THE REBEL DUKE P'HAYA SI P'HIFOOR.
In the year 1831 a revolutionary war broke out in the northern
provinces of Siam. The ringleader of this disaffected part of the
country was the Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor, a man who, from his high
position, great warlike talents, and immense wealth, possessed an
unbounded influence over the inhabitants of the northern provinces. It
is said that even from his infancy the demon Ambition had taken such
possession of him that he used to imagine himself a king, and that,
from that time to the fatal termination of his life, he dreamt of
nothing but the sceptre and the supreme sway.
It was one of his first efforts, therefore, to gather from distant
lands all the disaffected and ambitious spirits he could muster
together,--men who would be brave and skilful enough to take the helm
in the storm that must follow his inexorable bidding.
In 1821 he sent secret agents by an Indian merchant ship to Calcutta to
enlist for him a troop of hardy warriors of the Rajpoot tribe. Among
this troop hired in Calcutta and transshipped to Siam was our prisoner,
Rama Singalee,--Rama the lion. He, with the rest of his party, had been
implicated in some incipient rebellion against the British government,
and had fled for concealment to the densely populated city of Calcutta,
where, after several years of hard struggling to obtain some means of
livelihood not derogatory to their high caste, they were induced to
sell their services to the agent of the Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor. This
band of hired mercenaries landed secretly in the Gulf of Martaban, at
the mouth of the Irrawady, whence by night travel they arrived at P'hra
Batt. Here portions of land in the tenure of the duke were allotted to
them, and they were dispersed until a fitting opportunity should offer
for striking the final blow which was to place their master on the
throne of Siam, and themselves in offices of trust in the kingdom.
So things went on for several years, when Rama fell in love with a
Loatian girl of singular beauty, but could not collect money enough to
satisfy the demands of her parents.
It was the custom of the Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor to make an annual
visit to P'hra Batt, ostensibly with varied offerings to the footprint
of Buddha, from which the whole mountainous district is named, but in
reality to muster his retainers, give them presents, and exact fresh
promises of service, or to traverse the entire country gaining fresh
adherents to his cause.
On one occasion a dreadful fever ravaged his party; many of them had
to be left at the different monasteries to be cared for, while Rama
and a few followers only accompanied him. Just as the sun was setting
behind the mountains, Rama, who acted as pioneer, heard the sound of
some animal in the thick underwood. He crept quickly back, motioned his
companions to halt, and advanced alone. A few yards from him he saw a
tiger, immovable, yet stealthily watching his opportunity to make a
spring. Night was fast approaching, and so was death; but Rama drew
near, his eyes fixed steadily and unfalteringly on those of the beast.
At last he took his position, and for a moment or two they glared one
upon the other. Then in the distance the rest of the party, breathless,
their hearts beating quickly, heard the dismal roar of a goaded and
infuriate animal, and the heavy blows of a battle-axe. Their terror was
only equalled by their joy when they saw the huge creature extended
before them in death. The duke came up, and instantly rewarded the
brave warrior with a hundred pieces of gold.
Gold enough to buy Malee, the beautiful Loatian girl!
Next morning he prostrated himself before the duke, and requested
permission to return at once to P'hra Batt, which was granted him. Thus
did the Rajpoot obtain to wife the woman he loved.
Meanwhile the duke, still cherishing his darling ambition, consulted
all the astrologers in the country, who drew auguries from ants,
spiders, and bees, and predicted for him a brilliant career. This so
worked upon the already inflamed imagination of P'haya Si P'hifoor,
that he was led, in an unguarded moment, to throw down the gauntlet and
declare open war against the king of Siam, whom he branded with the
titles of fox and usurper.
Through his secret emissaries he caused edicts to be proclaimed
everywhere, nominating himself in the name of the people and of heaven
as the lawful successor to the throne.
The entire army of the priesthood and the people were on his side.
Hosts of men from all parts of the country flocked to his standard. The
duke, mounted on a white elephant, headed the rabble crowd. Before him,
on horseback, rode the hired Rajpoot band of warriors.
Tidings of this alarming insurrection soon reached the enraged
monarch at Bangkok, who instantly summoned a council of war, and sent
trumpeters all over the land to blast forth a direful malediction,
in the name of all the hosts of heaven, upon the rebel duke and his
followers.
The rebel duke and his frenzied legions made rapid progress, however.
They could be seen covering the entire face of the country, rushing on
with shouts and cries and furious bounding of elephants and horses,
with flourish of trumpets and of banners,--a terrible, undisciplined,
myriad-faced monster, being neither burnt up with the scorching rays of
Suriya, nor scattered by the thunder-bolts of Indra. The king, who had
stormed so loud and so lustily from behind the purdah-curtain of his
throne, now trembled and cowered in the midst of his fifteen hundred
wives, and let the duke ride triumphantly, almost to the very gates of
his palace at Ayudia.
In this emergency the prime minister, Somdetch Ong Yai, the father of
the present premier, assumed the command of the army, transshipped all
the guns he could muster into small crafts,--the river at Ayudia being
too shallow for ships of great tonnage,--taking with them an ample
supply of ammunition, and with hardly twelve thousand men sailed up the
river, amid the shouts and prayers of the terrified inhabitants.
On their arrival at Ayudia the guns were conveyed on trucks to the
point whence the attack was expected. Here Somdetch Ong Yai hastily
erected several batteries, and awaited the attack.
Scarcely four hours had elapsed after the completion of these
preparations, when the whole neighborhood was aroused by the war-cry
of the rebel army, which appeared in sight, headed by the duke. The
Rajpoot cavalry, armed with long rifle-guns, bows and arrows, and
poisoned lances, prepared to storm the batteries. There was a moment
of fearful silence, followed by a flash and the thundering roar of
the artillery from the other side. The monster army of the rebel duke
reeled, scattered, and gave way, all but the Rajpoot cavalry, almost
every one of whom lay dead or dying on the field. The prime minister,
Somdetch Ong Yai, rushed forward and captured the rebel duke, wounding,
in the attempt, one gigantic, desperate soldier, who fought with a
recklessness of daring in behalf of his misguided leader that won the
admiration of friend and foe.
[Illustration: PALM-TREES NEAR THE NEW ROAD, BANGKOK.]
Where was the monster army now?
Of the dead and dying there were a thousand or more, of living captives
only two,--the Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor, and one faithful soldier, Rama
Singalee. The rest had, at the first sound of the cannon, fled far
beyond its range. Like a wave of the ocean it had swept out of sight.
P'haya Si P'hifoor was carried to Bangkok, tried, and sentenced to
death. A general amnesty was proclaimed, and the generous premier,
Somdetch Ong Yai, took Rama into his own household, had him cared for
and promoted to a place of trust. As for the wretched duke, on his
arrival at Bangkok he was condemned first to have his eyes put out,
and then to be placed in an iron cage, which was suspended from a
scaffolding in the middle of the river, so that the unfortunate captive
could manage just barely to touch with the tips of his fingers the
waters as they rippled under it.
Here he was left by that most inhuman of the kings of Siam, P'hendin
Klang, without food or raiment, exposed to the burning heat of the
noonday sun, to suffer from the acutest agonies of thirst, within
hearing and touch of the waters that flowed in perpetual eddies beneath
his feet.
How ardently must that poor, unhappy man have prayed for death; and
that dark angel, at all times too ready to come unbidden to the good
and happy, stood aloof, and seemed to mock at his misery for many and
many a weary day and night, until at length it began to be whispered
among the people--many of whom would gladly have brought him food and
drink, but for the dreadful punishment threatened on all such as should
attempt in any way to mitigate his tortures--that the angels, pitying
his sufferings, brought him nightly portions of the "amreeta," on which
they feed so plentifully in heaven.
But the truth was, that Rama Singalee was the stout-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 thô"
(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 Smâyâtee (the God smiles). Thus a new life stole into
the heart and the arms of the old warrior of Orissa.