Page:Tales of the Punjab.pdf/113

Rh ing to her daughter, and immediately from an inner room came a maiden so lovely and charming, so white-skinned and golden-haired, that the King was transﬁxed by astonishment at seeing so beautiful a sight in the wretched hovel.

She held the vessel of water to the King's lips, and as he drank he looked into her eyes, and then it became clear to him that the girl was no other than the white hind with the golden horns and silver feet he had chased so far.

Her beauty bewitched him completely, and he fell on his knees, begging her to return with him as his bride; but she only laughed, saying seven Queens were quite enough even for a King to manage.However, when he would take no refusal, but implored her to have pity on him, and promised her everything she could desire, she replied, 'Give me the eyes of your seven wives, and then perhaps I may believe that you mean what you say.'

The King was so carried away by the glamour of the white hind's magical beauty, that he went home at once, had the eyes of his seven Queens taken out, and, after throwing the poor blind creatures into a noisome dungeon whence they could not escape, set off once more for the hovel in the ravine, bearing with him his loathsome offering.But the white hind only laughed cruelly when she saw the fourteen eyes, and threading them as a necklace, ﬂung it round her mother's neck, saying, 'Wear that, little mother, as a keepsake, whilst I am away in the King's palace.'

Then she went back with the bewitched monarch as his bride, and he gave her the seven Queens' rich clothes and jewels to wear, the seven Queens' palace