Our blue chamber overlooked the attap roofs of a long row of houses,
badly disfigured by the stains and wear of many a wet season, in which
our next neighbor, a Mohammedan of patriarchal aspect and demeanor,
stored bags of sugar, waiting for a rise in the market. This worthy paid
us the honor of a visit every afternoon, and in the snug little eastern
chamber consecrated to the studies and meditations of my Persian teacher
propounded solemn problems from the Alkoran.
Under Moonshee's window the tops of houses huddled, presenting forms
more or less fantastic according to the purse or caprice of the
proprietors. The shrewd old man was not long in finding tenants for all
these roofs, and could even tell the social status and the means of
each. It tickled his vanity to find himself domiciled in so aristocratic
a quarter. Our house--more Oriental than European in its
architecture--was comparatively new, having been erected upon the site
of the old palace, the _débris_ of which had furnished the materials of
which it was constructed. Among the loose slabs of marble and fragments
of pottery that turned up with the promiscuous rubbish every day, we
sometimes found surfaces of stone bearing Siamese or Cambodian
inscriptions; others with grotesque figures in bass-relief, taken from
the mythology of the Hindoos. Had these relics a charm for Moonshee, and
was he animated by the antiquarian's enthusiasm, that he delved away
hour after hour, unearthing, with his spade, bricks and stones and tiles
and slabs? I was at a loss to account for this new freak in the old man;
but seeing him infatuated with his eccentric pursuit, and Boy enraptured
over grubs and snails and bits of broken figures, the resurrections of
the nimble spade, I left them to their cheap and harmless bliss.
One evening, as I sat musing in the piazza, with my book unopened on my
lap, I heard Boy's clear voice ringing in happy, musical peals of
laughter that drew me to him. On the edge of a deep hole, in a corner of
the compound, sat Moonshee, an effigy of doleful disappointment, and
beside him stood the lad, clapping his little hands and laughing
merrily. The old child had taken the young one into his confidence, and
by their joint exertions they had dug this hole in search of treasure;
and lo! at the bottom lay something that looked like a rusty purse. With
a long look and a throbbing heart Moonshee, after several empty hauls,
had fished it up; and it was--a toad! a huge, unsightly, yellow toad!
"May the foul fiend fly away with thee!" cried the enthusiast in his
rage, as he flung the astonished reptile back into the pit, and sat down
to bewail his _kismut_, while Boy made merry with his groans.
For some days the spade was neglected, though I observed, from the
cautious drift of his remarks at the conclusion of our evening lesson,
that Moonshee's thoughts still harped on hidden treasure. The fervid
imagination of the child had uncovered to his mind's eye mines of
wealth, awaiting only the touch of the magic spade to bare their golden
veins to the needs of his Mem Sahib and himself. There was no dispelling
his golden visions by any shock of hard sense; the more he dreamed the
more he believed. But the spot? the right spot? "Only wait."
Another week elapsed, and Boy and I worked harder than ever in our
school in the cool pavilion. I had flung off the dead weight of my
stubborn repinings, and my heart was light again. There were delightful
discoveries of beauty in the artless, childish faces that greeted us
every morning; and now the only wonder was that I had been so slow to
penetrate the secret of their charm. That eager, radiant elf, the
Princess Somdetch Chow Fâ-ying, [Footnote: "First-Born of the Skies."]
the king's darling (of whom, by and by, I shall have a sadder tale to
tell), had become a sprite of sunshine and gladness amid the sombre
shadows of those walls. In her deep, dark, lustrous eyes, her simple,
trusting ways, there was a springtide of refreshment, a pure, pervading
radiance, that brightened the darkest thing it touched. Even the grim
hags of the harem felt its influence, and softened in her presence.
As Boy was reciting his tasks one morning before breakfast, Moonshee
entered the room with one of his profoundest salaams, and an expression
at once so earnest and so comical that I anxiously asked him what was
the matter. Panting alike with the eagerness of childhood and the
feebleness of age, he stammered, "I have something of the greatest
importance to confide to you, Mem Sahib! Now is the time! Now you shall
prove the devotion of your faithful Moonshee, who swears by Allah not to
touch a grain of gold without your leave, in all those bursting sacks,
if Mem Sahib will but lend him ten ticals, only ten ticals, to buy a
screw-driver!"
"What in the world can you want with a screw-driver, Moonshee?"
"O Mem, listen to me!" he cried, his face glowing with the very rapture
of possession; "I have discovered the exact spot on which the old duke,
Somdetch Ong Yai, expired. It is a secret, a wonderful secret, Mem
Sahib; not a creature in all Siam knows it."
"Then how came you by it," I inquired, "seeing that you know not one
word of the language, which you have bravely scorned as unworthy to be
uttered by the Faithful, and of no use on earth but to confound
philosophers and Moonshees?"
"_Sunnoh, sunnoh!_ [Footnote: "Listen, listen!"] Mem Sahib! No human
tongue revealed it to me. It was the Angè Gibhrayeel. [Footnote: The
Angel Gabriel.] He came to me last night as I slept, and said, 'O son of
Jaffur Khan! to your prayers is granted the knowledge that, for all
these years, has been denied to Kafirs. Arise! obey! and with humility
receive the treasures reserved for thee, thou faithful follower of the
Prophet!' And so saying he struck the golden palms he bore in his hand;
and though I was now awake, Mem Sahib, I was so overpowered by the
beauty and effulgence of his person, that I was as one about to die. The
radiant glory of his wings, which were of the hue of sapphires, blinded
my vision; I could neither speak nor see. But I felt the glow of his
presence and heard the rustle of his pinions, as once more he beat the
golden palms and cried, 'Behold, O son of Jaffur Khan! behold the spot
where lie the treasures of that haughty Kafir chief!' I arose, and
immediately the angel flashed from my sight; and as I gazed there
appeared a luminous golden hen with six golden chickens, which pecked at
bits of blazing coal that, as they cooled, became nuggets of pure gold.
When suddenly I beheld a great light as of _rooshnees_, [Footnote:
Fire-balls.] and it burst upon the spot where the hen had been; and then
all was darkness again. Mem Sahib, your servant ran down and placed a
stone upon that spot, and kneeling on that stone, with his face to the
south, repeated his five Kalemahs." [Footnote: Thanksgivings.]
I am ashamed to say I laughed; whereat the old man was so mortified that
he vowed the next time the angel appeared to him, he would call us all
to see. I accepted the condition; and even promised that if I saw the
nuggets of pure gold that Gabriel's chickens pecked, I would immediately
accommodate him with the ten ticals to invest in a screw-driver. So
perfect was his faith in the vision, that he accepted the promise with
complete satisfaction.
Not many nights after this extraordinary apparition, we were aroused by
Beebe and her husband calling, "Awake, awake!" Thinking the house was on
fire, I threw on my dressing-gown and ran into the next room with Boy in
my arms. There was indeed a fire, but it was in a distant corner of the
yard. The night was dark, a thick mist rose from the river, and the
gusty puffs of wind that now and then swept through the compound caused
the wood fire to flare up and flicker, casting fitful and fantastic
shadows around. Moonshee stared, with fixed eyes, expecting every moment
the reappearance of the supernatural poultry; but I, being as yet
sceptical, descended the stairs, followed by my trembling household, and
approached the spot.
On a remnant of matting, with a stone for a pillow, lay an old Siamese
woman asleep. Driven by the heat to the relief of the open air, she had
kindled a fire to keep off the mosquitoes.
"Now, Moonshee," said I, "here is your Angel Gabriel. Don't you ever
again trouble me for ticals to invest in screw-drivers."