"No," she answered, "that I cannot do, I might be too harsh--I have convicted him; let His Majesty, who is ever lenient, name his punishment."
Then they all turned to the King, who said--
"I command that he be banished from this land for ever, and any property that he has, or is likely to have, be confiscated."
Mah May was a little Burmese girl who kept a small stall filled with cheroots in one of the crowded many-coloured streets of Rangoon. There she sat all through the sultry, languorous days smoking and waiting, with philosophical calm, for customers; now and then a great, big, well-fed looking Indian would stop and handle her goods, and, grumbling perhaps a little, would eventually buy; or a lean Chinaman, in baggy blue trousers, would pause and smile and talk awhile; or some little naked child would come and beg one for nothing; or the black coolies, their silver belts glittering in the sunlight, would cluster round and bargain and quarrel among themselves, perhaps, in the end, throwing her goods back to her with no very complimentary language; or a "Chetty,"[1] airily attired in scanty white muslin, his shaved head protected by a big cotton umbrella, would come and haggle over the annas as a poor Burman would never dream of doing; then, again, a well-to-do woman of her own race, dressed in silk, and with gold bracelets on her wrists, would purchase, but they were always, as Mah May used to say with a shake of her small head, the meanest of all.
She was a bright little girl, though very poor; often hungry, and always wretchedly clad.
For two years past she had squatted behind her tray, in the hot, hard, cruel glare, when the sun beat on the flat-roofed white houses mercilessly; when even the river, with its forests of ships, seemed to cease to flow; when all things were gasping and weary and the gharry wallahs slept soundly, and the poor lean ponies tried to flick the flies off their backs with their tails; when the Indian shopkeepers stretched themselves on wooden beds just in the shadow of their door-ways and snored away, dreaming of rupees and curry; while only the pariah dogs scratched and smelt in the road for something to eat. No one stirred; the drowsy influence of the heat seemed universal. Or on the dull wet days, when the sky was clouded and rain poured down, soaking everything through and through, and the thin coloured dresses clung pitifully round their owners' dark forms, and nobody had time to think of buying as they passed on in the warm, damp, oppressive atmosphere. Still Mah May sat, no matter what the season, rolling her cheroots, cutting betel chews, and crooning some little song to herself. At mid-day she ate some rice, and got a draught of water from a pump not far distant. Often some one was kind, and gave her some fruit or a cake; oftener they were unkind, but oftener still they were indifferent.