hains, but, as
he was not treated very harshly, she began to hope that the Burmese
would release him when the war was ended.
But the end of the war was a long way off, and in the middle of
February it became known that the English had quitted Rangoon and were
marching to Ava. Mr. Judson was immediately taken from his shed and
flung into the common prison--one room occupied by over a hundred
prisoners--loaded with five pairs of fetters. It was the hot season,
and Mr. and Mrs. Judson knew that he could not live long in that place.
Indeed, he was quickly attacked with fever, and Mrs. Judson, growing
desperate, so persistently implored the governor to allow her to remove
him that at last he consented. Mr. Judson was removed speedily to a
small bamboo hut in the courtyard, where, made comfortable and nursed
by his wife, he recovered.
In the meanwhile Bandoola had been killed in action, and his successor
appointed. The latter was a man of fiendish tastes, and he decided
before proceeding down the Irrawaddy to take up his command, to remove
the prisoners from Ava, and have them tortured in his presence. So Mr.
Judson and two or three white traders were taken away to Amarapoora.
Mrs. Judson was absent when her husband was removed, and when she
returned and found him gone she feared that what she had been long
dreading had happened--that her husband had been killed. The governor
and the jailors protested, untruthfully, that they did not know what
had become of him; but at last Mrs. Judson discovered where he had been
taken, and started off with her few months' old baby and her native
nurse-girl to find him.
Travelling first by river and then by bullock-cart, she arrived to find
her husband in a pitiable state of health, caused by the ill-treatment
he had received from his warders on the march from Ava. He was in a
high fever, his feet were terribly swollen, and his body covered with
bruises. Mrs. Judson obtained permission to nurse him, but on the same
day her child and nurse-girl developed small-pox. She nursed all three
patients, and to her great joy they all recovered. But the strain on
her fever-weakened strength had been great, and she felt that her life
was quickly drawing to a close. But she bore up bravely, and journeyed
to Ava to fetch her medicine chest.
Neither she nor her husband knew of the intention of the Burmese
general. It was never carried out, for he was suspected of high
treason, and prom
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