ghtmare dreams of murder and terror; dreaming
also of heavenly beauty, for the Lord Buddha looks down in moonlight
peace upon the land that leaped to kiss His footprints, that has laid
its heart in the hand of the Blessed One, and shares therefore in His
bliss and content. The Land of the Lord Buddha, where the myriad pagodas
lift their golden flames of worship everywhere, and no idlest wind can
pass but it ruffles the bells below the knees until they send forth
their silver ripple of music to swell the hymn of praise!

There is a little bay on the bank of the flooding river--a silent,
deserted place of sanddunes and small bills. When a ship is in sight,
some poor folk come and spread out the red lacquer that helps their
scanty subsistence, and the people from the passing ship land and barter
and in a few minutes are gone on their busy way and silence settles
down once more. They neither know nor care that, near by, a mighty city
spread its splendour for miles along the river bank, that the king
known as Lord of the Golden Palace, The Golden Foot, Lord of the White
Elephant, held his state there with balls of magnificence, obsequious
women, fawning courtiers and all the riot and colour of an Eastern
tyranny. How should they care? Now there are ruins--ruins, and the
cobras slip in and out through the deserted holy places. They breed
their writhing young in the sleeping-chambers of queens, the tigers mew
in the moonlight, and the giant spider, more terrible than the cobra,
strikes with its black poison-claw and, paralyzing the life of the
victim, sucks its brain with slow, lascivious pleasure.

Are these foul creatures more dreadful than some of the men, the women,
who dwelt in these palaces--the more evil because of the human brain
that plotted and foresaw? That is known only to the mysterious Law that
in silence watches and decrees.

But this is a story of the dead days of Pagan, by the Irawadi, and it
will be shown that, as the Lotus of the Lord Buddha grows up a white
splendour from the black mud of the depths, so also may the soul of a
woman.

In the days of the Lord of the White Elephant, the King Pagan Men, was a
boy named Mindon, son of second Queen and the King. So, at least, it
was said in the Golden Palace, but those who knew the secrets of such
matters whispered that, when the King had taken her by the hand she
came to him no maid, and that the boy was the son of an Indian trader.
Furthermore it was said t