Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/190

178 demon one day. His mother said, "No, stay here; you are too young to leave the well."

The boy did not listen to her, but scrambled out. Then he saw they were in a wide plain in the jungle. He ran after a few birds, caught and killed them. Then he roasted the birds and brought them with some water to his seven mothers in the well. When they had eaten them and drunk the water, they were happy, and worshipped God. The six mothers who had eaten their children were full of sorrow, and said, "If our six sons were now living, how good it would be for us: how happy we should be." The young prince went out hunting for little birds every day, and in the evening he cooked those he caught and brought them, with water, to his mothers.

Now the demon, because she was a demon and was therefore wiser than men and women, knew that the seven queens lived in the well, and that the son of the youngest queen was still alive. She determined to kill him; so she pretended her eyes hurt her, and began crying, and making a great to-do. The king asked her, "What is the matter?" "See, king, see my eyes," she said. "They ache and hurt me so much." "What medicine will make them well again?" said the king. "If I could only bathe them with a tigress's milk, they would be well," she answered.

The king called two of his servants and said to them, "Can either of you get me a tigress's milk ? Here are two thousand rupees for whichever of you brings me the milk." Then he gave them the rupees, and told them to get it at once.

The servants took the rupees, and said nothing to the king, but they said to each other, "How can we get a tigress's milk?" And they were very sad. They left the king's country, and wandered on till they came to the jungle-plain, where lived the young prince and his mothers. There they saw him sitting by a dry well and roasting birds. "Do you