Smâyâtee lifted up her head, and looked at the speaker with an expression of childlike gladness and trust that brought to the heart of the wretch before her the long-lost sense of shame, and he could not for the moment give utterance to the iniquity he was about to perpetrate against her; he beckoned to an attendant, however, a sort of treasurer, with a heavy box, who approached, crawling, and at his instructions counted upon the floor forty pieces of gold,--sixteen times the value of an ordinary slave-woman. Rama still covered his face with his turban, so that none could have told what was passing within him. His daughter laid her hand upon his arm, saying: "O, my father, the good duke gives us all this gold and promises us freedom! take it, and thank him, that he may permit us to return home." The unhappy Rajpoot turned a look full of mournful tenderness upon his child. At the same moment the scribe, who had been industriously writing, laid a paper before him, and said, in rather an authoritative manner: "Tham Khai khat thedeo" (make the sale good, i.e., sign the paper). Even now it did not occur to the girl what the paper and the forty pieces of gold meant. To her mind they brought visions of freedom, as her heart yearned for the hills and groves of her native land. She once more whispered to her father to "take the money, and thank the duke, that he may let us go back home." But the old man looked at her in silence, seemingly unable to utter a single word; his breathing came quick and hard, and all at once he gasped out: "The gods forbid me to sell my daughter to thee, my lord. Indra, Agni, and the Maruts, at whose roaring every dweller upon earth trembles, forbid me. O, pardon thy servant, my lord, and let us depart hence in peace." The duke was doubly enraged, because of his last night's promise and the forty pieces of gold with which he had hoped to bribe him into an easy parting with his child. He turned to the bewildered Smâyâtee, and said: "Come hither, girl." But as she only looked at him, and made no attempt to go nearer, he added: "One thing is certain; this old fool, thy father, is still drunk, and knows not his mind; he sold you to me last night, and now he refuses, saying the gods forbid it." [Illustration: A YOUNG SIAMESE NOBLEMAN.] Smâyâtee turned from the duke to her father, her look changing from incredulity to surprise, from surprise to anguish, while the duke continued: "Now it is you who must decide for him; shall I hand him over to the royal judges to be tried and executed for the crime he is accused of, or will you consent to be my slave for life? I will make you rich and happy, and I will give him this gold, and he shall return in safety to his home." He uttered these sentences in a loud, harsh voice, very different from that in which he had spoken to her a few minutes before. When he had finished, the crowd cheered the speech. The girl looked at them, and, not knowing why, began to cry.