Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/66

54 could never find it in his heart to eat her, but brought her up as his own child. Her name was Sonahrí Rání, that is, the Golden Rání, because her teeth and her hair were made of gold. Now the Rakshas who had carried her off, and whom she called Papa, had a great thick stick, and when he laid this stick at her feet she could not stir, but when he laid it at her head, she could move again.

When the Rájá's son came up, Sonahrí Rání was lying on her bed with the thick stick at her feet, and as soon as she saw the Rájá's son she began to cry very much. "Oh, why have you come here? You will surely be killed," she said. The Rájá's son answered, "I cannot help that. I am the Ránís servant, so I must do what she tells me." "Of course," said Sonahrí Rání; "but put this stick at my head, and then I shall be able to move." The Rájá's son laid the stick at her head, and she got up and gave him some food, and then asked him if he had a letter. "Yes," he answered. "Let me see it," said the Sonahrí Rání. So he gave her the letter, and when she had read it she cried, "Oh, this is a very wicked letter. It will bring you no good, for if the Rakshases see it they will kill you." "Indeed," said Hírálálbásá. And the Sonahrí Rání tore up the letter and wrote another in which she said, "Make much of this boy. Send him home quickly, and give him a jug of rose-water to bring back with him, and see that he gets no hurt." Then the Rájá's son set out again for the Rakshas-Rání's mother's house. He had not gone very far when he met a very big Rakshas, and he cried out to him, "Uncle." "Who is this boy," said the Rakshas, "who calls me uncle?" And he was just going to kill him when Hírálálbásá showed his letter, and the Rakshas let him pass on. He went a little further until he met another Rakshas bigger than the first, and the Rakshas screamed at him and was just going to fall on him and kill him, but the Rájá's son showed the letter, and the Rakshas let