There was something in that face that had changed the whole current of his being, and had set him, charged with a new force, in the midst of a little world all by itself, the horizon of which was bounded by her possible smile.
He turned his steps towards the grand palace, and gazed upon the place where she was imprisoned; he was almost at the gate. He wavered in his mind; custom and his natural reserve forbade him to speak to a strange woman; with a bewildered air he retraced his steps and went home.
That part of Bangkok in which Chow P'haya Mândtree lived was laid out in small squares, each walled in by low ramparts, enclosing the residence and harem of some great noble; but the duke's palaces were surrounded by a wall only on three sides, from which ran, parallel to the river-front, several streets, and among them the gold and silver streets, so designated from their being inhabited by artists skilled in the working of those metals.
The sun had set when Dhamaphat reached his home, but it was already night. Here there is no twilight,—that soft messenger that lingers, unwilling, as it were, to usher in the darkness of night.
Moonlight, with its silvery touches, rested on the palace roofs and made even ugliness and decay beautiful. The tall cocoa and betel palms, moved by the wood-nymphs, fluttered and waved their branches to and fro, beckoning him nearer and nearer, and presenting a spectacle, strange, yet lovely in the extreme.
The bright moon was soon lost to view, except where it penetrated the thick, overhanging foliage. On the gateway the pendent branches of the bergamot gave forth a rich perfume. The shrill chirping of myriads of grasshoppers, which seem never to sleep, with the sounds of distant music, fell upon his ear, as his father's temples and palaces burst upon his view, a mingled scene of fairy beauty, artificial elegance, and savage grandeur,—domes, turrets, enormous trees, and flowers such as are met with nowhere else beneath the sun. The oldest temples in Siam stood here, containing strange and wonderful objects, with stranger and more wonderful recollections attached to them. That one on the right was once, in the reign of the usurper, P'haya Tak, the principal stronghold of his ancestors, and where, even after long years, they were still wont to repair, at a particular moon in every year, to pray beside the golden pagoda that enshrined the charred bones of his forefathers. That gray palace had witnessed many a gay assemblage, held by the old duke, Somdetch Ong Yai, his grandfather.
He entered the temple, beneath the portal of which were some deeply graven rhymes from the Vedas, to him equally dark as the dark image of Buddha that had slumbered for centuries at the base of the glittering altar. Yet, wonderful as were the objects that met the eye of the young man, he simply prostrated himself before the altar, and turned to his father's palace.
A low, open verandah faced the entrance. Choice birds were singing in their cages, and soft lights of cocoanut-oil were gleaming down upon them. A number of noblemen were lounging on cool mats, some playing chess, others engaged in conversation. Slaves were passing round tempting fruits, and refreshing drinks of spiced wines and cocoanut nectar.
Dhamaphat prostrated himself before his father, and took his place on a low seat. He had no sooner done so, than he was startled by the entrance of some armed men, who brought in the old Rajpoot, and stationed him and themselves at the extreme end of the verandah.