be tempted to sell their children, fearing the great fish would devour
them. At last one day the messengers came to a village where there
lived a Fakeer, who had lost his first wife and married again. His
first wife had had one little daughter, and his second wife also had
a daughter. As it happened, the Fakeer's second wife hated her little
stepdaughter, always gave her the hardest work to do and the least
food to eat, and tried by every means in her power to get her out of
the way, in order that the child might not rival her own daughter.
When she heard of the errand on which the messengers had come, she
sent for them when the Fakeer was out, and said to them: "Give me the
bag of gold mohurs, and you shall take my little daughter to marry the
Muchie Rajah." ("For," she thought to herself, "the great fish will
certainly eat the girl, and she will thus trouble us no more.") Then,
turning to her stepdaughter, she said: "Go down to the river and wash
your _saree_, that you may be fit to go with these people, who will
take you to the Ranee's court." At these words the poor girl went down
to the river very sorrowful, for she saw no hope of escape, as her
father was from home. As she knelt by the river-side, washing her
_saree_ and crying bitterly, some of her tears fell into the hole of
an old Seven-headed Cobra, who lived on the river-bank. This Cobra was
a very wise animal, and seeing the maiden, he put his head out of his
hole, and said to her: "Little girl, why do you cry?" "Oh, sir,"
she answered, "I am very unhappy; for my father is from home, and my
stepmother has sold me to the Ranee's people to be the wife of the
Muchie Rajah, that great fish, and I know he will eat me up." "Do
not be afraid, my daughter," said the Cobra; "but take with you these
three stones and tie them up in the corner of your _saree_;" and so
saying, he gave her three little round pebbles. "The Muchie Rajah,
whose wife you are to be, is not really a fish, but a Rajah who has
been enchanted. Your home will be a little room which the Ranee has