Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/81

 Rh The girl again asked: "Oh! Anna Deladana, why didst thou utter an ah! at the entrance of the palace?"

The princess replied: "Because you are a woman and they believed you were a man!"

The king then saw that the girl was innocent, and ordered her to be taken down from the scaffold, married her, and had the queen put to death.

XIV.—.

There was once a woman who had a son and a daughter. The mother one day sent her son to buy five reis' worth of beans, and then said to both: "My children, go as far out on the road as you shall find shells of beans strewed on the path, and when you reach the wood you will find me there collecting fire- wood," The children did as they were bid; and after the mother had gone out they went following the track of the beans which she went strewing along the road, but they did not find her in the wood or anywhere else. As night had come on they perceived in the darkness a light shining at a distance, easy of access. They walked on towards it, and they soon came up to an old woman who was frying cakes. The old woman was blind of one eye, and the boy went on the blind side and stole a cake, because he felt so hungry. Believing that it was her cat which had stolen the cake, she said, "You thief of a cat! leave my cakes alone; they are not meant for you!" The little boy now said to his sister, "You go now and take a cake." But the little girl replied, "I cannot do so, as I am sure to laugh." Still, as the boy persisted upon it and urged her to try, she had no other alternative but to do so. She went on the side of the old woman's blind eye and