But the truth was, that Rama Singalee was the stout-hearted angel who battled nightly with the strong currents of the Mèinam, and brought, at the risk and peril of his life, some boiled rice and water in the hollow of a bamboo cane, which, as he floated beneath the iron cage, he held up to his late master's mouth, who sucked therefrom the scanty portion of food it contained.
The last night of the unfortunate prisoner's life, Rama set out as usual, ignoring the pain of his wounds, and, swimming manfully against the strong tide that threatened to bear him away with it, he reached the spot about three o'clock in the morning, stealthily approached the cage, keeping his head under water, but his heart above the clouds, with those heroic souls who follow in the path of the Son of Heaven. He swam right under the cage, and looking up in the darkness towards it, saw no shadow there. He held up the long bamboo, and rested it against the iron bars, but no eager, trembling hand grasped it, as it was wont to do. He called out in hoarse whispers, "P'hakha, p'hakha, soway thô" (master, master, pray eat). No sound, no movement, reached his anxious ears.
Ah, happy man! the loving voice of his devoted follower reached his ears, and penetrated far into his sinking heart, as he lay in his last agonies, coiled up on the floor of his cage, and in the double darkness of night and sightlessness, he saw the brave, strong face of this one great soul that loved him in spite of all his sin and misery; and, even as he caught the vision, a smile such as would have irradiated the throne of God, passed over that blind, distorted face, and the soul flitted away rejoicing, leaving behind it an expression of serenity and peace, as if that proud, turbulent, and ambitious spirit had at last been taught the meaning of a higher love, and through it had breasted the waters, and gained the shore "Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
After some years of service in the army, the premier, Somdetch Ong Yai, being dead, Rama, having been regularly branded as the vassal of his eldest son, Chow P'haya Mândtree, obtained permission to return home to his wife. Just eight years after these events, and the very year after his return home, there was born to this brave man a daughter, who, as it sometimes happens, by some singular freak of nature, or, perhaps, by some higher law of development, was so wondrously beautiful, that when Rama, faithful to the custom of his ancestors, handed to his wife, a few hours after her delivery, a ball of opium to be rubbed on her breasts, she turned up to him a scared and wondering look, muttering, "She is,—she is the smile of God," the deadly ball dropped from her pulseless hands, and her spirit passed away; and he, broken hearted and baffled, rightly interpreted the significance of her dying words, not only spared the child's life, but named her Devo Smâyâtee (the God smiles). Thus a new life stole into the heart and the arms of the old warrior of Orissa.
THE GRANDSON OF SOMDETCH ONG YAI, AND HIS TUTOR P'HRA CHOW SADUMAN.
When Rama and his daughter were carried off to prison, poor Smâyâtee hardly realized what was going to happen. But when a couple of Amazons forced her away from her father, and she understood the full meaning of what had befallen them, she began to shout and scream aloud for help. But none came.
A child of the mountains and hills, she had as yet developed none but the natural instincts of what civilization would call a savage. Combined with her fine organization, she inherited a passionate nature, and an intense love for the mountains and woods, the earth and sky, which were to her so many beautiful gods. To some she had been accustomed to offer flowers, to others fruit, oil, wine, honey, water. She always set apart a portion of every meal for her favorite god Dâvee, the earth-goddess. To such a nature only to live was worship. To see, to hear, to gather thoughts and pictures, to feel the throbbing pulses; to fill the eye with images of beauty, the heart with impulses of love and joy; to place the mind face to face with the unwritten mysteries which nature unfolds to it,—is, indeed, the highest sphere of contemplation and worship, as well for the savage as the child of civilization.