“We know what judges can be made to do,” said Selden, grimly.
“We know what officials are,” the Burmans have been saying for centuries; and they class them with thieves and plagues, perhaps with more emphasis to-day than ever before. So Mintha is an unpretentious name, and so common that the little girl who bore it had probably never thought of the meaning of it, and would certainly have referred you to her mother if you had asked her about it.
She was perhaps eleven years old, but small for that age, this brown little maiden whom they called “Better-than-an-Official,” and swift and silent like a dream the tigress stepped out and picked her up and carried her away between its teeth, as a cat does a little mouse.
Her older sister, Ngway Bwin, which means Silver-blossom, a girl on the verge of womanhood, about fourteen years old, was next behind her, and beheld her taken. She quickly turned to the third girl, Shway U or Grain-of-Gold, who happened at that moment to have a chopper in her hand; and, snatching the chopper, little Silver-blossom ran at [51] ]the very top of her speed after the tigress. She overtook it, and lifting the big knife high above her head with both hands, she brought it down heavily on the animal’s head. It dropped little Mintha, “Better-than-an-Official,” and stood as if it were stunned. It was easy to see the need of keeping it stunned. Silver-blossom knew that that was her only chance. So hammer, hammer, hammer, cut succeeding cut, the little Burmese maiden killed the tigress.
Grain-of-Gold was the only other person near. She always said, and says still (1909), that she did nothing but look on. The village headman reported, and still reports, that the animal, which was shown to everybody in 1894, was a full-grown tigress in the prime of life, measuring “8 cubits and 2 meiks.” A cubit, in rough village measures, is still the original cubit, from the elbow to the farthest finger-tip, and a “meik” is the width of a clenched fist with the thumb standing out. So 8 cubits and 2 meiks can hardly be less than 11 or 12 feet; but the villagers measure along the curved outline of the body, so we may conclude the straight measurement was 8 or 9 feet.
The soft brown skin of Better-than-an-Official had been broken and she was a little hurt on the back of the neck and on one arm; but these injuries [52] ]were so slight that it is likely the tigress meant to give its cubs the pleasure of playing with her, instead of which Better-than-an-Official, saved by her sister and quickly cured of her scratches, is now reported to be living at Kule village, Mingin township. The sister, Silver-blossom herself, was quite unhurt. She became, deservedly, the pride of the countryside, but “died of a decline” ten years afterwards.
If her adventure appeared in a romance one would smile at the absurdity of the author who expected to be believed for a moment. Yet, after carefully questioning everybody concerned, Mr Tilly, who is a man of sense, believed it at the time and has never doubted it; and Mr Grant Brown, after a new local inquiry, believes it; and so do I. Let readers please themselves.
It may assist them to a right conclusion to remind them that Michelet has shown that Joan of Arc seems stranger to us than she really was because we are ignorant of history. Her performance was glorious for herself and France, one of the most glorious episodes in the history of the world; but all the same it was only the superlative of many similar doings of brave French women. Precisely in the same way it has to be remembered that, like hens emboldened to fly in the faces of [53] ]dogs or boys in defence of chicks, many girls in charge of brothers or sisters have been known to surpass belief in their feats of devotion. So Silver-blossom was not odd in the sense of being peculiar. She was like other brave girls, only more so.
At the same time it would be wrong to minimise what she did. It is the exact truth to say she expanded the range of human possibilities. Think of a Burmese child doing that!
Let them who know no better “explain” the miracle. The man who ceases to wonder at it does not understand it. I frankly admire the girl, and have no “explanation,” unless it be one to quote the hymn—