When the procession arrived at one of the nearest gardens, laid out in the Chinese style, the princess, with a proud intimation that she could go no farther, took her seat on the edge of an artificial rock beside a small pond of water in which gold and silver fish sported merrily together. She hung down her head, as if the fresh air had no power to remove the smallest portion of her sorrows and sufferings.
A deep murmur of compassion now rose, not only from the idle crowd of women and girls, who gazed awe-stricken into her face, but from the "Amazonian Guard," those well-disciplined automatons of the royal palace of Siam.
I could see that she just raised her dark, sad eyes to us, and then cast them down again; and that their expression, as well as that of her whole attitude, was one of mute and touching appeal against this most ungenerous usage.
After the lapse of an hour the procession resumed its course, and the crowd, who had by this time exchanged looks and whispers of sympathy to their hearts' content,—while some poor half-palsied and aged slave-women had lifted up their hands and prayed aloud for the happiness of the ill-fated princess,—brought up the rear, till they saw the same prison doors open and close once more on the noble lady and her attendants, when they dispersed to their various abodes.
When I returned home, the scene would constantly reproduce itself, and my thoughts would unceasingly revert to those sad eyes of which I had only caught a hasty glance; and that utter friendlessness, expressed in a few brief, slight actions, dwelt in my memory like the impressions of childhood, never to be wholly forgotten.
I could not help picturing to myself how those eyes would brighten if I could but put that letter into her hands, and tell her of one earnest friend at least whose love and sympathy knew no bounds.
This feeling at length urged me, now that with the restored favor of the king there could be no real danger to myself and my boy, to find some means of gaining access to the poor, sad prisoner.
I immediately put the letter into my pocket, and pinned it carefully there, and determined that after my school duties were over I would advise with my good friend Lady Thieng, of whom mention has already been made. Only one circumstance troubled my mind greatly, and it was how to broach the subject to her in the presence of the number of women who always attended her at all times and in all places.
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