The priest of Tâmsèng turned uneasily in his seat, and coughed a low cough preparatory to what he was going to say. "My daughter," said he at length, in a voice of grave reproof, "this last is a dreadful sin. That book is dangerous, and those American priests are our enemies. They lie in wait to deceive the children of the true Church. They deny the divinity of the Holy Mother of God, and they go about the country preaching their false doctrines and giving away their books only to delude the simple-hearted natives. Be sure that you never listen to them, and that you abstain from looking into that book again. Bring the book to me, and you will be saved from this great temptation." The girl listened, abashed, hanging down her head, and with tears of repentance in her eyes. He then proceeded to state the penance she would have to perform. To repeat fifty _paternosters_, walk, on the following Sabbath morning, barefooted, and dressed in her meanest garb, to the chapel of Tâmsèng, and be admitted thus by baptism into the true Church. The priest again pulled the cord; the window was shut, the door stood ajar, and the girl rose and passed out to join her attendants. Her bright face was overcast, unbidden tears were in her eyes, and all her love and joy in the beautiful Saviour she had found blighted like autumn leaves before the wind. When she gained her boat, great black clouds lowered in the sky, the winds rose into a squall, and the waves tossed and tumbled and rolled high upon the banks. It was one of those sudden hurricanes that are so common in Siam. The boat proved unmanageable, and, in spite of all the combined efforts of the three women, she was capsized in the middle of the angry, surging waters. Long and desperately the women struggle for life, again and again they try to swim towards the bank, but the stronger waters carry them away in their irresistible grasp. The high-priest of the temple of Adi Buddha Annando has taken shelter beneath the porch of his temple. He sees the empty boat and the struggling women; he hesitates. His vows forbid him to touch a woman, even his own mother, and still hold his office as a priest of Buddha. He sees the women throw up their arms as if imploring his aid. He casts aside his upper yellow robe, and plunges in to their rescue, regardless of his vows, his office, of everything else.