It was the custom of the Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor to make an annual visit to P'hra Batt, ostensibly with varied offerings to the footprint of Buddha, from which the whole mountainous district is named, but in reality to muster his retainers, give them presents, and exact fresh promises of service, or to traverse the entire country gaining fresh adherents to his cause.
On one occasion a dreadful fever ravaged his party; many of them had to be left at the different monasteries to be cared for, while Rama and a few followers only accompanied him. Just as the sun was setting behind the mountains, Rama, who acted as pioneer, heard the sound of some animal in the thick underwood. He crept quickly back, motioned his companions to halt, and advanced alone. A few yards from him he saw a tiger, immovable, yet stealthily watching his opportunity to make a spring. Night was fast approaching, and so was death; but Rama drew near, his eyes fixed steadily and unfalteringly on those of the beast. At last he took his position, and for a moment or two they glared one upon the other. Then in the distance the rest of the party, breathless, their hearts beating quickly, heard the dismal roar of a goaded and infuriate animal, and the heavy blows of a battle-axe. Their terror was only equalled by their joy when they saw the huge creature extended before them in death. The duke came up, and instantly rewarded the brave warrior with a hundred pieces of gold.
Gold enough to buy Malee, the beautiful Loatian girl!
Next morning he prostrated himself before the duke, and requested permission to return at once to P'hra Batt, which was granted him. Thus did the Rajpoot obtain to wife the woman he loved.
Meanwhile the duke, still cherishing his darling ambition, consulted all the astrologers in the country, who drew auguries from ants, spiders, and bees, and predicted for him a brilliant career. This so worked upon the already inflamed imagination of P'haya Si P'hifoor, that he was led, in an unguarded moment, to throw down the gauntlet and declare open war against the king of Siam, whom he branded with the titles of fox and usurper.
Through his secret emissaries he caused edicts to be proclaimed everywhere, nominating himself in the name of the people and of heaven as the lawful successor to the throne.
The entire army of the priesthood and the people were on his side. Hosts of men from all parts of the country flocked to his standard. The duke, mounted on a white elephant, headed the rabble crowd. Before him, on horseback, rode the hired Rajpoot band of warriors.
Tidings of this alarming insurrection soon reached the enraged monarch at Bangkok, who instantly summoned a council of war, and sent trumpeters all over the land to blast forth a direful malediction, in the name of all the hosts of heaven, upon the rebel duke and his followers.
The rebel duke and his frenzied legions made rapid progress, however. They could be seen covering the entire face of the country, rushing on with shouts and cries and furious bounding of elephants and horses, with flourish of trumpets and of banners,—a terrible, undisciplined, myriad-faced monster, being neither burnt up with the scorching rays of Suriya, nor scattered by the thunder-bolts of Indra. The king, who had stormed so loud and so lustily from behind the purdah-curtain of his throne, now trembled and cowered in the midst of his fifteen hundred wives, and let the duke ride triumphantly, almost to the very gates of his palace at Ayudia.
In this emergency the prime minister, Somdetch Ong Yai, the father of the present premier, assumed the command of the army, transshipped all the guns he could muster into small crafts,—the river at Ayudia being too shallow for ships of great tonnage,—taking with them an ample supply of ammunition, and with hardly twelve thousand men sailed up the river, amid the shouts and prayers of the terrified inhabitants.