CHAPTER XI


As soon as the king said, "Go at once," the servant started to his
feet and hastened away, as eager now to restore what he had stolen
as he had been to hide it. He had put it in another hole in the very
depths of the forest; and it was a long time before he got back to
the palace with it, for it was very heavy. He had thought the king
would send some guards with him, to see that he did not run away,
and that they would have helped him to carry the sack full of gold
and jewels; but nobody followed him. It was hard work to drag the
heavy load all the way alone; but at last, quite late in the evening,
he was back at the palace gates. The soldiers standing there let him
pass without a word, and soon he was once more in the room in which
the king had received him. Prasnajit still sat on his throne, and
the attendants still waited behind him, when the thief, so tired he
could hardly stand, once more lay prostrate at the bottom of the steps
leading up to the throne, with the sack beside him. How his heart did
beat as he waited for what the king would say! It seemed a very long
time before Prasnajit spoke, though it was only two or three minutes;
and when he did, this is what he said, "Go back to your home now,
and be a thief no more."

Very, very thankfully the man obeyed, scarcely able to believe that
he was free to go and that he was not to be terribly punished. Never
again in the rest of his life did he take what did not belong to him,
and he was never tired of telling his children and his friends of
the goodness of the king who had forgiven him.