court was thrown into consternation by news
of the disastrous defeat of Bandoola, the vain-glorious chief who was to
expel the English from the kingdom; and the rapid advance of the British
troops towards Ava. The first consequence of such intelligence would of
course be increased rigor towards the white prisoners; and accordingly,
before she had regained her strength after her confinement, Mrs. Judson
learned that her husband had been put into the inner prison, in five
pairs of fetters, that the room she had made for him had been torn down,
and all his little comforts taken away by his jailers. All the prisoners
had been similarly treated.

Mrs. Judson, feeble as she was, hastened to the governor's house. But in
her long absence she had lost favor; and she was told that she must not
ask to have the fetters taken off, or the prisoners released, for _it
could not be done_. She made a pathetic appeal to the governor, who was
an old man, reminding him of all his former kindness to them, and
begging to know why his conduct was so changed to them now. His hard
heart melted and he even "wept like a child." He then confessed to her
that he had often been ordered to assassinate the prisoners privately,
but that he would not do it; and that, come what would, he would never
put Mr. Judson to death. At the same time he was resolute in refusing to
attempt any mitigation of his sufferings.

The situation of the prisoners was now horrible in the extreme. There
were more than one hundred of them shut up in one room, with no air but
what came through cracks in the boards, and this in the hot season. Mrs.
Judson was sometimes permitted to spend five minutes at the door, but
the sight was almost too horrible to be borne. By incessant intreaties,
she obtained permission for them to eat their food outside, but even
this was soon forbidden. After a month passed in this way, Mr. Judson
was seized with fever, and nothing but death was before him unless he
could have more air. Mrs. Judson at length succeeded in putting up
another bamboo hut in the prison enclosure, and by wearing out the
governor with her entreaties, she got her husband removed into it, and
though too low for them to stand upright, it seemed to them a palace in
comparison with the prison.

Disastrous news of the war continued to arrive, and at length the death
of Bandoola seemed to be the climax of misfortune. Who could be found to
take his place? A government officer, who