Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/18

6 come to bathe in the tank. Her servants wear yellow dresses, but she wears a red one. Now, if the Rájá could get all their dresses, every one, when they lay them down and go into the tank to bathe, and throw away all the yellow dresses one by one, keeping only the red one, he would recover his wife."

The Rájá heard all these things, and at midnight the Rání and her servants came to bathe. The Rájá lay very quiet, and after they all had taken off their dresses and gone into the tank, he jumped up and seized every one of the dresses,—he did not leave one of them,—and ran away as hard as he could. Then each of the servants, who were only fairies, screamed out, "Give me my dress! What are you doing? why do you take it away?" Then the Rájá dropped one by one the yellow dresses and kept the red one. The fairy servants picked up the dresses, and forsook the Phúlmattí Rání and ran away. The Rájá came back to her with her dress in his hand, and she said, "Oh, give me back my dress. If you keep it I shall die. Three times has God brought me to life, but he will bring me to life no more." The Rájá fell at her feet and begged her pardon, and they were reconciled. And he gave her back her dress. Then they went home, and Indrasan Rájá had the shoemaker's wife cut to pieces and buried in the jungle. And they lived happily ever after.