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 about
His 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 and devotion, 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 on the 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 are in 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 the churches, 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 silver candlesticks, 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 that _you_ should 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
with lanterns 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,
retired to 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 their
death-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 accused the 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 the Buddhist'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 the wildest 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: This is one of the Buddhist customs adopted by the
Catholics for the purpose of securing the daughters of rich natives as
servants of the Church.]
[Footnote 43: One of the names of the mother of the Buddha.]