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It is a frequent ending to a girl's letter to her lover: 'And I pray always that you may be well. I never heard of their praying for anything but this: that they may be loved, and those they love may be well. Nothing else is worth praying for besides this. The queen would pray at the pagoda in the palace morning and evening. 'What did she pray for? 'What should she pray for, thakin?
'She is a girl from a village near; the thakin knows, Taungywa. He did not tell me, but I soon heard of it; and although I thought my heart would break, I did not say anything. I told my husband, "Bring her here, let us live all together; it will be best so." I always did for the best, thakin. So he brought her, and she came to live with us a week ago. Ah, thakin, I did not know!
'Thakin, there will be Someone, Someone. A Spirit may hear. Who can tell? Surely someone will help me? Men would help me if they could, but they cannot; surely there will be someone? So she did not remember the story of Ma Pa Da. Women often pray, I think they pray that their husbands and those they love may be well.
Mhtoon Pah gasped and beat his breast. "He was a good boy, he attended the Mission with regularity, and they are doing terrible things. They wind wires around the finger-nails and the toe-nails until they turn black and drop off. You do not know these Chinamen, Thakin, as I know them. Have you seen the assistant of Leh Shin?"
"All that may be made, Thakin. His mother comes crying to my door, his brothers have searched everywhere. Ah, that I had the body of the man who has done this thing, and held him in the sacred tank, to make food for the fishes." His dark eyes gleamed, and he showed his teeth like a dog. "Nonsense, man," said Hartley, quickly. "You seem to suppose that the boy is dead.
'How can I take you back again? he said. 'You have been in gaol. 'But, said the boy, 'I did very well in gaol. I became a warder with a cap white on one side and yellow on the other. Let the thakin ask. Still the officer doubted. 'I cannot take you back, he repeated. 'You stole my money, and you have been in prison. I could not have you as a servant again.
'Thakin, we cannot do so. It would seem to us terrible, that is what they say. A man who renounces the world is called 'the great glory, but not so a woman. I have said that the Buddhist religion holds men and women as equal. If women can observe its laws as men do, it is surely their own fault if they be held the less worthy. Women themselves admit this.
Mhtoon Pah, immense and splendid in his silk, had given forth wild noises as he produced the rag, noises that reminded Hartley irresistibly of the trumpeting of elephants, but they were terrible to hear. "It is enough," he said, his face quivering. "This is the work of the Chinamen. They slit his veins, Thakin, they are doing it slowly.
His story was confused and rambling, but what he told was to the effect that his boy, Absalom, had disappeared and could not be found. "It was the night of the 29th of July, Thakin, and I sent him forth upon a business. Next morning he did not return. It was I who opened the shop, it was I who waited upon customers, and Absalom was not there." "What inquiries have you made?"
'Perhaps, she said, 'if I had been able to have a child it would have been different. But fate was unkind and no baby came, and her husband became more and more angry with her. 'And yet I did all for the best, thakin; I always tried to act for the best. My husband has sisters at Henzada, and they write to him now and then, and say, "Send ten rupees," or "Send five rupees," or even twenty rupees.
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