RESCUED.
The question was decided in a startling manner. First, there was the
sound of crashing of boughs, as if wild beasts were forcing their way
through the thicket; then a burst of yells, which certainly came from
human throats. The Karens started with alarm, put down the litters,
and cried out, “Shans,” which Coldstream knew to be the name of a tribe
living farther towards the north. The next minute the clearing in the
wood was filled with a wild band of half-clothed Siamese, shouting and
flourishing rude weapons which flashed in the moonlight. Coldstream had
no time to make even an attempt at resistance. The Shans knew that the
Englishman was the one of the party most likely to show fight, so they
made a determined rush from all sides on the unarmed man. A heavy blow
brought Oscar to the earth, and as he struggled to regain his feet a
dozen dark hands seized him, and with ropes wrenched from Maha’s small
litter Coldstream was tightly bound to a tree with his arms fastened
behind him. The whole affair passed so rapidly that the bewildered,
terrified Io had scarcely time to understand what had happened before
she saw her husband a helpless prisoner, and herself in the hands of
a wild, lawless band! Io’s alarm was great, but even her terror was
as nothing compared to the agony of mind endured by her husband, who
forgot his own danger in witnessing hers. Oscar could not even gasp
forth a prayer; the fearful thought which had come to him before, that
he was doomed to suffer through the wife whom he passionately loved,
came on him again with agony so intense that a dagger plunged into his
side would have inflicted less pain. Could Oscar’s thoughts have been
clothed in words they would have been, “I refused to pluck out the
right eye; and now _both_ eyes will be torn from me, and nothing remain
to a wretch but the blackness of darkness for ever.”
It was a terrible moment, but scarcely more than a moment, for suddenly,
as if he had dropped from the skies, another form appeared on the scene.
The Shans who had seized the shrieking Maha relaxed their grasp and
fell back; they evidently recognized the new-comer, and re-echoed the
exclamation which burst from the lips of every one of the Karens, “Ko
Thah Byu!”
The Karen evangelist strode fearlessly into the very midst of the
throng, and sternly wrenched away a dark hand that was grasping the
shoulder of Io. The Shans fell back as if awed by the presence of one
whom they knew to be a messenger of God.
Ko Thah Byu was not a man of majestic presence, nor did his appearance
denote remarkable personal strength. He was past the meridian of life,
and his dark hair and eyebrows were here and there streaked with white;
but the eyes that flashed under those grizzled brows, and his firm,
resolute mouth, marked the Karen as one born to exercise sway over
his fellow-men. It has been written of the Karen apostle, when he had
been seen preaching to a large congregation of Burmese, that “their
attention seemed to be riveted on his flashing eyes, less apparently
from love than from an indescribable power that may best be compared to
the fascinating influence of the serpent over an unconscious brood of
chickens.”
Like a master startling his slaves in the commission of an act of
disobedience, Ko Thah Byu’s silent look conveyed stern reproof to the
robbers. One glance, one gesture of his hand, and a Shan at once gave
up to the Karen a gleaming knife. Ko Thah Byu walked up to the tree
to which Oscar was tied and cut his bonds. Not a single word had been
spoken by the singular Karen, but when he opened his lips there came
forth a burst of indignant eloquence, unintelligible to his English
hearers, who knew not the dialect of the Shans, but which had evidently
a thrilling effect on the untutored listeners around. The Shans shrank
back, as if ashamed, while a murmur of assent and applause burst from
the Karens.
Then the stern manner of Ko Thah Byu changed, and with simple native
courtesy he approached Mr. Coldstream, whom he addressed in the Karen
language.
“Let not our white brother and sister fear aught,” he said; “no one
will lay a finger upon them.”
At a gesture from Ko Thah Byu the Karens began trying to replace the
ropes that had been wrenched from Maha’s litter.
“No use――they have been cut. I will walk; my brothers are around me,”
said Maha.
Only Karens were left, for the Shans were retiring into the jungle from
which they had so unexpectedly emerged.
“Will the sahib and mem return to Mouang?” said Ko Thah Byu. “It is not
well to pass through the forest at night.”
Oscar assented by a silent inclination of the head. At first he could
not utter a word, the revulsion from utter despair was so great. Io
made up for her husband’s silence by giving fervent thanks to her
deliverer in broken Karen, as she resumed her seat on her litter.
“It was all God’s doing, mem sahib,” said Ko Thah Byu in gentle tones,
which curiously contrasted with his loud, impassioned address to the
Shans. “Ko Thah Byu was on his way to Mouang, hoping to reach it before
night should make the forest path dark. Ko Thah Byu sat by yon ruin,
and read his book, and fell asleep, like the man in the pilgrim-story
of whom the _padri_ [clergyman] tells. Ko Thah Byu rose, and forgot his
book, and went on his way, and trod many steps towards Mouang ere his
loss was known. Karen servant of Christ had to go back; but he found
the book, and now the reason why he lost it is clear as the moon in the
sky. Karen at Mouang would not know of the white mem’s trouble; Karen
in the wood could give help. All was right――all is ever right that our
Father God does for His children.”
“All was indeed ordered in mercy,” observed Io to her husband as he
walked beside her litter, which was borne on again by the Karens. “My
Oscar, at the worst, the very worst, I thought that the Lord would come
to our help. I prayed very hard in my terror, and I am sure that you
prayed too.”
“No, I did not pray,” was the gloomy reply, which astonished and
distressed the young wife.
“O Oscar! I felt as if the Lord’s loving hand were holding me up,” she
exclaimed.
“You saw the hand stretched forth to save; I saw the hand upraised to
strike.”
Oscar had no sooner uttered the unguarded words than he wished them
unsaid. The party were passing under the deep shadow of the dark trees;
the torches were some way in front. Oscar could not see on his wife’s
face the effect of the sentence which had escaped from him in a moment
of anguish; still less could he know its effect on her mind, for Io
uttered not another word until Mouang was reached. The exclamation of
Oscar had been to her like a fearful revelation――a sudden gleam on a
dark subject, but such a gleam as a flash of forked lightning might
give.
“Oscar not pray――at such a moment of peril not be able to pray!” so
ran Io’s troubled current of thought. “He――the noble, the good, the
pious――he could only see our loving Father’s hand upraised to strike!
What fearful mystery lies beneath this? We have long seen my husband’s
sadness, and made guesses――oh, what wrong guesses!――as to its cause.
What could so shut out a Christian from communion with God but _sin_?
My beloved one’s life is as pure as mortal’s can be; there can be
nothing in the present to weigh so heavily on his conscience as to
crush out the spirit of prayer. Can it be possible that there has been
something in the past which to one so sensitive to the least touch of
evil, one who so abhors the smallest error, may appear to be a very
serious sin? Oh that Oscar would confide all to his wife, to one who
would not love him less whatever he might have done!”
Then Io’s thoughts fell naturally into the channel of prayer. She
had very often before pleaded for her husband――she had wrestled in
intercession at the time of his illness, and again and again after
her marriage――but never with more intense, agonized earnestness than
she did now, with her litter for an oratory, and the black, sombre
night as a curtain around her. Her head bowed on her clasped hands,
and the tears wetting her pale cheeks, Io prayed in the gloomy forest.
Then suddenly the litter emerged into moonlight, and the calm holy
brightness around seemed like an earnest of answer to prayer.
“We are going for the third time to Mouang,” thought Io as she leant
back in her litter and closed her eyes, Oscar thought in sleep. “It
seems as if some invisible cord drew us to a spot of which yesterday we
knew not even the name. May it be that some strange blessing awaits us
there. May it be that the guiding Hand which is leading us on in this
land of strangers is taking us to a place where my Oscar’s darkness
will pass away, and where he will see and know that goodness and mercy
have followed, and will follow him still, all the days of his life.”