Page:Tales of the Punjab.pdf/153

Rh only wasting time.You are the elder, and must take your right, since it was your fate to be born first.'

So the elder Prince ate the parrot, and the younger Prince ate the starling; then they mounted their pony and rode away.They had gone but a little way, however, when the elder brother missed his whip, and thinking he had perhaps left it under the tree, proposed to go back and find it.

'Not so,' said the younger Prince,' you are King, I am only Minister; therefore it is my place to go and fetch the whip.'

'Be it as you wish,' replied the elder, 'only take the pony, which will enable you to return quicker.In the meantime I will go on foot to yonder town.'

The younger Prince accordingly rode back to the tree, but the Snake-demon, to whom it belonged, had returned during the interval, and no sooner did the poor Prince set foot within its shade than the horrid serpent flew at him and killed him.

Meanwhile, the elder Prince, loitering along the road, arrived at last at the town, which he found in a state of great commotion.The King had recently died, and though all the inhabitants had not chosen to elect any one of them to the vacant throne by kneeling down and saluting the favoured individual as he passed by, for in this manner Kings were elected in that country.Therefore the people were in great consternation, and orders had been issued that every strange entering the gates of the city was forthwith to be led before the sacred elephant.No sooner, therefore, had the elder Prince set foot