I could not doubt that she had a tender heart, for there was a beautiful flush on her wan face, which was every now and then faintly perceptible in the flickering lamp-light.
A smile half of triumph and half of sadness curved her fine lip as she finished the letter and turned to communicate its contents to her eager companions in a language unknown to me.
After this the three women talked together long and anxiously, the two attendants urging their mistress to do something to which apparently she would not consent, for at last she threw the letter away angrily, and covered her face with her hands, as if unable to resist their arguments.
The elder of the women quietly took up the letter and read it several times aloud to her companion. She then opened a betel-box and drew out of it an inkhorn, a small reed, and long roll of yellow paper, on which she began a lengthy and labored epistle, now and then rubbing out the words she had written with her finger, and commencing afresh with renewed vigor. When the letter was finished, I never in my life saw a more unsightly, blotted affair than it was, and I fell to wondering if any mortal on earth would have skill and ingenuity enough to decipher its meaning. But she folded it carefully, and put it into a lovely blue silk cover which she took from that self-same box,—which might have been Aladdin's wonderful lamp turned inside out, for aught I knew to the contrary,—and, stitching up the bag or cover, she sewed on the outside a bit of paper addressed in the same mysterious and unknown letters, which bore a strong resemblance to the Birmese characters turned upside down, and were altogether as weird and hieroglyphic as the ancient characters found in the Pahlavi and Deri manuscript. When all her labors were completed, she handed it to me with a hopeful smile on her face.
Meanwhile the princess, who seemed to have been plunged in a very profound and serious meditation, turned and addressed me with an air of mystery and doubt: "Did May-Peâh promise you any money?"
On being answered in the negative, "Do you want any money?" she again inquired.
"No, thank you," I replied. "Only tell me to whom I am to carry this letter, for I cannot read the address, and I'll endeavor to serve you to the best of my ability."
When I had done speaking she seemed surprised and pleased, for she again put her arms round about my neck, and embraced me twice or thrice in the most affectionate manner, entreating me to believe that she would always be my grateful friend, and that she would always bless me in her thoughts, and enjoining me to deliver the letter into no other hands but those of May-Peâh, or her brother, the Prince O'Dong Karmatha, who was concealed for the present, as she said, in the house of the Governor of Pak Lat.
I returned her warm embraces, and went home somewhat happier; but I seemed to hear throughout the rest of the night the creaking of the huge prison door which had turned so reluctantly on its rusty hinges.