Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/218

 306 The sepoy's wife went straight to the sarai, cut off her husband's head, and brought it to the yogí. "What a wicked woman you are to do such a thing at my bidding!" he said. "Go away at once. You are a wicked woman, and I do not want to see you." She took the head home, set it again on the body, and began to cry. All the people in the sarai came to see what was the matter. "Thieves have been here," she said, "and have killed my husband, and cut off his head," and then she cried again. The third bed-leg now went back to the palace, and told the others all it had seen and heard. The king lay still and listened.

The fourth bed-leg next went out to see all it could, and it came to a plain on which were seven thieves, who had just been into the king's palace and had carried off his daughter on her bed fast asleep; and there she lay still sleeping. They had, too, been into the king's treasury and had taken all his rupees. The fourth bed-leg came quickly back to the palace, and said to the other three legs, "Now, if the king were wise he would get up instantly and go to the plain. For some thieves are there with his daughter and all his rupees which they have just stolen out of his palace. If he only made haste and went at once, he would get them again."

The king got up that minute and called his servants and some sepoys and set off to the plain. He shook his shoe before he put it on, and out tumbled the snake (the other had quietly gone into the jungle, and not come to the palace); so he saw that the first bed-leg had spoken the truth.

When he reached the plain he found his daughter and his rupees, and brought them back to his palace. The princess slept all the time and did not know what had happened to her. The king saw the fourth leg had told the truth. The thieves he could not catch, for they all ran away when they saw him coming with his sepoys.