There he was, surrounded by his sons and grandsons,
and all of them were heavily laden with chains on their necks and legs.
Two of them were little boys, and they played and laughed in their
cage!--so thoughtless are children! But the elder sons looked very
miserable; they hung down their heads, and fixed their eyes on the
ground; and well they might; for within their sight were various horrible
instruments of torture;--spears with which to pierce them;--an iron
boiler, in which to heat oil to scald them;--a gallows on which to hang
their bodies, and--a pestle and mortar in which to pound the children to
powder. You see how Satan fills the heart of the heathen with his own
cruel devices. The people who came to see this miserable family, rejoiced
at the sight of their misery: but they lost the delight they expected in
tormenting the old king, for he died of a broken heart; and all they
could do _then_, was to insult his body; they beheaded it, and then hung
it upon a gibbet, where every one might see it, and the beasts and birds
devour it.
What became of his unhappy family is not known.
But though so barbarous to their _enemies_, the Siamese in some respects
are better than most other heathen nations, for they treat their
_relations_ more kindly. They do not kill their infants, nor shut up
their wives, nor cast out their parents. Yet they show their cruelty in
this:--they often sell one another for slaves.
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