The Rajah, unconscious of their intentions, went into the largest hut
he saw, and said to a woman who was grinding corn, "Bai, give me a
little rice, and some fire from your hearth." She immediately
consented, and got up to fetch the burning sticks he asked for; but
before she gave them to him, she and her companions threw upon them a
certain powder, containing a very potent charm; and no sooner did the
Rajah receive them than he forgot about his wife and little child, his
journey, and all that had ever happened to him in his life before;
such was the peculiar property of the powder. And when the conjurors
said to him, "Why should you go away? stay with us, and be one of us,"
he willingly consented to do so.
All this time Panch-Phul Ranee waited and waited for her husband, but
he never came. Night approached without his having brought her any
food or news of having found a place of shelter for her and the baby.
At last, faint and weary, she swooned away.
It happened that that very day the Ranee (Panch-Phul Ranee's husband's
mother) lost her youngest child, a fine little boy of only a day old;
and her servants took its body to the bottom of the garden to bury it.
Just as they were going to do so, they heard a low cry, and, looking
round, saw close by a beautiful woman lying on the ground, dead, or
apparently so, and beside her a fine little baby boy. The idea
immediately entered their heads of leaving the dead baby beside the
dead woman, and taking her living baby back with them to the palace;
and so they did.
When they returned, they said to their mistress, "Your child did not
die; see, here it is--it got well again," and showed her Panch-Phul
Ranee's baby. But after a time, when the Ranee questioned them about
it, they told her the whole truth; but she had become meanwhile very
fond of the little boy, and so he continued in the palace and was
brought up as her son; being, in truth, her grandson, though she did
not know it.
Meantime the palace Malee's wife went out, as her custom was every
morning and evening, to gather flowers. In search of them she wandered
as far as the jungle at the bottom of the garden, and there she found
the Panch-Phul Ranee lying as dead, and the dead baby beside her.
The good woman felt very sorry, and rubbed the Ranee's cold hands and
gave her sweet flowers to smell in hopes that she might revive. At
last she opened her eyes, and seeing the Malee's wife, said, "Where am
I? Has not my husband come back? and who are you?"
"My poor lady," answered the Malee's wife, "I do not know where your
husband is. I am the Malee's wife, and coming here to gather flowers,
I found you lying on the ground, and this your little baby, who is
dead; but come home with me, I will take care of you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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