Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/196

184 what has happened to you?" "My eyes pain me so much," she said. "What will cure them?" said the king. "If I had only some night-growing rice," she said, "I would boil it, and make rice-water, which I would drink. Then I should get well." Now this night-growing rice was a wonderful rice that no men, and only one demon, possessed. This was the demon-queen's brother. He used to put a grain of this rice into his huge cavern of a mouth at night when he went to sleep, and when he woke in the morning this grain would have become a tree. Then the demon used to take the rice-tree out of his mouth.

The demon, who seemed such a lovely girl, now wrote a letter to her brother, in which she said, "The bearer of this letter goes to you for some night-growing rice. You must kill him at once; you must not let him live." The king gave this letter to his servants, with six thousand rupees. "Take this letter," he said, "and fetch some of the night-growing rice. Here are six thousand rupees for whichever of you finds it." The king had no idea that it was not these men who had gone for the tigress's milk and the eagle's feather.

The servants said, "Let us go to the well, to the boy who has helped us before. We don't know where to get this night-growing rice, but that boy is sure to know."

The boy was sitting by the well, and asked what they wanted. They answered, "See, the king has given us six thousand rupees and a letter, and told us to fetch him some night-growing rice." "Very good," said the king's son. "Come here in three weeks' time, and I will give you some." The servants gave him the rupees and returned home.

He took the rupees to his mothers, and told them he was going on a fresh errand, and they were to keep the money. Then he made them salaams, took his letter, and rode off. The eaglet went too, and flew above his head. The tiger's cub he left at home.