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XVII.

THE RAKSHAS' PALACE.

GREAT while since there lived a Rajah who was left a widower with two little daughters. Not very long after his first wife died, he married again, and his second wife did not care for her step-children, and was often unkind to them; and the Rajah, their father, never troubled himself to look after them, but allowed his wife to treat them as she liked. This made the poor girls very miserable, and one day one of them said to the other, 'Don't let us remain any longer here; come away into the jungle, for nobody here cares whether we go or stay.' So they both walked off into the jungle, and lived for many days on the jungle fruits. At last, after they had wandered on for a long while, they came to a fine palace which belonged to a Rakshas; but both the Rakshas and his wife were out when they got there. Then one of the Princesses said to the other, 'This fine palace, in the midst of the jungle, can belong to no one but a Rakshas; but the owner has evidently gone out; let us go in and see if we can find anything to eat.' So they went into the Rakshas' house, and finding some rice, boiled and ate it. Then they swept the room, and arranged all the furniture in the house tidily. But hardly had they finished doing so, when the Rakshas and his wife returned home. Then the two Princesses were so frightened that they ran up to the top of the house, and hid themselves on the flat roof, from whence they could look down on one side into the inner courtyard of the house, and from the other could see the open country. The house-top was a favourite resort of the Rakshas and his wife. Here they would sit upon the hot summer evenings; here they winnowed the grain, and hung out the clothes to dry; and the two Princesses found a sufficient shelter behind 147