Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/150

142 apparel, but I have rich clothing, and a horse splendidly caparisoned. I have been following a deer the whole morning, and I have lost him at this very spot." Rájá Hodi paused, and then asked her: "Who are you?" "I," said she, "am the wife of Rájá Rasálu. I am alone, shut up here in my palace which is also my prison; my husband is far away chasing the wild deer." "May I not come in and see you?" said Rájá Hodi. "Alas," answered she, "the castle-gate is so massive and heavy that no hand but the strong hand of Rájá Rasálu can move it. But, stay, I will throw you down a rope, and do you climb the mangoe-tree which is next the wall of the court, and tie it to one of the topmost branches, and you will be able to slip down and visit me." So he followed her directions, and gained the interior of the inner court of her own apartments, and they sat by the well which Rájá Rasálu had hewn out of the rock, and which was furnished with a machine with a treadle for drawing up water into the trough. There they sat, and she entertained him with food and drink, and when he rose and left her she scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry, whether to weep or to sing.

But though Rájá Hodi rode away, it was impossible for him not to long ardently for the sight of so much beauty again, and, as Rájá Rasálu never intermitted his hunting even for a day, it came to pass that Rájá Hodi paid daily visits to the faithless Queen.

At last, when all this treason was at its height, it happened that the Queen forgot to remove the cages of the mina and the parrot before the arrival of her lover, and the two birds were witnesses of her infidelity. Then said the mina to the parrot: "The duty which is imposed on us both by our dear master is to watch over the safety of the Queen, and we shall be false to our salt if we do not report to him the misconduct of this stranger." Then, addressing the Queen, she said, "What are you doing—admitting a strange man to these walls? But if the King hear of this wickedness he will strike you dead where you stand." The Queen instantly started and flushed with rage, and the parrot, anxious to allay her anger, said to the mina: "O you senseless one! What harm has been done, seeing that the man merely eats and drinks and goes away? What is Rájá Rasálu to us? Does not the Queen our mistress tend us and feed us with her own hands?" "She does indeed," answered the mina. "Still she has dishonoured her name, and done what she should not have done. And we are the servants of the Rájá."