Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/297

Rh our bidding, for you will be our younger brother."

"Fair sisters!" quoth Rasalu gayly, "give me my task and I will perform it."

So the sixty-nine maidens mixed a hundred-weight of millet seed with a hundred-weight of sand, and giving it to Rasalu, bade him separate the seed from the sand.

Then he bethought him of the cricket, and drawing the feeler from his pocket, thrust it into the fire. And immediately there was a whirring noise in the air, and a great flight of crickets alighted beside him, and amongst them the cricket whose life he had saved.

Then Rasalu said, "Separate the millet seed from the sand."

"Is that all?" quoth the cricket. "Had I known how small a job you wanted me to do, I would not have assembled so many of my brethren."

With that the flight of crickets set to work, and in one night they separated the seed from the sand.

Now when the sixty-nine fair maidens, daughters of the king, saw that Rasalu had