Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/138

 98 had taken place. Then the Carpenter's wife turned to her son-in-law, and said, 'It is all very well that you should have made these wooden parrots; but I don't know where we are to find food for them! great strong parrots like these will eat not less than a pound of rice apiece every day. Your father-in-law and I cannot afford to procure as much as that for them in this poor house. If you wish to keep them, you must live elsewhere, for we cannot provide for you all.'

'Very well,' said the Rajah; 'you shall not have cause to accuse me of ruining you, for from henceforth I will have a house of my own.' So he and his wife went to live in a house of their own, and he took the thousand parrots with him, and his mother-in-law gave her daughter some corn, and rice, and money to begin housekeeping with. He soon found that the parrots, instead of being an expense, were the means of increasing his fortune; for they flew away every morning early to get food, and spent the whole day out in the fields; and every evening, when they returned home, each parrot brought in his beak a stalk of corn, or rice, or whatever it had found, good to eat. So that their master was regularly supplied with more food than enough; and what with selling what he did not require, and working at his trade, he soon became quite a rich carpenter.

After he had been living in this way very happily for some time, one night, when he fell asleep, the Rajah dreamed a wonderful dream, and this was the dream.

He thought that very, very far away, beyond the Red Sea, was a beautiful kingdom surrounded by seven other seas; and that it belonged to a Rajah and Ranee who had one lovely daughter, named Panch-Phul Ranee (the Five Flower Queen), after whom the whole kingdom was called Panch-Phul Ranee's country; and that this Princess lived in the centre of her father's kingdom, in a little house round which were seven wide ditches, and seven great hedges made of spears; and that she was called Panch-Phul Ranee, because she was so light and delicate, that she weighed no more than five white lotus-flowers! Moreover, he dreamed that this Princess had vowed to marry no one who could not cross the seven seas, and jump the seven ditches, and seven hedges made of spears.

After dreaming this, the young Rajah awoke, and feeling much puzzled, got up, and sitting with his head in his hands, tried to think the matter over, and discover if he had ever heard anything like his dream before; but he could make nothing of it.