Page:Tales of the Punjab.pdf/162

140 daughter, surrounded by her woman, happened to pass that way.She looked at the beautiful model, and was wonderstruck, but when she saw the handsome, sad young man who sat sighing beside it, she went straight home, looked the doors, and refused to eat anything at all.Her father, fearing she sent him this reply: 'Tell my father I will neither cat nor drink until he marries me to the young man who sits sighing on the sea-shore beside a king's palace made of clay.'

At first the Prime Minister was very angry, but seeing his daughter was determined to starve herself to death if she did not gain her point, he outwardly gave his consent; privately after the marriage the bride and bridegroom were to go on board the ships, which were at once to set sail, and that on the first opportunity the Prince was to be thrown overboard, and the Princess brought back to her father.

So the marriage took place, the ships sailed away, and a day or two afterwards the merchants pushed the young man overboard as he was sitting on the prow.But it so happened that a rope was hanging from the bride's window in the stern, and as the Prince drifted by, he caught it and climbed up into her cabin unseen.She hid him in her box, where he lay concealed, and when they brought her food she refused to eat, pretending grief, and saying, 'Leave it here; perhaps I may be hungry by and by.' Then she shred the meal with her husband.

The merchants, thinking they had managed everything beautifully, turned their ships round, and brought