Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/199

Rh So they talked together all day, and he said to her, "Suppose one day your father made you dead as usual, and that he was killed before he had brought you to life, what would you do? You would always be dead then." "Listen," she said; "no one can kill my father." "Why not?" said the boy. "Listen," she answered; "on the other side of the sea there is a great tree, in that tree is a nest, in the nest is a mainá. If any one kills that mainá, then only will my father die. And if, when the mainá is killed, its blood falls to the ground, a hundred demons would be born from the blood. This is why my father cannot be killed."

At evening, before the demon came home, the prince made the girl dead. Then he went softly into another room.

The fakír had said to the boy, when they were in the jungle together, "If ever you are in trouble, come to me and I will help you. It will take you now one week to ride to the demon's country; but if ever you need me, you shall be able to come to me here in this jungle, and to return to the demon's house in one day." The fakír was such a holy man that everything he said should happen did happen. So now the prince determined he would go to the fakír and ask him what he should do to kill this mainá. In the morning, therefore, as soon as the demon had gone out, he set off for the fakír's jungle, and, thanks to the holy man's power, he got there very quickly. He told him everything, and the fakír made a paper boat which he gave him. "This boat will take you over the sea," he said to the prince. "This paper boat!" said the boy. "How can a paper boat go over the sea? It will get soaked and sink." "No, it will not," said the fakír. "Launch it on the sea and get into it. The boat will of itself carry you to the tree where the mainá's nest is."

The prince took the boat, and went back to the demon's house. He got there before the demon came home, so that