"If I tell you the whole truth, will you believe me and judge me righteously?" asked the girl.
"You shall have the bastinado applied to your bare back if you do not confess all your guilt at once," replied the judge.
Tuptim did not speak immediately; but by the expression of her eyes and the alternate flushing and paling of her face it was evident that she was debating in her own mind whether she should make a full confession or not. Finally, with an air of fixed determination she turned towards Khoon Thow App, and, addressing her exclusively, said: "Khoon P'hra Bâlât has not sinned, my lady, nor is he in any way guilty. All the guilt is mine. In the stillness of the nights, when I prostrated myself in prayer before Somdetch P'hra Buddh, the Chow, thoughts of escaping from the palace often and often would distract me from my devotions and take possession of my thoughts. It seemed to me as if it were the voice of the Lord, and that there was nothing for me to do but to obey. So I dressed myself as a priest, shaved off my hair and my eyebrows—"
"Now," interrupted P'hayaprome Baree Rak, "that's just what we want to hear. Tell us who it was got the priest's dress for you, and shaved off your hair and your eyebrows. Speak up louder."
"My lord, I am telling what I did myself, and not what any one else did. Hear me, and I will speak the truth, so far as it relates to myself; beyond that I cannot go," replied Tuptim, a sudden flush covering her face, and making her look lovelier than ever.
"Go on," said the dreadful man, with a scornful smile at the childish form before him; "we shall find a way to make you speak."
"Dèck nak" (she is very young), said Khoon Thow App, gently.
Tuptim was silent for some moments. The sunlight, streaming across the hall, fell just behind her, revealing the exquisite transparency of her olive-colored skin, as, with a look more thoughtful and an expression more serenely simple still, she continued:—
"At five o'clock in the morning, when the priests were admitted into the palace, I crawled out of my room and joined the procession as it passed on to receive the royal alms. No one saw me but Simlah, and even she, as she has told me herself, did not recognize me, but wondered why a priest came so near to my door."
"That is true!" broke in Simlah; "I never even knew that Tuptim had run away until Khoon Yai (one of the chief ladies of the harem) sent to inquire why she was absent from duty so long, and then I began to think that the young priest I had seen had something to do with it. But I was afraid to say anything of this to the women who searched the houses, lest we should be accused of having helped her to escape."