"Then where will you go in the evening?"
"Not anywhere, your Excellency. I simply desire to secure for myself and
my child some hours of privacy and rest, when my duties do not require
my presence elsewhere."
"How many years your husband has been dead?" he asked.
I replied that his Excellency had no right to pry into my domestic
concerns. His business was with me as a governess only; on any other
subject I declined conversing. I enjoyed the expression of blank
amazement with which he regarded me on receiving this somewhat defiant
reply. "_Tam chai!_" ("Please yourself!") he said, and proceeded to pace
to and fro, but without turning his eyes from my face, or ceasing to
smile. Then he said something to his attendants, five or six of whom,
raising themselves on their knees, with their eyes fixed upon the
carpet, crawled backward till they reached the steps, bobbed their heads
and shoulders, started spasmodically to their feet, and fled from the
apartment. My boy, who had been awed and terrified, began to cry, and I
too was startled. Again he uttered the harsh gutturals, and instantly,
as with an electric shock, another half-dozen of the prostrate slaves
sprang up and ran. Then he resumed his mysterious promenade, still
carefully keeping an eye upon us, and smiling by way of conversation. It
was long before I could imagine what we were to do. Boy, fairly
tortured, cried "Come home, mamma! why don't you come home? I don't like
that man." His Excellency halted, and sinking his voice ominously, said,
"You no can go!" Boy clutched my dress, and hid his face and smothered
his sobs in my lap; and yet, attracted, fascinated, the poor little
fellow from time to time looked up, only to shudder, tremble, and hide
his face again. For his sake I was glad when the interpreter returned on
all fours. Pushing one elbow straight out before the other, in the
manner of these people, he approached his master with such a salutation
as might be offered to deity; and with a few more unintelligible
utterances, his Excellency bowed to us, and disappeared behind a mirror.
All the curious, peering eyes that had been directed upon us from every
nook and corner where a curtain hung, instantly vanished; and at the
same time sweet, wild music, like the tinkling of silver bells in the
distance, fell upon our ears.
To my astonishment the interpreter stood boldly upright, and began to
contemplate his irresistible face and figure in a glass, and arrange
with cool coxcombry his darling tuft of hair; which done, he approached
us with a mild swagger, and proceeded to address me with a freedom which
I found it expedient to snub. I told him that, although I did not
require any human being to go down on his face and hands before me, I
should nevertheless tolerate no familiarity or disrespect from any one.
The fellow understood me well enough, but did not permit me to recover
immediately from my surprise at the sudden change in his bearing and
tone. As he led us to the two elegant rooms reserved for us in the west
end of the palace, he informed us that he was the Premier's
half-brother, and hinted that I would be wise to conciliate him if I
wished to have my own way. In the act of entering one of the rooms, I
turned upon him angrily, and bade him be off. The next moment this
half-brother of a Siamese magnate was kneeling in abject supplication in
the half-open doorway, imploring me not to report him to his Excellency,
and promising never to offend again. Here was a miracle of repentance I
had not looked for; but the miracle was sham. Rage, cunning, insolence,
servility, and hypocrisy were vilely mixed in the minion.
Our chambers opened on a quiet piazza, shaded by fruit-trees in blossom,
and overlooking a small artificial lake stocked with pretty, sportive
fish.
To be free to make a stunning din is a Siamese woman's idea of perfect
enjoyment. Hardly were we installed in our apartments when, with a
pell-mell rush and screams of laughter, the ladies of his Excellency's
private Utah reconnoitred us in force. Crowding in through the half-open
door, they scrambled for me with eager curiosity, all trying at once to
embrace me boisterously, and promiscuously chattering in shrill
Siamese,--a bedlam of parrots; while I endeavored to make myself
impartially agreeable in the language of signs and glances. Nearly all
were young; and in symmetry of form, delicacy of feature, and fairness
of complexion, decidedly superior to the Malay women I had been
accustomed to. Most of them might have been positively attractive, but
for their ingeniously ugly mode of clipping the hair and blackening the
teeth.
The youngest were mere children, hardly more than fourteen years old.
All were arrayed in rich materials, though the fashion did not differ
from that of their slaves, numbers of whom were prostrate in the rooms
and passages. My apartments were ablaze with their crimson, blue,
orange, and purple, their ornaments of gold, their rings and brilliants,
and their jewelled boxes. Two or three of the younger girls satisfied my
Western ideas of beauty, with their clear, mellow, olive complexions,
and their almond-shaped eyes, so dark yet glowing. Those among them who
were really old were simply hideous and repulsive. One wretched crone
shuffled through the noisy throng with an air of authority, and pointing
to Boy lying in my lap, cried, "_Moolay, moolay!_" "Beautiful,
beautiful!" The familiar Malay word fell pleasantly on my ear, and I was
delighted to find some one through whom I might possibly control the
disorderly bevy around me. I addressed her in Malay. Instantly my
visitors were silent, and waiting in attitudes of eager attention.
She told me she was one of the many custodians of the harem. She was a
native of Quedah; and "some sixty years ago," she and her sister,
together with other young Malay girls, were captured while working in
the fields by a party of Siamese adventurers. They were brought to Siam
and sold as slaves. At first she mourned miserably for her home and
parents. But while she was yet young and attractive she became a
favorite of the late Somdetch Ong Yai, father of her present lord, and
bore him two sons, just as "moolay, moolay" as my own darling. But they
were dead. (Here, with the end of her soiled silk scarf she furtively
wiped a tear from her face, no longer ugly.) And her gracious lord was
dead also; it was he who gave her this beautiful gold betel-box.
"But how is it that you are still a slave?" I asked.
"I am old and ugly and childless: and therefore, to be trusted by my
dead lord's son, the beneficent prince, upon whose head be
blessings,"--clasping her withered hands, and turning toward that part
of the palace where, no doubt, he was enjoying a "beneficent" nap.
"And now it is my privilege to watch and guard these favored ones, that
they see no man but their lord."
The repulsive uncomeliness of this woman had been wrought by oppression
out of that which must have been beautiful once; for the spirit of
beauty came back to her for a moment, with the passing memories that
brought her long-lost treasures with them. In the brutal tragedy of a
slave's experience,--a female slave in the harem of an Asian
despot,--the native angel in her had been bruised, mutilated, defaced,
deformed, but not quite obliterated.
Her story ended, the younger women, to whom her language had been
strange, could no longer suppress their merriment, nor preserve the
decorum due to her age and authority. Again they swarmed about me like
bees, plying me pertinaciously with questions, as to my age, husband,
children, country, customs, possessions; and presently crowned the
inquisitorial performance by asking, in all seriousness, if I should not
like to be the wife of the prince, their lord, rather than of the
terrible Chow-che-witt. [Footnote: Chow-che-witt,--"Prince of
life,"--the supreme king.]
Here was a monstrous suggestion that struck me dumb. Without replying, I
rose and shook them off, retiring with my boy into the inner chamber.
But they pursued me without compunction, repeating the extraordinary
"conundrum," and dragging the Malay duenna along with them to interpret
my answer. The intrusion provoked me; but, considering their beggarly
poverty of true life and liberty, of hopes and joys, and loves and
memories, and holy fears and sorrows, with which a full and true
response might have twitted them, I was ashamed to be vexed.
Seeing it impossible to rid myself of them, I promised to answer their
question, on condition that they would leave me for that day.
Immediately all eyes were fixed upon me.
"The prince, your lord, and the king, your Chow-che-witt, are pagans," I
said. "An English, that is a Christian, woman would rather be put to the
torture, chained and dungeoned for life, or suffer a death the slowest
and most painful you Siamese know, than be the wife of either."
They remained silent in astonishment, seemingly withheld from speaking
by an instinctive sentiment of respect; until one, more volatile than
the rest, cried, "What! not if he gave you all these jewelled rings and
boxes, and these golden things?"
When the old woman, fearing to offend, whispered this test question in
Malay to me, I laughed at the earnest eyes around, and said: "No, not
even then. I am only here to teach the royal family. I am not like you.
You have nothing to do but to play and sing and dance for your master;
but I have to work for my children; and one little one is now on the
great ocean, and I am very sad."
Shades of sympathy, more or less deep, flitted across the faces of my
audience, and for a moment they regarded me as something they could
neither convince nor comfort nor understand. Then softly repeating
_Poot-thoo! Poot-thoo!_ "Dear God! dear God!" they quietly left me. A
minute more, and I heard them laughing and shouting in the halls.
Relieved of my curious and exacting visitors, I lay down and fell into a
deep sleep, from which I was suddenly awakened, in the afternoon, by the
cries of Beebe, who rushed into the chamber, her head bare, her fine
muslin veil trampled under her feet, and her face dramatically
expressive of terror and despair. Moonshee, her husband, ignorant alike
of the topography, the language, and the rules of the place, had by
mistake intruded in the sacred penetralia where lounged the favorite of
the harem, to the lively horror of that shrinking Nourmahal, and the
general wrath of the old women on guard, two of whom, the ugliest,
fiercest, and most muscular, had dragged him, daft and trembling, to
summary inquisition.
I followed Beebe headlong to an open sala, where we found that
respectable servant of the Prophet, his hands tied, his turban off,
woe-begone but resigned; faithful and philosophic Moslem that he was, he
only waited for his throat to be cut, since it was his _kismut_, his
perverse destiny, that had brought him to such a region of _Kafirs_,
(infidels). Assuring him that there was nothing to fear, I despatched a
messenger in search of the interpreter, while Beebe wept and protested.
Presently an imposing personage stalked upon the scene, whose appearance
matched his temper and his conduct. This was the judge. In vain I strove
to explain to him by signs and gestures that my servant had offended
unwittingly; he could not or would not understand me; but stormed away
at our poor old man, who bore his abuse with the calm indifference of
profound ignorance, having never before been cursed in a foreign
language.
The loafers of the yards and porches shook off their lazy naps and
gathered round us; and among them came the interpreter, insolent
satisfaction beaming in his bad face. He coolly declined to interfere,
protesting that it was not his business, and that the judge would be
offended if he offered to take part in the proceedings. Moonshee was
condemned to be stripped, and beaten with twenty strokes. Here was an
end to my patience. Going straight up to the judge, I told him that if a
single lash was laid upon the old man's back (which was bared as I
spoke), he should suffer tenfold, for I would immediately lay the matter
before the British Consul. Though I spoke in English, he caught the
familiar words "British Consul," and turning to the interpreter,
demanded the explanation he should have listened to before he pronounced
sentence. But even as the interpreter was jabbering away to the
unreasonable functionary, the assembly was agitated with what the French
term a "sensation." Judge, interpreter, and all fell upon their faces,
doubling themselves up; and there stood the Premier, who took in the
situation at a glance, ordered Moonshee to be released, and permitted
him at my request to retire to the room allotted to Beebe. While the
slaves were alert in the execution of these benevolent commands, the
interpreter slunk away on his face and elbows. But the old Moslem, as
soon as his hands were free, picked up his turban, advanced, and laid it
at the feet of his deliverer, with the graceful salutation of his
people, "Peace be with thee, O Vizier of a wise king!" The mild and
venerable aspect of the Moonshee, and his snow-white beard falling low
upon his breast, must have inspired the Siamese statesman with abiding
feelings of respect and consideration, for he was ever afterward
indulgent to that Oriental Dominie Sampson of my little household.
Dinner at the Premier's was composed and served with the same
incongruous blending of the barbaric and the refined, the Oriental and
the European, that characterized the furniture and adornments of his
palace. The saucy little pages who handled the dishes had cigarettes
between their pouting lips, and from time to time hopped over the heads
of Medusæ to expectorate. When I pointed reproachfully to the double
peccadillo, they only laughed and scampered off. Another detachment of
these lads brought in fruits, and, when they had set the baskets or
dishes on the table, retired to sofas to lounge till we had dined. But
finding I objected to such manners, they giggled gayly, performed
several acrobatic feats on the carpet, and left us to wait on ourselves.
Twilight on my pretty piazza. The fiery sun is setting, and long pencils
of color, from palettes of painted glass, touch with rose and gold the
low brow and downcast eyes and dainty bosom of a bust of Clyte. Beebe
and Moonshee are preparing below in the open air their evening meal; and
the smoke of their pottage is borne slowly, heavily on the hot still
air, stirred only by the careless laughter of girls plunging and
paddling in the dimpled lake. The blended gloom and brightness without
enter, and interweave themselves with the blended gloom and brightness
within, where lights and shadows lie half asleep and half awake, and
life breathes itself sluggishly away, or drifts on a slumberous stream
toward its ocean of death.