My half-formed resolve was without result, however, since, for some reason unknown to me, she never came to the school-room again; and, as I did not chance to meet her on my visits to the palace, she soon passed from my thoughts, and I forgot all about her. Some nine months, or perhaps a year, after my last encounter with Tuptim, I became conscious of a change in the demeanor of my elder pupils; they were abstracted, and appeared desirous to get away from their studies as soon as possible. It seemed as if there were some secret they had been ordered to conceal from my boy and me. My imagination immediately took the alarm, and I became possessed with the idea that some grave calamity was impending. One day, when breaking up school for the afternoon, I heard one of the princes say to the others in Siamese: "Come, let's go and hunt for Tuptim." "Why! where has she gone?" As soon as I asked the question, Princess Ying Yonwalacks angrily seized him by the arm and hurried him away. I had no wish to inquire further. What I had heard was enough to excite my imagination afresh, and I hurried home full of anxiety about poor little Tuptim, thus suddenly brought back to my remembrance. On the following evening, it being Sunday, one of my servants informed me that a slave-girl from the palace wished to speak with me in private. When she came in, her face seemed familiar, but I could not remember where I had seen her or whose slave she was. She crawled up close to my chair, and told me in a low voice that her mistress, Khoon Chow Tuptim, had sent her to me. "You know," she added, "that my mistress has been found." "Found!" I exclaimed; "what do you mean?" She repeated my question, and in great astonishment asked: "Why! did you not know that my mistress had disappeared from the palace; that his Majesty had offered a reward of twenty caties (about fifteen hundred dollars) to any one who would bring any information about her; and that no trace of her could be discovered, though everybody had been searching for her far and near?" "No, I have never heard a word about it. But how could she have got out of the palace, through the three rows of gates that are always bolted, and not be seen by the Amazons on guard?" "Alas! my lady, she did get out," replied the girl, who looked very wan and weary, whose eyes seemed to have been shedding tears for a long time, and who was on the point of breaking down again. She then went on to tell me that two priests had that morning discovered her mistress in the monastery attached to the temple of Rajah Bah ditt Sang, and had brought the information to the king, by whose order she had been arrested and imprisoned in one of the palace dungeons. "But what good can I do, Phim?" I asked, sorrowfully.