Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/197

 Rh After a time the Rajah discovered that some one had plucked some of his favourite lotus-flowers. People were set to watch, and all the wise men in the kingdom put their heads together to try and discover the thief, but without avail. At last, the excitement about this matter being very great, the Rajah's second son, a brave and noble young Prince (brother to him who had found the eldest Princess in the forest) said, 'I will certainly discover the thief.' It chanced that several fine trees grew round the tank. Into one of these the young Prince climbed one evening (having made a sort of light thatched roof across two of the boughs, to keep off the heavy dews), and there he watched all the night through, but with no more success than his predecessors. There lay the lotus plants, still in the moonlight, without so much as a thieving wind coming by to break off one of the flowers. The Prince began to get very sleepy, and thought the delinquent, whoever he might be, could not intend to return, when, in the very early morning, before it was light, who should come down to the tank but an old woman he had often seen near the palace gate. 'Aha!' thought the Prince 'this then is the thief; but what can this queer old woman want with lotus-flowers?' Imagine his astonishment when the old woman sat down on the steps of the tank and began pulling the skin off her face and arms! and from underneath the shrivelled yellow skin came the loveliest face he had ever beheld! So fair, so fresh, so young, so gloriously beautiful, that appearing thus suddenly it dazzled the Prince's eyes like a flash of golden lightning! 'Ah,' thought he, 'can this be a woman or a spirit? a devil, or an angel in disguise?'

The Princess twisted up her glossy black hair; and, plucking a red lotus, placed it in it, and dabbled her feet in the water, and amused herself by putting round her neck a string of the pearls that had been her sister's necklace. Then, as the sun was rising, she threw away the lotus, and covering her face and arms again with the withered skin, went hastily away. When the Prince got home the first thing he said to his parents was, 'Father, mother; I should like to marry that old woman who stands all day at the farmer's gate, just opposite.'—'What!' cried they, 'the boy is mad! Marry that skinny old thing? You cannot—you are a King's son. Are there not enough Queens and Princesses in the world, that you should wish to marry a wretched old beggar woman?' But he answered, 'Above all things I should like to marry that old woman. You know that I have ever been a dutiful and obedient son. In