THE DEAF AND DUMB CHANGELING.
In the next morning's cheerful daylight I set out to resume once more
my school routine within the sombre walls of the "invincible" city.
But, as we proceeded on our way, we were surprised to see knots and
clusters of people reading with absorbing interest huge placards
written in Siamese, Pali, Cambodian, Birmese, Peguan, and every other
language spoken by the many distinct peoples who inhabit the mountains
and valleys watered by the great river Mèinam, and posted all along the
imperial walls.
Here was another mystery.
I could read printed Siamese and Pali tolerably well. But the written
characters, wherein every scholar invents an orthography of his own,
baffled all my linguistic efforts, and not a glimmering of light could
the numberless questions I put to many of the curious readers procure
for me; they were as afraid to speak of royalty as of the devil, lest
he should appear. So I went on to school to find the same mysterious
announcements, which had sprung up like mushrooms during the night,
running zigzag over all the walls, and playing hide and seek along the
dark, narrow lanes and streets, only to elude my strictest inquiries.
Now, to tell the truth, as I was treasonably disposed against slavery
and polygamy and several other gross abuses that grew out of them,
and had stoutly set my face against them from the very first day of
my installation as teacher in the palace, I began to fear that these
placards might concern me and my teachings; so when school closed I
went to see my friend, Lady Thieng. But she was even more mysterious
than the unintelligible hieroglyphics on the walls, looking at me
curiously, and shaking her head in a solemn manner, and feeling me
all over in a pathetic way, so as to reassure herself that I was not
a spirit, but made of flesh and bones like herself, and could not
have been, as she had begun secretly to suspect, at Bijrepuree and at
Bangkok at the same time.
She then gravely asked me if I had ever practised sorcery or
witchcraft. My lips trembled with irrepressible laughter as I assured
her I had not as yet enjoyed the good fortune of knowing a real witch;
but that nothing in the world would please me better than to be
introduced to one who would give me lessons in that art. She admonished
me sternly for my levity, and went on to say that there had really been
a very powerful sorceress in the palace during the king's absence at
Bijrepuree, who had, unseen by human eye, conjured away the beautiful
and disconsolate princess, and left in her place a rustic deaf and dumb
slave-girl.
Amazed and altogether taken by surprise, I looked into my friend's
face in unspeakable sorrow. My heart whispered to me the last words of
May-Peâh, "I do not know what I am going to do, but something shall be
done to save her, even if I die for it." I could not bring myself to
ask another question, I was so afraid of confirming my worst fears.
I had learned to love that slave-woman better than her mistress, and
would have braved a thousand perils if I had thought I could save her
through them.
"I wish," cried Thieng, at last, in a sudden burst, as if her thoughts
had been going on in this strain and only broke from her when she could
restrain herself no longer,--"I wish that this deaf and dumb slave-girl
could be exorcised and made to speak, and then we would know how it
happened, and how the old witch looked.
"O dear! O dear! I am afraid for my life and the lives of my poor
children; and even the very stones out of which this dismal city is
built inspire me with dread and horror," said poor Thieng, ruefully;
"and do you know?" she added,--her eyes growing rounder and rounder
every moment, as the awfulness of the situation presented itself
to her mind,--"his Majesty has shut himself up in his topmost
chamber, and guards are set at all the doors and windows, lest any
suspicious-looking person should enter, and no one but only the old
lady-physician, Khoon Maw Prang, is allowed to see him to serve his
meals, and he won't come down till the palace and whole city has been
exorcised. And there will be no school to-morrow," she continued,
growing more and more communicative, "for he has ordered all the royal
children to be shut up in their homes until noon, when the old devil
shall have been driven out by the priests of Brahma; and the priests of
Buddha will then purify the city with burning incense and sprinkling
the houses, walls, and all its inhabitants with holy water."
Up to the last moment a natural cause for the disappearance of the
Princess Sunartha Vismita never even presented itself to the mind of my
simple-hearted friend, and I was not a little comforted, for the sake
of the strange Laotian woman, to find that it was thought so absolutely
the work of some supernatural agent. For Thieng also told me that the
court astrologers and wizards were trying to unravel the mystery; that
large rewards had been promised to them if they could throw any light
on the subject; and, lastly, that the two Laotian captives, with the
deaf and dumb changeling, were to be exorcised and examined in the
ecclesiastical court on the following day by the "wise" men and women
in the country.
After which the poor unhappy lady laid her head down upon her pillow,
utterly grieved and terrified by her fears. I tried in vain to comfort
her. But what between her dread of the supernatural and her misgivings
that to-morrow the chances were that certain accusations against
herself and me, as secret agents of some devilish sorceress, might be
brought forward with unanswerable logic, she was quite inconsolable and
greatly to be pitied.
I believe she would have been content to give her life, ere day broke,
only to catch a glimpse of the poor unfortunate princess whom the demon
had thus maliciously kidnapped and carried off.
The only thing I could say, that seemed in the slightest degree
to soothe her, was that I would endeavor to be present at the
ecclesiastical court at the time appointed for the exorcism, and obtain
such intelligence of its proceedings, and the facts elicited during
the trial, as my imperfect knowledge of the technical language and
formalities of the Siamese courts would enable me to gather for her.