This, perhaps, is still better illustrated if we turn to India. In the story of "How the Three Clever Men outwitted the Demons," told by Miss Frere in her _Old Deccan Days_, it is related how "a demon was compelled to bring treasure to the pundit's house, and on being asked why he had been so long away, answered, 'All my fellow-demons detained me, and would hardly let me go, they were so angry at my bringing you so much treasury; and though I told them how great and powerful you are, they would not believe me, but will, as soon as I return, judge me in solemn council for serving you.' 'Where is your council held?' asked the pundit. 'Oh! very far, far away,' answered the demon, 'in the depths of the jungle, where our rajah daily holds his court.' The three men, the pundit, the wrestler, and the pearl-shooter, are taken by the demon to witness the trial.... They reached the great jungle where the durbar (council) was to be held, and there he (the demon) placed them on the top of a high tree just over the demon rajah's throne. In a few minutes they heard a rustling noise, and thousands and thousands of demons filled the place, covering the ground as far as the eye could reach, and thronging chiefly round the rajah's throne."[65] A classical story told by Ælian gives us another interesting example of this feature of early political life. It is said of the Lady Rhodopis, who was alike fair and frail, that of all the beautiful women in Egypt, she was by far the most beautiful; and the story goes that one time when she was bathing, Fortune, which always was a lover of whatever may be the most unlikely and unexpected, bestowed upon her rank and dignity that were alone suitable for her transcendent charms; and this was the way what I am now going to tell came to pass. Rhodopis, before taking a bath, had given her robes in charge to her attendants; but at the same time there was an eagle flying over the bath, and it darted down and flew away with one of her slippers. The eagle flew away, and away, and away, until it got to the city of Memphis, where the Prince Psammetichus was sitting in the open air, and administering justice to those subject to his sway; and as the eagle flew over him it let the slipper fall from its beak, and it fell down into the lap of Psammetichus. The prince looked at the slipper, and the more he looked at it, the more he marvelled at the beauty of the material and the dainty minuteness of its size; and then he cogitated upon the wondrous way in which such a thing was conveyed to him through the air by a bird; and then it was he sent forth a proclamation to all parts of Egypt to try to discover the woman to whom the slipper belonged, and solemnly promised that whoever she might be he would make her his bride.[66]