"He has brought her here for sale, of course," added another; "else why should he have chosen such a place as this, so near the royal palace, for encampment." "Ah, well! whatever be her lot, poor child, let us not add to her sufferings; she will have enough of them in this life," rejoined the kind-hearted chief officer. The bell above the prison gate, with its brazen tongue, tolled out twelve (i.e., five in the morning); the girl, aroused as it were by the voice of an angel, started, rubbed her eyes, and looking around seemed to recall the events of the last night. She then made several profound salutations and invocations to a gleam of sunlight that came straggling into her cell, wrapped her saree over her head and face, and placed herself near the door, so as to be able to pass out the moment it should be opened. "Take something to eat, child," said the chief of the Amazons on guard, who was partaking of a breakfast of cold rice and fish, "and wait till the sun is higher in the heavens, and I will go with you; it is not fit that one so young and beautiful should go out alone and unprotected." She was too kind-hearted to tell her that she was a prisoner, and no longer free to go in and out. Smâyâtee had hardly swallowed a few mouthfuls of rice, when the guardsman of the previous night appeared, with orders to the Amazons to take her to the Sala of the Grand Duke, Chow P'haya Mândtree; as they, on discovering from the mark on the old man's arm that he was a vassal of that nobleman, had resigned him to the custody of his officers. The Amazons led the way, and Smâyâtee followed with faltering steps. Nobody noticed her. Everybody seemed excited and eager. Every one hurried towards the same spot. In her uncertainty the girl could see nothing in the world but the river running strong, yet running calmly on. After a little while she began to trace the opposite bank; a little way to the left something hanging midway in the sky, as she supposed, or rather in mid-distance; there being as yet no sky, no heaven, no earth; nothing but the river. This was a bridge; they cross the bridge. Where does it lead to? Whither flows this mysterious stream, of which the coming and the going are equally full of wonder and dread to her? What mysterious, enchanted palaces and temples are those looming out yonder on the other side? To her ignorance they are but infinitude and the unknown. Now they near the duke's palace; the odors of orange-flowers and spice-groves reach them, like airs that breathe from paradise. Having come to the great hall, the Amazons take their places on one of the lowest steps, Smâyâtee seated between them; they are contented to chew their betel and to wait.