"So I took Boon into greater confidence than ever, put a bag heavy with silver into her hands, and, moreover, promised her her freedom if she would assist me to escape. 'Keep the silver till I ask you for it, lady,' she replied, 'but trust me to help you. I will do it with all my heart.' "Her devotion and attachment surprised me. It could not have been greater had she been my own sister. Poot-tho![22] could I have seen the end I would have stopped there. I saw nothing but the face that had kindled a blinding fire in my heart. "The faithful Boon served me but too well. It was all arranged that I should go out at the Patoo-din[23] the next evening at sunset, with my hair cut off, and disguised as Boon. P'haya P'hi Chitt was to be there with a boat ready to convey us to Ayudia, and Boon was to remain behind until the whole thing should have blown over. This last was her own proposition. I tried in vain to urge her to accompany us in our flight. She said it would be safer for us both to have a friend in the palace, who could give us information of whatever took place. "In the agitation in which I wrote these last instructions to my lover, I made so many blunders that I had to write the letter all over again. Boon implored me to put no name to it, for we still feared some discovery. I gave it, sealed with my ring, to Boon, who carried it off in great delight; and I laid myself down upon my couch to dream of an overflowing happiness. In the blessedness of the great love that absorbed every feeling of my heart, I loved even the king, whom I had most injured and deceived, with the loving devotion of a child. "In the midst of my ecstatic dreams I fell asleep, and dreamed a dream, O, so different! As plainly as one sees in broad daylight, I saw myself bound in chains, and P'haya P'hi Chitt flung down a dreadful precipice. "My chamber door was thrown rudely open, I was seized by cold hands, harsh voices bade me rise, and I opened my eyes upon that woman who is called by us Mai Taie.[24] There was Boon, tied hand and foot, lying before my door. It was all over with us. 'If I could only save him,' was my only thought. "They were putting chains on my hands, and jostling me about; for so benumbed and prostrated was I at the sight of Boon that I could not rise. I did not dare to ask her a single question for fear of implicating ourselves all the more, when my sister Thieng rushed into my room screaming, flung herself upon my bed, and clasped me around the neck. "'Hush! sister,' I said. 'Make these women wait a little, and tell me how they came to find it out.' "'O Choy, Choy!' she kept repeating, wringing her hands and moaning piteously. "'Sister Thieng, do you hear me? I don't care what they do to me. I only want to know how much you know, how much _he_ knows.' "'A copy of a letter you wrote to some nobleman was picked up about an hour ago, and taken to the chief judge. She has laid it before the king.'