"Very good," said the padre, doggedly; "it is certain, however, that the chapel of Tâmsèng has been plundered by Mariâ and a vile pagan who was seen lurking in its vicinity last night." On hearing this the blood rushed violently to the mother's temples, and she fell back in a death-like swoon. P'hagunn and his numerous attendants were also stupefied by horror and dismay at this dreadful accusation; and the officers, headed by the padre, proceeded coolly to search the house for the missing jewels and the gold and silver candlesticks, censers, and vases that had ornamented the altar of the chapel of Tâmsèng. At last they reached Mariâ's chamber. She had just risen, and was now on her knees before the open window. The door was burst open, and she turned, still kneeling and holding her breath, her fixed and terrified gaze upon the intruders. The chapel and the convent bells struck six. It was the hour when she usually set out to perform her small round of sacred offices and to open the church doors. But she had no power to move. She saw the padre dash aside her pillow and then her mattress, and with it her crumpled flowers. One of the men came towards her and demanded the key of the chapel. But she could not open her lips to speak; she knelt there petrified in the morning sunlight. "To think that _you_ should have connived at such an outrageous sacrilege upon the altar of God!" said the padre; and he ordered the men to handcuff her and carry her away to the prison at Tâmsèng. She made no resistance, but let them do whatever they wished with her; she seemed even to have lost the power of comprehension. She sees the trees, the thatched roofs, the plantations, the fields, the tapering spires of the Temple of the Infinite, and a thousand small objects; she hears voices and cries that would have escaped her at another time, as she is dragged from the home of her parents to the prison cell of the doomed, but she cannot speak, or cry, or even think where she put the key. She knows that her mother is seated outside of the prison door, wailing and crying, and protesting that her child is innocent of the dreadful crime of which she is accused; and this is all that is clear to the stricken girl. Twilight was falling just as I was coming out of the palace,--for I had been detained there all day helping the secretary to despatch the royal mail,--when Khoon Jethamas came running up to me, took both my hands in hers, and told me the story of her daughter's imprisonment. What was to be done? The woman was frantic with grief, and I was almost as much confounded as she. "You must come with me to-night, dear lady, this very evening. I cannot rest till I get her out of that dreadful place."