The Romance of the Harem

by Anna Harriette Leonowens

Now came the last and most important question, "Was the exorcism effectual?" To prove which a small taper was lighted and put into the witches' boat; and the whole company betook themselves to the borders of the stream to see it launched. The boat swept gallantly down the waters, and the feeble lamp burned brightly, without even a flicker,—for it was a calm day,—till it was brought to a stand by some stones that were strewn across the stream.

Then the yogi raised a shout of wild delight, and all the company re-echoed it with intense satisfaction and pleasure. And, in accordance with the king's instructions, being fully acquitted of any complicity with the devil in the abduction of the princess, the prisoners received each a sum of money, and were set at liberty.

The planks, which in any other court would have been one of the most tangible evidences that some person had thereby scaled the palace walls, were never even thought of during this singular trial. So irrational and so superstitious is the native character, that they preferred to believe in the supernatural rather than in any rational cause for the disappearance of the princess; and for once in my life I was led to rejoice in their ignorance.

It was sunset before this inconceivably grotesque and self-deluded and deluding set of maniacs dispersed. The yogi went back to the solitude of his unknown cave to sleep by day and pray alone by night. And I sent my syce home, and remained behind under a jamoon-tree, to which my pony was tied, in the hope of getting an opportunity of speaking alone with the women who still lingered with May-Peâh in the hall.

When May-Peâh at length saw me, she rushed into my arms, and laid her head upon my shoulder, uttering the most doleful and piteous of cries; they were not cries of sorrow, but of the wildest joy! I embraced her with something of the tenderness and sorrow with which a mother takes a brave but reckless child to her heart.

May-Peâh's friends then told me, what I had all along surmised, that it was she who scaled the walls by means of the two planks, terrified the Amazons, opened the prison doors with the keys she had provided, and led her mistress forcibly out. After assisting her to climb the walls on the inner side, she sat on the top of the outer wall until she saw her safely on the other side. She then dropped the keys to her, to be flung into the river. Here the prince and his two friends received the princess, and led her to a small craft that was ready to convey them to Maulmain. In vain they entreated May-Peâh to come down from the wall and join their flight. She resolutely refused to leave the companions of her beloved mistress in peril, and, full of dread lest, by the dreadful torture which she knew awaited her, she might be forced to betray those who were dearer to her than her own life, she with one stroke of her sharp dagger deprived herself forever of the power of uttering a single intelligible sound.

"O, but why did you not all go off with the princess?" I inquired.

"Because we were too many, and we should have only delayed and perhaps imperilled the success of the enterprise," said the women; "and May-Peâh had promised not to leave us to bear the penalty of her doings."

It was difficult to tear myself away from her. I was at once proud to be loved by her, and heart-broken to think that she would never speak again.

But at length we parted, and she, raising her hands high above her head, waved them to and fro, and smiled a joyful adieu, in spite of the pain she still suffered from her cruel mutilation.