Meanwhile the duke, still cherishing his darling ambition, consulted all the astrologers in the country, who drew auguries from ants, spiders, and bees, and predicted for him a brilliant career. This so worked upon the already inflamed imagination of P'haya Si P'hifoor, that he was led, in an unguarded moment, to throw down the gauntlet and declare open war against the king of Siam, whom he branded with the titles of fox and usurper. Through his secret emissaries he caused edicts to be proclaimed everywhere, nominating himself in the name of the people and of heaven as the lawful successor to the throne. The entire army of the priesthood and the people were on his side. Hosts of men from all parts of the country flocked to his standard. The duke, mounted on a white elephant, headed the rabble crowd. Before him, on horseback, rode the hired Rajpoot band of warriors. Tidings of this alarming insurrection soon reached the enraged monarch at Bangkok, who instantly summoned a council of war, and sent trumpeters all over the land to blast forth a direful malediction, in the name of all the hosts of heaven, upon the rebel duke and his followers. The rebel duke and his frenzied legions made rapid progress, however. They could be seen covering the entire face of the country, rushing on with shouts and cries and furious bounding of elephants and horses, with flourish of trumpets and of banners,--a terrible, undisciplined, myriad-faced monster, being neither burnt up with the scorching rays of Suriya, nor scattered by the thunder-bolts of Indra. The king, who had stormed so loud and so lustily from behind the purdah-curtain of his throne, now trembled and cowered in the midst of his fifteen hundred wives, and let the duke ride triumphantly, almost to the very gates of his palace at Ayudia. In this emergency the prime minister, Somdetch Ong Yai, the father of the present premier, assumed the command of the army, transshipped all the guns he could muster into small crafts,--the river at Ayudia being too shallow for ships of great tonnage,--taking with them an ample supply of ammunition, and with hardly twelve thousand men sailed up the river, amid the shouts and prayers of the terrified inhabitants. On their arrival at Ayudia the guns were conveyed on trucks to the point whence the attack was expected. Here Somdetch Ong Yai hastily erected several batteries, and awaited the attack.