"Art thou afraid?" inquired the old man. "Why, thou hast less to fear here by my side than if I had left thee behind in the mountains of Prabat." He then proceeded to unpack his beast, while the girl timidly made ready to cook their evening meal of boiled rice and fish. There was a certain sense of safety in the shadow of the grand royal palace that seemed to restore the girl to a state of moderate tranquillity, and the Amazons who loitered round the gate watched the travellers with some degree of interest, which arose partly from curiosity and partly from want of something better to do. The old man seemed a sombre sort of being to them; but the girl was an object of wonder and delight, as, though she replied to her father in a language foreign to the listeners, she frequently intermingled her remarks with the Siamese word "cha" (dear), which pleased the stout-hearted guardians of the gate so much that they made no objections to the travellers' resting there. In such a spot as this there was, indeed, more of danger than of safety both for father and child, if they could but have known it; but the poorer class of strangers clung to the name of the great king Maha Mongkut as a babe clings to its mother's arms, and the old man felt as safe as if lodged in an impregnable castle, surrounded by a million of guardian angels; while the girl, gathering courage from the satisfaction that settled on her father's face, began to take note of what was passing around her, and her fears soon gave place to a variety of happy thoughts. The freshness of the evening air, the song of the merry birds, the beauty of the wild flowers that grew among the tangled bushes on the banks of the river, and, above all, the constant stream of richly gilded boats and gondolas that glided past on the limpid waters, now glittering in the roseate hues of the setting sun, soothed and gladdened, as with tender, loving words, the heart of the lonely mountain girl. At sunset the Amazons shut the gates and disappeared. The old man unrolled a small carpet, covered himself with a worn-out old cloth, and, taking his daughter under his stalwart arm, he laid himself down to rest beneath the canopy of the wide sky. The girl, from her place near the corner made by the gate and the wall, could only see one star overhead, and the shadow in which she slept seemed so dark that her heart sunk within her, as she silently prayed to the angel of the sky not to desert them. But, tired and weary, she soon slept as soundly as her father.