Cheerfully she agreed, cautioning him to leave her in privacy, and not to look upon her until she came forth with the cloth. But alas for the spirit of prying impertinence and wicked curiosity! Not satisfied with having been delivered from starvation by a wife that served him like a slave, Musai stealthily crept up to the paper partition, touched his tongue to the latticed pane, and poked his finger noiselessly through, thus making a round hole to which he glued his eye and looked in. What a sight! There was no woman at work, but a noble white crane--the same that he had seen in the field, and from whose back he had extracted the hunter's arrow. Bending over the spinning wheel, the bird pulled from her own breast the silky down, and by twining and twisting made it into the finest thread which mortals ever beheld. From time to time, she pressed from her heart's blood red drops with which to dye some strands, and thus the weaving went on. The web of the cloth was nearly finished. Musai astounded looked on without moving, until suddenly called by his mother, he cried out in response, "Yes, I'm coming." The startled crane turned and saw the eye in the wall. Throwing down thread and web she moved angrily to the door, gave a shrill scream and flew out under the sky. Like a white speck against the blue hills, she appeared for a little while and then was lost to sight. Son and mother once more faced poverty and loneliness, and Musai again splashed barelegged in the rice field. _Little Surya Bai_ A poor Milkwoman was once going into the town with cans full of milk to sell. She took with her her little daughter (a baby of about a year old), having no one in whose charge to leave her at home. Being tired, she sat down by the roadside, placing the child and the cans full of milk beside her; when, on a sudden, two large eagles flew overhead; and one, swooping down, seized the child, and flew away with her out of the mother's sight. Very far, far away the eagles carried the little baby, even beyond the borders of her native land, until they reached their home in a lofty tree. There the old eagles had built a great nest; it was made of iron and wood, and was as big as a little house; there was iron all round, and to get in and out you had to go through seven iron doors. In this stronghold they placed the little baby, and because she was like a young eaglet they called her Surya Bai (the Sun Lady). The eagles both loved the child; and daily they flew into distant countries to bring her rich and precious things--clothes that had been made for princesses, precious jewels, wonderful playthings, all that was most costly and rare.