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.