Take Care of Yourself (1825)

C H A P T E R X I X

Take Care of Yourself

[ I825 ]

EBRUARY passed. The Pakan Wun himself was thrown into the Death Prison. He had been next in command under Bandula, from whom he had learned the art of war in the conquest of Assam. Now he was suSpected of treason.

The morning the Pakan Wun arrived, just before the gate opened to admit him, a strange-looking hen with feathers growing every which way, the only domestic animal in the prison yard, had crowed lustily. The hen was a special favorite of the Spotted Faces. The fact that it crowed—or rather, croaked——won for it their belief that it had the gift of prophecy. This was why they had not eaten it long ago. Now they all but worshiped it. Its crowing was thought to mean that good luck was coming in the form of a prisoner of importance who could give enormous bribes. Gouger realistically concluded that with so many eminent prisoners arriving, now that the war was going badly, the wall-eyed warty bird could hardly be wrong no matter when it crowed.

The Pakan Wun hated the English. Even in the Death Prison he never troubled to hide his feelings. He looked at them with such murderous malevolence that, in spite of their satisfaction at seeing so exalted a personage in jail, they almost wished for his release. But there he was, glaring at them whenever they passed near. Only Laird placed any trust in him, for he had told Laird that if he ever got out he would try to do something for the prisoners.

The firSt day of March found the Europeans each in his little cell against the Stockade wall. Towards evening on that day a Spotted Face went to each cell and brought out the man in it. Not a word was spoken, but the Spotted Faces’ expressions showed that ominous business was afoot. The prisoners glanced at each other as they assembled in silence around the granite block in the prison yard.

Each man already wore three pairs of fetters. Now each received two pairs more. When the job was finished, Father pointed to the wicket of the inner prison. Freighted with so much iron, they could barely stagger inside and sink down into their places. Late that night, their legs hung high on the familiar bamboo, they discussed the meaning of it in whispers. As their new fetters had been riveted on, they had seen other Spotted Faces demolishing the little bamboo hut Nancy had built, and snatching up their pillows, mats and other small belongings. All evidence of their ever being in the yard had been removed, and the jailers had already divided their possessions.

It could mean only one thing, they agreed: they were to be assassinated secretly, where they lay. A whisper ran around the crowded room that the execution was to be at three in the morning. Outside, they could hear the Spotted Faces sharpening their knives on whetstones.

The sibilant wheet-wbeet of the blades on stone gave Gouger a certain sense of relief. He had a peculiar dread of being strangled. He listened with grim satisfaction. The steel would be a boon compared to the cord. He had learned to pray in the prison. He made a silent prayer of thanks to God.

Adoniram’s emotions were a little different. He felt bitterness and regret that he would have no chance to say good-by to Nancy and the baby. But perhaps, he decided, this way was better. He had not seen her that day. Tomorrow she would come again and he would not be there. She might even have reason to be glad he had no more to endure. For herself, he believed she would come to no harm. The Burmese had always treated her with respect. Her steadfast courage, persistence and utter honesty had won their admiration. She might even be treated better now, especially with the arrival of the British imminent. He wondered idly, almost with detachment, about the pillow concealing his precious translation of the New Testament. There were some passages he would like to improve. He had seen one of the SpOtted Faces with it. No matter. Someone else would do the work again.

One thing he felt sure of. The war would advance the Kingdom of God in Burma. He had told Gouger, more than once: “Here I have been ten years preaching the gospel to timid listeners who wish to embrace the truth but dare not, and beseeching the emperor to grant liberty of conscience to his people but without success, and now when all human means seem at an end, God Opens the way by leading a Christian nation to subdue the country. It is possible my life will be spared, if so, with what ardor shall I pursue my work! If not — His will be done. The door will be Opened for others who will do the work better.”

That was still true. He felt a certain sense of relief. Not all the prisoners did. Some broke down in a last agony of fear. Their sobs echoed through the crowded prison. Their trembling rattled their chains.

Three o’clock came and went. The prisoners remained alive. Dawn came. They were not allowed to go outside for any purpose. But they were still alive.

They Spent the day inside. The bringers of their food were carefully kept from seeing them. When a stranger came into the prison yard, the foreigners were hidden from sight: When one of the prisoners went near the wicket for a breath of air, he was unceremoniously hustled back into the depths of the dark prison room. But they lived through the day.

That night they were allowed to go outside for a few moments, but only very late, when no one was on the streets. They began to hope they might live a little longer.

But why were they being hidden?

The first morning after they were thus immured in the inner prison, a message came from Adoniram to Nancy. One of the Spotted Faces, with involuntary respect for her, had allowed word to leak to Maung Ing that Adoniram and all the white prisoners were back in the inner prison, in five pairs of fetters each; that his little but had been demolished, and that his mat and pillow had been taken by the jailers.

The blood drained from Nancy’s face when she heard. She was far too experienced, by now, not to know that something dreadful impended. She hurried at once to the house of the governor, which stood in an enclosure almost directly opposite the prison gate. The governor was not at home, but his wife had a message from him to Nancy. Nancy, it said, must not “ask to have the additional fetters taken OH, or the prisoners released, for it could not be done.”

The cryptic message increased her terrors. She hurried out to the prison gate. She was not allowed to enter. She could glimpse the yard inside through the cracks in the gate. There was not a sign of the little hut, not a sign of the white prisoners. They might as well have disappeared from the earth.

Nancy had to return the two miles to her own house to nurse little Maria, but in the evening she went back to the governor’s house at a time when she knew he would be home.

She found him in his audience room. When she entered he looked up at her in a peculiar way, not Speaking, his expression showing anger which she sensed was not real, and shame which was.

“Your Lordship,” Nancy said earnestly, “has hitherto treated us with the kindness of a father. Our obligations to you are very great. We have looked to you for protection from oppression and cruelty. You have often eased the sufferings of the unfortunate innocents in your charge. You promised me especially that you would stand by me to the last, and even though you should receive an order from the king, you would not put Mr. Judson to death. What crime has he committed to deserve such additional punishment?”

Nancy’s plea melted the old governor’s heart. He began to weep like a child. “I pity you, Tsa-yar-ga-dau” —the name by which he always called her. “I knew how you would make me feel. Therefore I forbade your application. You must believe me when I say that I do not want to increase the sufferings of the prisoners. When I am ordered to execute them, the least that I can do is to put them out of sight. I will now tell you what I have never told you before, that three times I have received suggestions from the queen’s brother to assassinate all the white prisoners privately. But I would not do it. And now I repeat it: Though I execute all the others, I will never execute your husband. But I cannot release him from his present confinement, and you must not ask it.”

Nancy had never known him to show such feelings; nor had he ever denied any favor so firmly. She realized fully now by what a rapidly fraying thread the prisoners’ lives hung. Meanwhile she took what consolation she could from the fact that the old governor was at least keeping them out of sight in the hope they would not come again to the mind of the Prince Menthagee, the queen’s brother. He hated foreigners and was all powerful. But so far he had never given the governor a written order. If he did, the end would be certain and quick.

But even with this knowledge, Nancy never gave up. She visited the governor nearly every day with offers of money. He refused them. She did succeed in getting permission for the prisoners to eat their food in the air outside of the dismal inner prison. Sometimes she was allowed to go to the door of the inner prison and stand looking inside for as much as five minutes. She was afraid that the confinement alone would kill the men within. PerSpiring incessantly in the furious heat, they had no appetite and were beginning to look more dead than alive.

About the end of March two guns were heard from the message boat. Bandula had won a victory! General Cotton had made an attack on Bandula’s entrenchments at Danubyu. It had been beaten off. Ava went into tranSports of delight. Bandula was invincible. No name was heard but his.

But a few weeks later, on the first of April, Bandula was killed by the explosion of a British shell. With one accord his entire army fled the entrenchments and scattered. When the news came to the palace, the king “heard it with silent amazement, and the queen, in Eastern style, smote upon her breast, and cried Ama.’ amal” (“Alasl Alasl”)

In Ava the people’s panic was complete. Their attitude ranged from terror to fury. When Bandula’s brother came to the capital with dispatches from the now deserted front, his head was cut off on the theory he might have had something to do with the defeat. In any case there was no reason why he should be allowed to live when his brother was dead.

No one could imagine who might fill Bandula’s place. The common people were muttering rebellion. So far they had borne the entire burden of the war. They supplied the men and the money. Not a tical had been spent from the Royal Treasury, for there was no regular system of taxation in Burma. The king merely called for a special forced contribution each time money was needed for war, a new palace, or a coronation.

At this juncture the Pakan Wun sent the king ²¹message from the Death Prison that he had a plan which would surely win the war. The king sent for him immediately, and actually received him in the palace, although ancient custom forbade any who had ever worn fetters at the king’s command to enter the palace gates.

The Pakan Wun offered himself as commander of a new army, which he would raise on an entirely new plan. With brazen confidence, he promised the king that with this army he would quickly drive the British back through Rangoon and into the sea. He would raise the army by paying every soldier a hundred ticals in advance. He would make sure of every man personally by receiving the money and paying it out himself.

His stupendous effrontery persuaded the king, who at last had come to realize that his kingdom might be in danger. The Pakan Wun was promptly given all the power in the kingdom.

He began by arresting Lanciego, the only European still at liberty. He was charged with giving the island of Negrais to the British for a large amount of money. Now he was ordered to give up the money to the king. Lanciego was tortured in the prison yard by twisting a lever in a small cord around his wrists. When he came into the prison to join the others, his fingers were coal-black, the ends nearly bursting, his wrists nearly cut through. But even under the torture he admitted nothing.

About the time of Bandula’s death, Adoniram came down with a serious fever. Nancy learned about it from notes they exchanged in the spout of his teapot. (One of the notes was discovered and she nearly landed in jail herself.) She was afraid he would die unless something was done. She moved from her own house and put up a one-room bamboo shack in the governor’s enclosure to be closer to the prison. From here she badgered the governor a dozen times a day to let her take Adoniram from the inner prison and make him more comfortable.

As usual, she also tried to win the favor of other officials. One day she walked several miles to the house of a Wungyi on such an errand. She had to leave early in the morning and after she arrived was kept waiting until noon, only to have her request refused when she did see him. As she turned to go, he seized her silk umbrella. It was the hot season, and Nancy told him she needed the umbrella for shelter from the sun on the long walk home. She had no money with her and could not buy another. At least, if he took it, let him give her a paper umbrella for protection. The Wungyi laughed. “Only fat people are in danger of sunstroke,” he said. “The sun can’t find people as thin as you.” And she had to leave without the umbrella.

At length the old governor, worn out by her irnportunities, gave in. The Pakan Wun was now head of the state anyway, and he certainly knew Adoniram was in the Death Prison, having been there himself. The governor gave her the necessary order, and personally ordered Father to let her go in and out any time of the day with medicines and food. Again she built a bamboo hovel for Adoniram, so low that even she could not stand upright in it. But it was a “palace in comparison with the place he had just left.” Adoniram even recovered his translation-stuffed pillow from the jailer, by exchanging for it a better one.

But governor or no governor, it always took her a long time to persuade the Spotted Faces to open the gate and let her in. To avoid argument, she would bring Adoniram’s food herself. This got her paSt the gate. Once in, she would stay with him for as long as she could —-usually an hour or two, sometimes only a few minutes —until the jailers drove her out.

She had done this one morning—May 2, 1825, to be exact, a month after Bandula’s death—and stayed longer than usual, because Adoniram was so feverish he felt unable to eat, when all at once an urgent message came from the governor. Nancy must see him at once. Adoniram—like all the prisoners oversuSpicious of anything unusual—was disturbed. Such a summons was unprecedented. But Nancy reassured him. She promised to come back as soon as she learned what the governor wanted.

Adoniram’s anxiety had affected her in spite of herself. When she walked into the governor’s audience room she breathed a sigh of relief when she found he merely wanted to ask her about his watch, a present from a prisoner. It was not keeping time. Could a European watch be adjusted? He was unusually pleasant and talkative, and kept her for a long time.

When she left, she was almost smiling for the first time in months. She was just going into her little but in the enclosure across the street from the prison when one of her servants came running to her, pallid under the bronze.

“The white prisoners have all been taken away,” he gasped. Nancy could not believe it. She had just talked with the governor, who would surely have mentioned such a thing! But the man seemed so certain that she returned to the governor’s house. Grave this time, the old man admitted the truth. He had learned himself what was to happen only minutes before the order went into effect. That was why he had called Nancy and kept her with him until it was over—to Spare her.

Nancy waited to hear no more. Frantic with fear, not even Stopping to thank the governor, she ran out of his house. She ran into one street after another around the prison, asking every person she met if they had seen the white foreigners or heard where they were going. No one would answer her. Most averted their faces. They were deathly afraid of the Pakan Wun. Finally she found an old woman who told her the prisoners had been taken toward “the Mootangai,” a stream tributary to the Irrawaddy. She ran the half mile to the little river but could not find them. She decided the old woman had been lying; and, steps dragging, returned to the bamboo shack. Meanwhile, some of her friends had run to the regular place of execution, but the prisoners were not there. Finally, in despair, she went once more to the governor’s house. He had received news.

“The prisoners are to be sent to Amarapura. Why, I know not. I will send ofl’ a man immediately to see what is to be done with them.”

Then he looked at her with significant concern: “You can do nothing more for your husband. Take care of yourself.”