments
of different dimensions, so dilapidated as to be scarcely habitable,
looking out upon the barracks, the magazine, and the fantastic grounds
of the palace gardens. On entering the hall one was at once struck by
the incongruities that met the eye; the windows were large and lofty,
and might have served for the casements of a royal residence, while the
doors were very narrow and mean, and the floor merely a collection of
worm-eaten boards roughly nailed down. One interesting and picturesque
peculiarity was the monstrous size of the spiders, who must have had
undisturbed possession of the walls and ceiling for at least a century.
Altogether, it was very dark, dull, and dreary, even depressing and
sepulchral, when not illumined by the direct rays of the sun.
Several of the men and women judges were already there, interchanging
greetings and offerings of the contents of their betel-boxes.
P'hayaprome Baree Rak, the chief of the men, and Khoon Thow App, chief
of the women judges, sat apart, the latter with her head bowed in an
attitude of reflection and sadness. Before them were low tables, on
which lay dark rolls of laws, Siamese paper, pens, and ink. Some lower
officials and clerks crouched around. They all eyed me with curiosity
as I entered and took a seat at the end of the hall, near the two
priests who were present as witnesses; but no one made any objection to
my stay.
I had not been there long when a file of Amazons appeared, bringing
in Tuptim and the two other girls under guard. These were Maprang and
Simlah, Tuptim's most intimate friends, whom I had always seen with her
when she came to the school-room.
But was that Tuptim? I sat stupefied at the transformation that had
been wrought in the Tuptim I had known. Her hair was cut close to her
head, and her eyebrows had been shaved off. Her cheeks were hollow and
sunken. Her eyes were cast down. Her hands were manacled, and her bare
little feet could hardly drag along the heavy chains that were fastened
to her ankles. Her scarf was tied tightly over her bosom, and under it
her close-fitting vest was buttoned up to the throat. Her whole form
was still childlike, but she held herself erect, and her manner was
self-possessed. When she spoke, her voice was clear and vibrating, her
accent firm and unflinching.
The Amazons laid before the judges some priests' garments and a small
amulet attached to a piece of yellow cord. The vestments, such as
are worn by a nain (young priest), were those in which Tuptim had
been arrested, and in which she had probably escaped from the palace;
the amulet, in appearance like those worn by all the natives of the
country, had been taken from her neck. On opening the yellow silk which
formed the envelope of the latter, a piece of paper was found stitched
inside, with English letters written thereon. Khoon Thow App was
sufficiently versed in English to spell out and read aloud the name of
"Khoon P'hra Bâlât."
Tuptim was then ordered to come forward. She dragged herself along as
well as she could, and took her place in the centre of the hall. She
made no obeisance, no humble, appealing prostration, but neither was
there any want of modesty in her demeanor. She sat down with the air of
one who suffered, but who was too proud to complain. I caught a glance
of her eyes; they were clear and bright, and an almost imperceptible
melancholy smile flitted across her face as she returned my greeting. I
was more astonished than before; the simple child was transfigured into
a proud, heroic woman, and, as she sat there, she seemed so calm and
pure, that one might think she had already crystallized into a lovely
statue.
Simlah and Maprang were examined first, and, without apparent
reluctance, confessed all that poor Tuptim had ever confided to them,
and a great many other irrelevant matters. But when Simlah spoke of her
friend's escape from the palace as connected with Khoon P'hra Bâlât's
coming in for alms,[4] Tuptim interrupted her, telling her to stop,
and saying: "That's not true. You are wrong, Simlah, you know nothing
about it. You know you don't. And it was not at that time." Then, as if
recollecting herself, she added, proudly: "No matter. Go on. Never mind
me. Say all that you want to say"; and resumed her former position.
"Well!" said P'hayaprome Baree Rak, the chief man judge; "if your
companions know nothing about it, perhaps you will tell us exactly how
it was."
"If I tell you the whole truth, will you believe me and judge me
righteously?" asked the girl.
"You shall have the bastinado applied to your bare back if you do not
confess all your guilt at once," replied the judge.
Tuptim did not speak immediately; but by the expression of her eyes
and the alternate flushing and paling of her face it was evident
that she was debating in her own mind whether she should make a full
confession or not. Finally, with an air of fixed determination she
turned towards Khoon Thow App, and, addressing her exclusively, said:
"Khoon P'hra Bâlât has not sinned, my lady, nor is he in any way
guilty. All the guilt is mine. In the stillness of the nights, when
I prostrated myself in prayer before Somdetch P'hra Buddh, the Chow,
thoughts of escaping from the palace often and often would distract me
from my devotions and take possession of my thoughts. It seemed to me
as if it were the voice of the Lord, and that there was nothing for me
to do but to obey. So I dressed myself as a priest, shaved off my hair
and my eyebrows--"
"Now," interrupted P'hayaprome Baree Rak, "that's just what we want to
hear. Tell us who it was got the priest's dress for you, and shaved off
your hair and your eyebrows. Speak up louder."
"My lord, I am telling what I did myself, and not what any one else
did. Hear me, and I will speak the truth, so far as it relates to
myself; beyond that I cannot go," replied Tuptim, a sudden flush
covering her face, and making her look lovelier than ever.
"Go on," said the dreadful man, with a scornful smile at the childish
form before him; "we shall find a way to make you speak."
"Dèck nak" (she is very young), said Khoon Thow App, gently.
Tuptim was silent for some moments. The sunlight, streaming across the
hall, fell just behind her, revealing the exquisite transparency of her
olive-colored skin, as, with a look more thoughtful and an expression
more serenely simple still, she continued:--
"At five o'clock in the morning, when the priests were admitted into
the palace, I crawled out of my room and joined the procession as it
passed on to receive the royal alms. No one saw me but Simlah, and even
she, as she has told me herself, did not recognize me, but wondered why
a priest came so near to my door."
"That is true!" broke in Simlah; "I never even knew that Tuptim had run
away until Khoon Yai (one of the chief ladies of the harem) sent to
inquire why she was absent from duty so long, and then I began to think
that the young priest I had seen had something to do with it. But I was
afraid to say anything of this to the women who searched the houses,
lest we should be accused of having helped her to escape."
When Simlah had done speaking, Tuptim continued:--
"I know not why, but, when I found myself outside of the palace walls,
I went straight to the temple of Rajah Bah ditt Sang, and sat down at
the gate. Towards evening the good priest, Chow Khoon Sah, came out,
and, on seeing me, asked me why I sat there. I did not know what else
to say, and so I begged him to let me be his disciple and live in his
monastery. 'Whose disciple art thou, my child?' he asked. At which
I began to cry, for I did not wish to deceive the holy man. Seeing
my distress, he turned to P'hra Bâlât, who was following him with
other priests, and bade him take me under his charge and instruct me
faithfully in all the doctrines of Buddha. Then P'hra Bâlât took me
to his cell; but he did not recognize in the young priest I seemed to
be the Tuptim he had known in his boyhood, and who had once been his
betrothed wife."
At this part of Tuptim's recital, the women held up their hands
in profound astonishment, and the men judges grinned maliciously,
displaying their hateful gums, red with the juice of the betel-nut.
The poor girl's pale lips quivered, and her whole face testified to
the immensity of her woe, as with simple, truthful earnestness she
asseverated: "P'hra Bâlât, whom you have condemned to torture and to
death, has not sinned. He is innocent. The sin is mine, and mine only.
I knew that I was a woman, but he did not. If I had known all that he
has taught me since I became his disciple, I could not have committed
the great sin of which I am accused. I would have tried, indeed and
truly, I would have tried to endure my life in the palace, and would
not have run away. O lady dear! believe that I am speaking the truth.
I grew quiet and happy because I was near him, and he taught me every
day, and I can say the whole of the Nava d'harma (Divine Law) by heart.
You can ask his other disciples who were with me, and they will tell
you that I was always modest and humble, and we all lay at his feet
by night. Indeed, dear lady, I did not so much want to be his wife
after he became a p'hra (priest), but only to be near him. On Sunday
morning, those men," pointing to the two priests who sat apart, "came
to the cell to see P'hra Bâlât, and it so happened that I had overslept
myself. I had just got up and was arranging my dress, thinking that
I was alone in the cell, when I heard a low chuckling laugh. In an
instant I turned and faced them, and felt that I was degraded forever.
"Believe me, dear lady," continued Tuptim, growing more and more
eloquent as she became still more earnest in her recital. "I was
guilty, it is true, when I fled from my gracious master, the king, but
I never even contemplated the sin of which I am accused by those men. I
knew that I was innocent, and I begged them to let me leave the temple,
and hide myself anywhere, telling them that P'hra Bâlât did not know
who I was, or that I was a woman; but they only laughed and jeered at
me. I fell on my knees at their feet, and implored them, entreated
them in the name of all that is holy and sacred, to keep my secret and
let me go; but they only laughed and jeered at me the more; they would
not be merciful,"--here the poor girl gasped as if for breath, while
two large tears coursed down her cheeks,--"and then I defied them, and
I still defy them," she added, shaking her manacled hands at them.
The two priests looked at the girl unmoved, chewing their betel all
the while; the judges listened in silence, with an air of amused
incredulity, as to a fairy-tale. She continued:--
"Just then P'hra Bâlât and his other disciples returned from their
morning ablutions. I crawled to his feet, and told him that I was
Tuptim. He started back and recoiled to the end of the cell, as if the
very earth had quaked beneath him, leaving me prostrate and overwhelmed
with horror at what I had done. In a moment afterwards he came back to
me, and, while weeping bitterly himself, begged me that I would cry
no more. But the sight of his tears, and the grief in my heart, made
me feel as if I were being swallowed up in a great black abyss, and I
could not help crying more and more. Then he tried to soothe me, and
said, 'Alas! Tuptim, thou hast committed a great sin. But fear not. We
are innocent; and for the sake of the great love thou hast shown to
me, I am ready to suffer even unto death for thee.' This is the whole
truth. Indeed, indeed, it is!"
"Well, well!" said P'hayaprome Baree Rak, "you have told your story
beautifully, but nobody believes you. How will you tell us who shaved
off your hair and your eyebrows, and brought you that priest's dress
you had on yesterday?"
The simple grandeur of that fragile child, as she folded her chained
hands across her bosom, as if to still its tumultuous heaving, and
replied, "I will not!" defies all description.
I had drawn quite near to Tuptim when she began her simple narrative,
and was so much absorbed in attention to what she said, and in
admiration of the fearlessness as well as of the beauty and majesty of
that little figure, that I had remained rooted to the spot, standing
there mechanically, and hardly noting what was going on around me. But
the effect of that reply was startling; it brought me suddenly to my
senses and to a full appreciation of the scene before me.
There was a child of barely sixteen years hurling defiance, at her
own risk and peril, at the judges who appeared as giants beside her.
To make such a reply to those executors of Siam's cruel laws was not
only to accept death, but all the agonies of merciless torture. As her
refusal fell like a thunderbolt upon my startled ears, she seemed a
very Titan among the giants.
"Strip her, and give her thirty blows," shouted the infuriated
P'hayaprome Baree Rak, in a voice hoarse with passion; and Khoon Thow
App looked calmly on.
Presently the crowd opened, and a litter borne by two men was brought
into the hall. On it lay the mutilated form of the priest Bâlât, who
had just undergone the torture, in order to make him confess his
guilt and that of his accomplice, Tuptim; but as the minutes of the
ecclesiastical court stated, "it had not been possible to elicit from
him even an indication that he had anything to confess." His priestly
robes had been taken from him, and he was dressed like any ordinary
layman, except that his hair and eyebrows were closely shaven. They
laid him down beside Tuptim, hoping that the sight of her under torture
would induce him to confess.
[Illustration: A SIAMESE SLAVE-GIRL.]
The next moment Tuptim was stripped of her vest and bound to a stake,
and the executioners proceeded to obey the orders of the judge. When
the first blow descended on the girl's bare and delicate shoulders, I
felt as if bound and lacerated myself, and losing all control over
my actions, forgetting that I was a stranger and a foreigner there,
and as powerless as the weakest of the oppressed around me, I sprang
forward, and heard my voice commanding the executioners to desist, as
they valued their lives.
The Amazons at once dropped their uplifted bamboos, and "Why so?" asked
the judge. "At least till I can plead for Tuptim before his Majesty,"
I replied. "So be it," said the wretch; "go your way; we will wait
your return."[5] Tuptim was unbound, and the moment she was released
she crouched down and concealed herself under the folds of the canvas
litter in which the priest lay motionless and silent.
I forced my way through the curious crowd, who stood on tiptoe and
with necks outstretched, trying to get a sight of the guilty pair.
On leaving the hall, I met the slave-girl Phim, who followed me into
the palace, wringing her hands and sobbing bitterly. The king was
in his breakfast-hall, and the smell of food made me feel sick and
dizzy as I climbed the lofty staircase, for I had eaten nothing that
day. Nevertheless, I walked as rapidly as possible up to the chair in
which the king was seated, fearing that I might lose my courage if
I deliberated a moment. "Your Majesty," I began to say, in a voice
that seemed quite strange to me, "I beg, I entreat your pity on poor
Tuptim. I assure you that she is innocent. If you had known from the
beginning that she was betrothed to another man, you would never have
taken her to be your wife. She is not guilty; and the priest, too, is
innocent. Oh! do be gracious to them and forgive them both! I pray
your Majesty to give me a scrap of writing to say that she is forgiven,
and that the priest, too, is pardoned, through your goodness; only
let me--" My voice failed me, and I sank upon the floor by the king's
chair. "I beg your Majesty's pardon--" "You are mad," said the monarch;
and, fixing a cold stare upon me, he burst out laughing in my face. I
started to my feet as if I had received a blow. Staggering to a pillar,
and leaning against it, I stood looking at him. I saw that there was
something indescribably revolting about him, something fiendish in his
character which had never struck me before, and I was seized with an
inexpressible horror of the man. Stupefied and amazed quite as much at
finding myself there as at the new development I witnessed, thought and
speech alike failed me, and I turned to go away.
"Madam," said that man to me, "come back. I have granted your petition,
and the woman will be condemned to work in the rice-mill. You need not
return to the court-house. You had better go to the school now."
I could not thank him; the revulsion of feeling was too great. I
understood him perfectly, but I had no power to speak. I went away
without a word, and at the head of the stairs met one of the women
judges bringing some papers in her hand to the king. Instead of going
to the school I went home, utterly sick and prostrated.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: "The English Governess at the Siamese Court," p. 95.]
[Footnote 5: I cannot account for the regard paid to my words on this
and other occasions by the officers of the court, except from the fact
of the general belief that I had great influence with the king, and
the supposition entertained by many that I was a member of the Secret
Council, which is, in reality, the supreme power in Siam.]