When Simlah had done speaking, Tuptim continued:—
"I know not why, but, when I found myself outside of the palace walls, I went straight to the temple of Rajah Bah ditt Sang, and sat down at the gate. Towards evening the good priest, Chow Khoon Sah, came out, and, on seeing me, asked me why I sat there. I did not know what else to say, and so I begged him to let me be his disciple and live in his monastery. 'Whose disciple art thou, my child?' he asked. At which I began to cry, for I did not wish to deceive the holy man. Seeing my distress, he turned to P'hra Bâlât, who was following him with other priests, and bade him take me under his charge and instruct me faithfully in all the doctrines of Buddha. Then P'hra Bâlât took me to his cell; but he did not recognize in the young priest I seemed to be the Tuptim he had known in his boyhood, and who had once been his betrothed wife."
At this part of Tuptim's recital, the women held up their hands in profound astonishment, and the men judges grinned maliciously, displaying their hateful gums, red with the juice of the betel-nut.
The poor girl's pale lips quivered, and her whole face testified to the immensity of her woe, as with simple, truthful earnestness she asseverated: "P'hra Bâlât, whom you have condemned to torture and to death, has not sinned. He is innocent. The sin is mine, and mine only. I knew that I was a woman, but he did not. If I had known all that he has taught me since I became his disciple, I could not have committed the great sin of which I am accused. I would have tried, indeed and truly, I would have tried to endure my life in the palace, and would not have run away. O lady dear! believe that I am speaking the truth. I grew quiet and happy because I was near him, and he taught me every day, and I can say the whole of the Nava d'harma (Divine Law) by heart. You can ask his other disciples who were with me, and they will tell you that I was always modest and humble, and we all lay at his feet by night. Indeed, dear lady, I did not so much want to be his wife after he became a p'hra (priest), but only to be near him. On Sunday morning, those men," pointing to the two priests who sat apart, "came to the cell to see P'hra Bâlât, and it so happened that I had overslept myself. I had just got up and was arranging my dress, thinking that I was alone in the cell, when I heard a low chuckling laugh. In an instant I turned and faced them, and felt that I was degraded forever.
"Believe me, dear lady," continued Tuptim, growing more and more eloquent as she became still more earnest in her recital. "I was guilty, it is true, when I fled from my gracious master, the king, but I never even contemplated the sin of which I am accused by those men. I knew that I was innocent, and I begged them to let me leave the temple, and hide myself anywhere, telling them that P'hra Bâlât did not know who I was, or that I was a woman; but they only laughed and jeered at me. I fell on my knees at their feet, and implored them, entreated them in the name of all that is holy and sacred, to keep my secret and let me go; but they only laughed and jeered at me the more; they would not be merciful,"—here the poor girl gasped as if for breath, while two large tears coursed down her cheeks,—"and then I defied them, and I still defy them," she added, shaking her manacled hands at them.
The two priests looked at the girl unmoved, chewing their betel all the while; the judges listened in silence, with an air of amused incredulity, as to a fairy-tale. She continued:—
"Just then P'hra Bâlât and his other disciples returned from their morning ablutions. I crawled to his feet, and told him that I was Tuptim. He started back and recoiled to the end of the cell, as if the very earth had quaked beneath him, leaving me prostrate and overwhelmed with horror at what I had done. In a moment afterwards he came back to me, and, while weeping bitterly himself, begged me that I would cry no more. But the sight of his tears, and the grief in my heart, made me feel as if I were being swallowed up in a great black abyss, and I could not help crying more and more. Then he tried to soothe me, and said, 'Alas! Tuptim, thou hast committed a great sin. But fear not. We are innocent; and for the sake of the great love thou hast shown to me, I am ready to suffer even unto death for thee.' This is the whole truth. Indeed, indeed, it is!"
"Well, well!" said P'hayaprome Baree Rak, "you have told your story beautifully, but nobody believes you. How will you tell us who shaved off your hair and your eyebrows, and brought you that priest's dress you had on yesterday?"
The simple grandeur of that fragile child, as she folded her chained hands across her bosom, as if to still its tumultuous heaving, and replied, "I will not!" defies all description.