After some years of service in the army, the premier, Somdetch Ong Yai, being dead, Rama, having been regularly branded as the vassal of his eldest son, Chow P'haya Mândtree, obtained permission to return home to his wife. Just eight years after these events, and the very year after his return home, there was born to this brave man a daughter, who, as it sometimes happens, by some singular freak of nature, or, perhaps, by some higher law of development, was so wondrously beautiful, that when Rama, faithful to the custom of his ancestors, handed to his wife, a few hours after her delivery, a ball of opium to be rubbed on her breasts, she turned up to him a scared and wondering look, muttering, "She is,--she is the smile of God," the deadly ball dropped from her pulseless hands, and her spirit passed away; and he, broken hearted and baffled, rightly interpreted the significance of her dying words, not only spared the child's life, but named her Devo Smâyâtee (the God smiles). Thus a new life stole into the heart and the arms of the old warrior of Orissa. CHAPTER X. THE GRANDSON OF SOMDETCH ONG YAI, AND HIS TUTOR P'HRA CHOW SADUMAN. When Rama and his daughter were carried off to prison, poor Smâyâtee hardly realized what was going to happen. But when a couple of Amazons forced her away from her father, and she understood the full meaning of what had befallen them, she began to shout and scream aloud for help. But none came. A child of the mountains and hills, she had as yet developed none but the natural instincts of what civilization would call a savage. Combined with her fine organization, she inherited a passionate nature, and an intense love for the mountains and woods, the earth and sky, which were to her so many beautiful gods. To some she had been accustomed to offer flowers, to others fruit, oil, wine, honey, water. She always set apart a portion of every meal for her favorite god Dâvee, the earth-goddess. To such a nature only to live was worship. To see, to hear, to gather thoughts and pictures, to feel the throbbing pulses; to fill the eye with images of beauty, the heart with impulses of love and joy; to place the mind face to face with the unwritten mysteries which nature unfolds to it,--is, indeed, the highest sphere of contemplation and worship, as well for the savage as the child of civilization. The Amazons who guarded the cell chatted together in a low tone, while Smâyâtee, exhausted by her cries and screams for help, had sunk into a deep sleep. They remarked on the beauty of her skin, the roundness of her limbs, the softness of her cheeks, and the superb lashes that rested so lightly upon them, and wondered who she could be; for though her dress bespoke her of the peasant class of the Loatians, her form and face betokened high birth. "He must have stolen her," said one of the women; "she cannot be his daughter, though she calls him father."