but through the cracks in the boards.  No wonder that the missionary soon fell ill of a fever.  His wife, fearing he would die, determined to act like the widow in the parable, and to weary the unjust judge by her entreaties.  She left her quiet cottage, and built a hut of bamboos at the governor’s gate, and there she lived with her babe, and the little Burmese girls.  The prison was just opposite the governor’s gate, so that the anxious wife had now the comfort of being near her suffering husband.  The governor was wearied by her importunity, and at last permitted her to build again a bamboo hovel for the prisoner in the court of the prison.  The sick man was brought out of the noisome dungeon, and was laid upon his mat in the fresh air.  He was supplied with food and medicine by his faithful wife, and he began to recover.

But in three days, a change occurred.  Suddenly the poor wife heard that her beloved had been dragged from his prison, and taken, she knew not where.  She inquired of everybody she saw, “Where is he gone?” but no answer could she obtain.  At last the governor told her, that his prisoner was taken to a great city, named A-ma-ra-poora.  This city was seven miles from Ava.  The wife decided in a moment what to do.  She determined to follow her husband.  Taking her babe in her arms, and accompanied by the Burmese children, and one servant, she set out.  She went to the city up the river in a covered boat, and thus she was sheltered from the scorching sun of an Indian May.  But when she arrived at Amarapoora, she heard that her husband had been taken to a village six miles off.  To this village she travelled in a clumsy cart drawn by oxen.  Overcome with fatigue, she arrived at the prison, and saw her poor husband sitting in the court chained to another prisoner, and looking very ill.  He had neither hat, nor coat, nor shoes, and his feet were covered with wounds he had received, as he had been driven over the burning gravel on the way to the prison:  but his wounds had been bound up by a kind heathen servant, who had torn up his own turban to make bandages.

When the missionary saw his wife approaching with her infant, he felt grieved on her account, and exclaimed, “Why have you come?  You cannot live here?” But she cared not where she lived, so that she could be near her suffering husband.  She wished to build a bamboo hut at the prison gate:  but the jailor would not allow her.  However, he let her live in a room of his own house.  It was a wretched room, with no furniture but a mat.  Here the mother and the children slept that night, while the servant, wrapped in his cloth, lay at the door.  They had no supper that night.  Next day, they bought food in the village, with some silver that the lady kept carefully concealed in her clothes.