'Oh,' said the king, 'you must have a strange master! What does he
want with it?'
'My master wants it as a present for his daughter Imani,' replied the
servant.
'Well,' said the king, 'I know of some patience which the young lady
might have if she cares for it; but it is not to be bought.'
Now the king's name was Subbar Khan, and Subbar _means_ 'patience';
but the messenger did not know that, or understand that he was making
a joke. However, he declared that the princess Imani was not only
young and beautiful, but also the cleverest, most industrious, and
kindest-hearted of princesses; and he would have gone on explaining
her virtues had not the king laughingly put up his hand and stopped
him saying:
'Well, well, wait a minute, and I will see what can be done.'
With that he got up and went to his own apartments and took out a
little casket. Into the casket he put a fan, and shutting it up
carefully he brought it to the messenger and said:
'Here is a casket. It has no lock nor key, and yet will open only to
the touch of the person who needs its contents--and whoever opens it
will obtain patience; but I can't tell whether it will be quite the
kind of patience that is wanted.' And the servant bowed low, and took
the casket; but when he asked what was to be paid, the king would take
nothing. So he went away and gave the casket and an account of his
adventures to his master.
As soon as their father got back to his country Kupti and Imani each
got the presents he had brought for them. Imani was very surprised
when the casket was brought to her by the hand of a messenger.
'But,' she said, 'what is this? I never asked for anything! Indeed I
had no time, for the messenger ran away before I had unravelled my
tangle.'
But the servant declared that the casket was for her, so she took it
with some curiosity, and brought it to the old fakir. The old man
tried to open it, but in vain--so closely did the lid fit that it
seemed to be quite immovable, and yet there was no lock, nor bolt, nor
spring, nor anything apparently by which the casket was kept shut.
When he was tired of trying he handed the casket to the princess, who
hardly touched it before it opened quite easily, and there lay within
a beautiful fan. With a cry of surprise and pleasure Imani took out
the fan, and began to fan herself.
Hardly had she finished three strokes of the fan before there suddenly
appeared from nowhere in particular, king Subbar Khan of Dur! The
princess gasped and rubbed her eyes, and the old fakir sat and gazed
in such astonishment that for some minutes he could not speak. At
length he said:
'Who may you be, fair sir, if you please?'
'My name,' said the king, 'is Subbar Khan of Dur. This lady,' bowing
to the princess, 'has summoned me, and here I am!'
'I?'--stammered the princess--'I have summoned you? I never saw or
heard of you in my life before, so how could that be?'
Then the king told them how he had heard of a man in his own city of
Dur trying to buy patience, and how he had given him the fan in the
casket.
'Both are magical,' he added; 'when anyone uses the fan, in three
strokes of it I am with them; if they fold it and tap it on the table,
in three taps I am at home again. The casket will not open to all, but
you see it was this fair lady who asked for patience, and, as that is
my name, here I am, very much at her service.'
Now the princess Imani, being of a high spirit, was anxious to fold up
the fan, and give the three taps which would send the king home again;
but the old fakir was very pleased with his guest, and so in one way
and another they spent quite a pleasant evening together before Subbar
Khan took his leave.
After that he was often summoned; and as both the fakir and he were
very fond of chess and were good players, they used to sit up half the
night playing, and at last a little room in the house began to be
called the king's room, and whenever he stayed late he used to sleep
there and go home again in the morning.
By-and-by it came to the ears of the princess Kupti that there was a
rich and handsome young man visiting at her sister's house, and she
was very jealous. So she went one day to pay Imani a visit, and
pretended to be very affectionate, and interested in the house, and in
the way in which Imani and the old fakir lived, and of their
mysterious and royal visitor. As the sisters went from place to place,
Kupti was shown Subbar Khan's room; and presently, making some excuse,
she slipped in there by herself and swiftly spread under the sheet
which lay upon the bed a quantity of very finely powdered and
splintered glass which was poisoned, and which she had brought with
her concealed in her clothes. Shortly afterwards she took leave of her
sister, declaring that she could never forgive herself for not having
come near her all this time, and that she would now begin to make
amends for her neglect.
That very evening Subbar Khan came and sat up late with the old fakir
playing chess as usual. Very tired, he at length bade him and the
princess good-night and, as soon as he lay down on the bed, thousands
of tiny, tiny splinters of poisoned glass ran into him. He could not
think what was the matter, and started this way and that until he was
pricked all over, and he felt as though he were burning from head to
foot. But he never said a word, only he sat up all night in agony of
body and in worse agony of mind to think that he should have been
poisoned, as he guessed he was, in Imani's own house. In the morning,
although he was nearly fainting, he still said nothing, and by means
of the magic fan was duly transported home again. Then he sent for all
the physicians and doctors in his kingdom, but none could make out
what his illness was; and so he lingered on for weeks and weeks trying
every remedy that anyone could devise, and passing sleepless nights
and days of pain and fever and misery, until at last he was at the
point of death.
Meanwhile the princess Imani and the old fakir were much troubled
because, although they waved the magic fan again and again, no Subbar
Khan appeared, and they feared that he had tired of them, or that some
evil fate had overtaken him. At last the princess was in such a
miserable state of doubt and uncertainty that she determined to go
herself to the kingdom of Dur and see what was the matter. Disguising
herself in man's clothes as a young fakir, she set out upon her
journey alone and on foot, as a fakir should travel. One evening she
found herself in a forest, and lay down under a great tree to pass the
night. But she could not sleep for thinking of Subbar Khan, and
wondering what had happened to him. Presently she heard two great
monkeys talking to one another in the tree above her head.
'Good evening, brother,' said one, 'whence come you--and what is the
news?'
[Illustration: IMANI LISTENS TO WHAT THE MONKEYS SAY]
'I come from Dur,' said the other, 'and the news is that the king is
dying.'
'Oh,' said the first, 'I'm sorry to hear that, for he is a master hand
at slaying leopards and creatures that ought not to be allowed to
live. What is the matter with him?'
'No man knows,' replied the second monkey, 'but the birds, who see all
and carry all messages, say that he is dying of poisoned glass that
Kupti the king's daughter spread upon his bed.'
'Ah!' said the first monkey, 'that is sad news; but if they only knew
it, the berries of the very tree we sit in, steeped in hot water, will
cure such a disease as that in three days at most.'
'True!' said the other, 'it's a pity that we can't tell some man of a
medicine so simple, and so save a good man's life. But men are so
silly; they go and shut themselves up in stuffy houses in stuffy
cities instead of living in nice airy trees, and so they miss knowing
all the best things.'
Now when Imani heard that Subbar Khan was dying she began to weep
silently; but as she listened she dried her tears and sat up; and as
soon as daylight dawned over the forest she began to gather the
berries from the tree until she had filled her cloth with a load of
them. Then she walked on as fast as she could, and in two days reached
the city of Dur. The first thing she did was to pass through the
market crying:
'Medicine for sale! Are any ill that need my medicine?' And presently
one man said to his neighbour:
'See, there is a young fakir with medicine for sale, perhaps he could
do something for the king.'
'Pooh!' replied the other, 'where so many grey-beards have failed, how
should a lad like that be of any use?'
'Still,' said the first, 'he might try.' And he went up and spoke to
Imani, and together they set out for the palace and announced that
another doctor was come to try and cure the king.
After some delay Imani was admitted to the sick room, and, whilst
_she_ was so well disguised that the king did not recognize her, _he_
was so wasted by illness that she hardly knew _him_. But she began at
once, full of hope, by asking for some apartments all to herself and a
pot in which to boil water. As soon as the water was heated she
steeped some of her berries in it and gave the mixture to the king's
attendants and told them to wash his body with it. The first washing
did so much good that the king slept quietly all the night. Again the
second day she did the same, and this time the king declared he was
hungry, and called for food. After the third day he was quite well,
only very weak from his long illness. On the fourth day he got up and
sat upon his throne, and then sent messengers to fetch the physician
who had cured him. When Imani appeared everyone marvelled that so
young a man should be so clever a doctor; and the king wanted to give
him immense presents of money and of all kinds of precious things. At
first Imani would take nothing, but at last she said that, if she must
be rewarded, she would ask for the king's signet ring and his
handkerchief. So, as she would take nothing more, the king gave her
his signet ring and his handkerchief, and she departed and travelled
back to her own country as fast as she could.
A little while after her return, when she had related to the fakir all
her adventures, they sent for Subbar Khan by means of the magic fan;
and when he appeared they asked him why he had stayed away for so
long. Then he told them all about his illness, and how he had been
cured, and when he had finished the princess rose up and, opening a
cabinet, brought out the ring and handkerchief, and said, laughing:
'Are these the rewards you gave to your doctor?'
At that the king looked, and he recognised her, and understood in a
moment all that had happened; and he jumped up and put the magic fan
in his pocket, and declared that no one should send him away to his
own country any more unless Imani would come with him and be his wife.
And so it was settled, and the old fakir and Imani went to the city of
Dur, where Imani was married to the king and lived happily ever after.
(Punjabi story.)
_THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF LITTLE MAIA_
Once upon a time there lived a woman who had a pretty cottage and
garden right in the middle of a forest. All through the summer she was
quite happy tending her flowers and listening to the birds singing in
the trees, but in the winter, when snow lay on the ground and wolves
came howling about the door, she felt very lonely and frightened. 'If
I only had a child to speak to, however small, what a comfort it would
be!' she said to herself. And the heavier the snow fell the oftener
she repeated the words. And at last a day arrived when she could bear
the silence and solitude no longer, and set off to walk to the nearest
village to beg someone to sell her or lend her a child.
The snow was very deep, and reached above her ankles, and it took her
almost an hour to go a few hundred yards.
'It will be dark at this rate before I get to the first house,'
thought she, and stopped to look about her. Suddenly a little woman in
a high-crowned hat stepped from behind a tree in front of her.
'This is a bad day for walking! Are you going far?' inquired the
little woman.
'Well, I want to go to the village; but I don't see how I am ever to
get there,' answered the other.
'And may I ask what important business takes you there?' asked the
little woman, who was really a witch.
'My house is so dreary, with no one to speak to; I cannot stay in it
alone, and I am seeking for a child--I don't mind how small she
is--who will keep me company.'
'Oh, if that is all, you need go no further,' replied the witch,
putting her hand in her pocket. 'Look, here is a barley corn, as a
favour you shall have it for twelve shillings, and if you plant it in
a flower-pot, and give it plenty of water, in a few days you will see
something wonderful.'
This promise raised the woman's spirits. She gladly paid down the
price, and as soon as she returned home she dug a hole in a flower-pot
and put in the seed.
For three days she waited, hardly taking her eyes from the flower-pot
in its warm corner, and on the third morning she saw that, while she
was asleep, a tall red tulip had shot up, sheathed in green leaves.
'What a beautiful blossom,' cried the woman, stooping to kiss it,
when, as she did so, the red petals burst asunder, and in the midst of
them was a lovely little girl only an inch high. This tiny little
creature was seated on a mattress of violets, and covered with a quilt
of rose leaves, and she opened her eyes and smiled at the woman as if
she had known her all her life.
'Oh! you darling; I shall never be lonely any more!' she exclaimed in
rapture; and the baby nodded her head as much as to say:
'No, of course you won't!'
The woman lost no time in seeking for a roomy walnut-shell, which she
lined thickly with white satin, and on it she placed the mattress,
with the child, whom she called Maia, upon it. This was her bed, and
stood on a chair close to where her foster-mother was sleeping; but in
the morning she was lifted out, and placed on a leaf in the middle of
a large bowl of water, and given two white horse-hairs to row herself
about with. She was the happiest baby that ever was seen, and passed
the whole day singing to herself, in a language of her own, that
nobody else could understand.
* * * * *
For some weeks the two lived together and never grew tired of each
other's society, and then a terrible misfortune happened. One night,
when the foster-mother lay sound asleep after a hard day's work, a
big, ugly, wet frog hopped in through the open window and stood
staring at Maia under her quilt of rose leaves.
'Dear me! that is quite a pretty little girl,' thought the frog to
herself; 'she would make a nice wife for my son.' And picking up the
walnut cradle in her mouth, she hopped with it to the edge of a stream
which ran through the garden.
'Come and see what I have brought you,' called the old frog, when she
reached her home in the mud.
'Croak! croak! croak!' uttered the son, gazing with pleasure at the
sleeping child.
'Hush; don't make such a noise or you will wake her!' whispered the
mother. 'I mean her to be a wife for you, and while we are preparing
for the wedding we will set her on that water-lily leaf in the middle
of the brook, so that she may not be able to run away from us.'
It was on this green floating prison that Maia awoke, frightened and
puzzled, with the first rays of the sun. She stood up straight on the
leaf, looking about her for a way of escape, and, finding none, she
sat down again and began to weep bitterly. At length her sobs were
heard by the old frog, who was busy in her house at the bottom of the
marsh, twisting rushes into a soft carpet for Maia's feet, and twining
reeds and grapes over the doorway, to make it look pretty for the
bride.
'Ah! the poor child feels lost and unhappy,' she thought pitifully,
for her heart was kind. 'Well, I have just done, and then my son and I
will go to fetch her. When she sees how handsome he is she will be all
smiles again.' And in a few minutes they both appeared beside the
leaf.
'This is your future husband. Did you ever see anyone like him?' asked
the proud mother, pushing him forward. But, after one glance, Maia
only cried the more; and the little fishes who lived in the stream
came swimming round to see what was the matter.
'It is absurd that such a pretty creature should be forced to take a
husband whom she does not want,' said they to each other. 'And such an
ugly one too! However, we can easily prevent it.' And by turns they
gnawed the stem of the lily-leaf close to the root, till at length it
was free, and taking it in their mouths they bore Maia far away, till
the little stream grew into a great river.
Oh, how Maia enjoyed that voyage, when once she became quite certain
that the frogs could no longer reach her. Past many towns she went,
and the people on the banks all turned to look at her, and exclaimed:
'What a lovely little girl! Where can she have come from?'
'What a lovely little girl!' twittered the birds in the bushes. And a
blue butterfly fell in love with her, and would not leave her; so she
took off her sash, which just matched him, and tied it round his body,
so that with this new kind of horse she travelled much faster than
before.
Unluckily, a great cockchafer, who was buzzing over the river,
happened to catch sight of her, and caught her up in his claws. The
poor butterfly was terribly frightened at the sight of him, and he
struggled hard to free himself, so that the sash bow gave way, and he
flew off into the sunshine. But Maia wasn't so fortunate, and though
the cockchafer collected honey from the flowers for her dinner, and
told her several times how pretty she was, she could not feel at ease
with him. The cockchafer noticed this, and summoned his sisters to
play with her; but they only stared rudely, and said:
'Where did you pick up that strange object? She is very ugly to be
sure, but one ought to pity her for she has only two legs.'
'Yes, and no feelers,' added another; 'and she is so thin! Well, our
brother has certainly very odd taste!'
[Illustration: MAIA CARRIED OFF BY THE COCKCHAFER]
'Indeed he has!' echoed the others. And they repeated it so loud and
so often that, in the end, he believed it too, and snatching her up
from the tree where he had placed her, set her down upon a daisy which
grew near the ground.
Here Maia stayed for the whole summer, and really was not at all
unhappy. She ventured to walk about by herself, and wove herself a bed
of some blades of grass, and placed it under a clover leaf for
shelter. The red cups that grew in the moss held as much dew as she
wanted, and the cockchafer had taught her how to get honey. But summer
does not last for ever, and by-and-by the flowers withered, and
instead of dew there was snow and ice. Maia did not know what to do,
for her clothes were worn to rags, and though she tried to roll
herself up in a dry leaf it broke under her fingers. It soon was plain
to her that if she did not get some other shelter she would die of
hunger and cold.
So, gathering up all her courage, she left the forest and crossed the
road into what had been, in the summer, a beautiful field of waving
corn, but was now only a mass of hard stalks. She wandered on, seeing
nothing but the sky above her head, till she suddenly found herself
close to an opening which seemed to lead underground.
'It will be warm, at any rate,' thought Maia, 'and perhaps the person
who lives there will give me something to eat. At any rate, I can't be
worse off than I am now.' And she walked boldly down the passage.
By-and-by she came to a door which stood ajar, and, peeping in,
discovered a whole room full of corn. This gave her heart, and she
went on more swiftly, till she reached a kitchen where an old field
mouse was baking a cake.
'You poor little animal,' cried the mouse, who had never seen anything
like her before, 'you look starved to death! Come and sit here and get
warm, and share my dinner with me.'
Maia almost wept with joy at the old mouse's kind words. She needed no
second bidding, but ate more than she had ever done in her life,
though it was not a breakfast for a humming-bird! When she had quite
finished she put out her hand and smiled, and the old mouse said to
her:
'Can you tell stories? If so you may stay with me till the sun gets
hot again, and you shall help me with my house. But it is dull here in
the winter unless you have somebody clever enough to amuse you.'
Yes, Maia had learned a great many stories from her foster-mother,
and, besides, there were all her own adventures, and her escapes from
death. She knew also how a room should be swept, and never failed to
get up early in the morning and have everything clean and tidy for the
old mouse.
So the winter passed away pleasantly, and Maia began to talk of the
spring, and of the time when she would have to go out into the world
again and seek her fortune.
'Oh, you need not begin to think of _that_ for a while yet,' answered
the field-mouse. 'Up on the earth they have a proverb:
When the day lengthens
Then the cold strengthens;
it has been quite warm up to now, and the snow may fall any time.
Never a winter goes by without it, and _then_ you will be very
thankful you are _here_, and not outside! But I dare say it is quiet
for a young thing like you,' she added, 'and I have invited my
neighbour the mole to come and pay us a visit. He has been asleep all
these months, but I hear he is waking up again. You would be a lucky
girl if he took into his head to marry you, only, unfortunately, he is
blind, and cannot see how pretty you are.' And for this blindness Maia
felt truly glad, as she did not want a mole for a husband.
However, by-and-by he paid his promised visit, and Maia did not like
him at all. He might be as rich and learned as possible, but he hated
the sun, and the trees, and the flowers, and all that Maia loved best.
To be sure, being blind, he had never seen them, and, like many other
people, he thought that anything _he_ did not know was not worth
knowing. But Maia's tales amused him, though he would not for the
world have let her see it, and he admired her voice when she sang:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top;
though he told her that it was all nonsense, and that trees and
gardens were mere foolishness. When she was _his_ wife he would teach
her things better worth learning.
'Meanwhile,' he said, with a grand air, 'I have burrowed a passage
from this house to my own, in which you can walk; but I warn you not
to be frightened at a great dead creature that has fallen through a
hole in the roof, and is lying on one side.'
'What sort of creature is it?' asked Maia eagerly.
'Oh, I really can't tell you,' answered the mole, indifferently; 'it
is covered with something soft, and it has two thin legs, and a long
sharp thing sticking out of its head.'
'It is a bird,' cried Maia joyfully, 'and I love birds! It must have
died of cold,' she added, dropping her voice. 'Oh! good Mr. Mole, do
take me to see it!'
'Come then, as I am going home,' replied the mole. And calling to the
old field-mouse to accompany them, they all set out.
'Here it is,' said the mole at last; 'dear me, how thankful I am Fate
did not make me a bird. They can't say anything but "twit, twit," and
die with the first breath of cold.'
'Ah, yes, poor useless creature,' answered the field-mouse. But while
they were talking, Maia crept round to the other side and stroked the
feathers of the little swallow, and kissed his eyes.
All that night she lay awake, thinking of the swallow lying dead in
the passage. At length she could bear it no longer, and stole away to
the place where the hay was kept, and wove a thick carpet. Next she
went to the field-mouse's store of cotton which she picked in the
summer from some of the marsh flowers, and carrying them both down the
passage, she tucked the cotton underneath the bird and spread the hay
quilt over him.
'Perhaps you were one of the swallows who sang to me in the summer,'
said she. 'I wish I could have brought you to life again; but now,
good-bye!' And she laid her face, wet with tears, on the breast of the
bird. Surely she felt a faint movement against her cheek? Yes, there
it was again! Suppose the bird was not dead after all, but only
senseless with cold and hunger! And at this thought Maia hastened back
to the house, and brought some grains of corn, and a drop of water in
a leaf. This she held close to the swallow's beak, which he opened
unconsciously, and when he had sipped the water she gave him the
grains one by one.
'Make no noise, so that no one may guess you are not dead,' she said.
'To-night I will bring you some more food, and I will tell the mole
that he must stuff up the hole again, as it makes the passage too cold
for me to walk in. And now farewell.' And off she went, back to the
field-mouse, who was sound asleep.
* * * * *
After some days of Maia's careful nursing, the swallow felt strong
enough to talk, and he told Maia how he came to be in the place where
she found him. Before he was big enough to fly very high he had torn
his wing in a rosebush, so that he could not keep up with his family
and friends when they took their departure to warmer lands. In their
swift course they never noticed that their little brother was not with
them, and at last he dropped on the ground from sheer fatigue, and
must have rolled down the hole into the passage.
It was very lucky for the swallow that both the mole and the
field-mouse thought he was dead, and did not trouble about him, so
that when the spring _really_ came, and the sun was hot, and blue
hyacinths grew in the woods and primroses in the hedges, he was as
tall and strong as any of his companions.
'You have saved my life, dear little Maia,' said he; 'but now the time
has come for me to leave you--unless,' he added, 'you will let me
carry you on my back far away from this gloomy prison.'
Maia's eyes sparkled at the thought, but she shook her head bravely.
'Yes, you must go; but I must stay behind,' she answered. 'The
field-mouse has been good to me, and I cannot desert her like that. Do
you think you can open the hole for yourself?' she asked anxiously.
'If so, you had better begin now, for this evening we are to have
supper with the mole, and it would never do for my foster-mother to
find you working at it.'
'That is true,' answered the swallow. And flying up to the
roof,--which, after all, was not very high above them--he set to work
with his bill, and soon let a flood of sunshine into the dark place.
'_Won't_ you come with me, Maia?' said he. And though her heart longed
for the trees and the flowers, she answered as before:
'No, I cannot.'
That one glimpse of the sun was all Maia had for some time, for the
corn sprung up so thickly over the hole and about the house, that
there might almost as well have been no sun at all. However, though
she missed her bird friend every moment, she had no leisure to be
idle, for the field-mouse had told her that very soon she was to be
married to the mole, and kept her spinning wool and cotton for her
outfit. And as she had never in her life made a dress, four clever
spiders were persuaded to spend the days underground, turning the wool
and cotton into tiny garments. Maia liked the clothes, but hated the
thought of the blind mole, only she did not know how to escape him. In
the evenings, when the spiders were going to their homes for the
night, she would walk with them to the door and wait till a puff of
wind blew the corn ears apart, and she could see the sky.
'If the swallow would only come now,' she said to herself, 'I would
go with him to the end of the world.' But he never came!
'Your outfit is all finished,' said the field-mouse one day when the
berries were red and the leaves yellow, 'and the mole and I have
decided that your wedding shall be in four weeks' time.'
[Illustration: MAIA AND THE SPIDERS IN THE EVENING]
'Oh, not so soon! not so soon!' cried Maia, bursting into tears; which
made the field-mouse very angry, and declare that Maia had no more
sense than other girls, and did not know what was good for her. Then
the mole arrived, and carried her on his back to see the new house he
had dug for her, which was so very far under ground that Maia's tiny
legs could never bring her up even as high as the field-mouse's
dwelling, from which she might see the sunlight. Her heart grew
heavier and heavier as the days went by, and in the last evening of
all she crept out into the field among the stubble, to watch the sun
set before she bade it good-bye for ever.
'Farewell, farewell,' she said 'and farewell to my little swallow. Ah!
if he only knew, he would come to help me.'
[Illustration: HE HELPED HER TO JUMP FROM THE SWALLOW'S BACK]
'Twit! twit,' cried a voice just above her; and the swallow fluttered
to the ground beside her. 'You look sad; are you _really_ going to let
that ugly mole marry you?'
'I shall soon die, that is one comfort,' she answered weeping. But the
swallow only said:
'Tut! tut! get on my back, as I told you before, and I will take you
to a land where the sun always shines, and you will soon forget that
such a creature as a mole ever existed.'
'Yes, I will come,' said Maia.
Then the swallow tore off one of the corn stalks with his strong beak,
and bade her tie it safely to his wing. And they started off, flying,
flying south for many a day.
Oh! how happy Maia was to see the beautiful earth again! A hundred
times she longed for the swallow to stop, but he always told her that
the best was yet to be; and they flew on and on, only halting for
short rests, till they reached a place covered with tall white marble
pillars, some standing high, wreathed in vines, out of which endless
swallows' heads were peeping; others lying stretched among the
flowers, white, yellow, and blue.
'I live up there,' said the swallow, pointing to the tallest of the
pillars. 'But such a house would never do for you, as you would only
fall out of it and kill yourself. So choose one of those flowers
below, and you shall have it for your own, and sleep all night curled
up in its leaves.'
'I will have that one,' answered Maia, pointing to a white flower
shaped like a star, with a tiny crinkled wreath of red and yellow in
its centre, and a long stem that swayed in the wind; 'that one is the
prettiest of all, and it smells so sweet.' Then the swallow flew down
towards it; but as they drew near they saw a tiny little manikin with
a crown on his head, and wings on his shoulders, balancing himself on
one of the leaves. 'Ah, that is the king of the flower-spirits,'
whispered the swallow. And the king stretched out his hands to Maia,
and helped her to jump from the swallow's back.
'I have waited for you for a long while,' said he, 'and now you have
come at last to be my queen.'
And Maia smiled, and stood beside him as all the fairies that dwelt in
the flowers ran to fetch presents for her; and the best of them all
was a pair of lovely gauzy blue wings to help fly about like one of
themselves.
So instead of marrying the mole, Little Maia was crowned a queen, and
the fairies danced round her in a ring, while the swallow sang the
wedding song.
_DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND_
In a village in Hindustan there once lived a merchant who, although he
rose early, worked hard, and rested late, remained very poor; and
ill-luck so dogged him that he determined at last to go to some
distant country and there to try his fortune. Twelve years passed by;
his luck had turned, and now he had gathered great wealth, so that
having plenty to keep him in comfort for the rest of his days, he
thought once more of his native village, where he desired to spend the
remainder of his life among his own people. In order to carry his
riches with him in safety over the many weary miles that lay between
him and his home, he bought some magnificent jewels, which he locked
up in a little box and wore concealed upon his person; and, so as not
to draw the attention of the thieves who infested the highways and
made their living by robbing travellers, he started off in the poor
clothes of a man who has nothing to lose.
Thus prepared, he travelled quickly, and within a few days' journey
from his own village came to a city where he determined to buy better
garments and--now that he was no longer afraid of thieves--to look
more like the rich man he had become. In his new raiment he approached
the city, and near the great gate he found a bazaar where, amongst
many shops filled with costly silks, and carpets, and goods of all
countries, was one finer than all the rest. There, amidst his goods,
spread out to the best advantage, sat the owner smoking a long silver
pipe, and thither the merchant bent his steps, and saluting the owner
politely, sat down also and began to make some purchases. Now, the
proprietor of the shop, Beeka Mull by name, was a very shrewd man, and
as he and the merchant conversed, he soon felt sure that his customer
was richer than he seemed, and was trying to conceal the fact. Certain
purchases having been made, he invited the new-comer to refresh
himself and in a short time they were chatting pleasantly together. In
the course of the conversation Beeka Mull asked the merchant whither
he was travelling, and hearing the name of the village, he observed:
'Ah, you had better be careful on that road--it's a very bad place for
thieves.'
The merchant turned pale at these words. It would be such a bitter
thing, he thought, just at the end of his journey to be robbed of all
the fortune he had heaped up with such care. But this bland and
prosperous Beeka Mull must surely know best, so presently he said:
'Lala-ji,[3] could you oblige me by locking up for me a small box for
a short while? When once I get to my village I could bring back
half-a-dozen sturdy men of my own kinsfolk and claim it again.'
The Lala shook his head. 'I could not do it,' replied he. 'I am sorry;
but such things are not my business. I should be afraid to undertake
it.'
'But,' pleaded the merchant, 'I know no one in this city, and you must
surely have some place where you keep your own precious things. Do
this, I pray you, as a great favour.'
Still Beeka Mull politely but firmly refused; but the merchant,
feeling that he had now betrayed the fact that he was richer than he
seemed, and being loth to make more people aware of it by inquiring
elsewhere, continued to press him, until at last he consented. The
merchant produced the little box of jewels, and Beeka Mull locked it
up for him in a strong chest with other precious stones; and so, with
many promises and compliments, they parted.
In a place like an Eastern bazaar, where the shops lie with wide open
fronts, and with their goods displayed not only within but without on
terraces and verandahs raised a few feet above the public roadway,
such a long talk as that between Beeka Mull and the merchant could not
but attract some attention from the other shop-keepers in the narrow
street. If the merchant had but known it, nearly every shop-owner in
that district was a thief, and the cleverest and biggest of all was
Beeka Mull. But he did not know it, only he could not help feeling a
little uneasy at having thus parted with all his wealth to a stranger.
And so, as he wandered down the street, making a purchase here and
there, he managed in one way and another to ask some questions about
the honesty of Beeka Mull, and each rascal whom he spoke to, knowing
that there was some good reason in the question, and hoping to get in
return some share of the spoils, replied in praise of Beeka Mull as a
model of all the virtues.
In this way the merchant's fears were stilled, and, with a
comparatively light heart, he travelled on to his village; and within
a week or so returned to the city with half-a-dozen sturdy young
nephews and friends whom he had enlisted to help him carry home his
precious box.
At the great market-place in the centre of the city the merchant left
his friends, saying that he would go and get the box of jewels and
rejoin them, to which they consented, and away he went. Arrived at the
shop of Beeka Mull, he went up and saluted him.
'Good-day, Lala-ji,' said he. But the Lala pretended not to see him.
So he repeated the salutation. 'What do you want?' snapped Beeka Mull;
'you've said your "good-day" twice, why don't you tell me your
business?'
'Don't you remember me?' asked the merchant.
'Remember you?' growled the other; 'no, why should I? I have plenty
to do to remember good customers without trying to remember every
beggar who comes whining for charity.'
When he heard this the merchant began to tremble.
'Lala-ji!' he cried, 'surely you remember me and the little box I gave
you to take care of? And you promised--yes, indeed, you promised very
kindly--that I might return to claim it, and----'
'You scoundrel,' roared Beeka Mull, 'get out of my shop! Be off with
you, you impudent scamp! Every one knows that I never keep treasures
for anyone; I have trouble enough to do to keep my own! Come, off with
you!' With that he began to push the merchant out of the shop; and,
when the poor man resisted, two of the bystanders came to Beeka Mull's
help, and flung the merchant out into the road, like a bale of goods
dropped from a camel. Slowly he picked himself up out of the dust,
bruised, battered, and bleeding, but feeling nothing of the pain in
his body, nothing but a dreadful numbing sensation that, after all, he
was ruined and lost! Slowly he dragged himself a little further from
where the fat and furious Beeka Mull still stood amongst his
disordered silks and carpets, and coming to a friendly wall he
crouched and leant against it, and putting his head into his hands
gave himself up to an agony of misery and despair.
There he sat motionless, like one turned to stone, whilst darkness
fell around him; and when, about eleven o'clock that night, a certain
gay young fellow named Kooshy Ram passed by with a friend, he saw the
merchant sitting hunched against the wall, and remarked: 'A thief, no
doubt.' 'You are wrong,' returned the other, 'thieves don't sit in
full view of people like that, even at night.' And so the two passed
on, and thought no more of him. About five o'clock next morning Kooshy
Ram was returning home again, when, to his astonishment, he saw the
miserable merchant still sitting as he had seen him sit hours before.
Surely something must be the matter with a man who sat all night in
the open street, and Kooshy Ram resolved to see what it was; so he
went up and shook the merchant gently by the shoulder. 'Who are you?'
asked he--'and what are you doing here--are you ill?'
'Ill?' said the merchant in a hollow voice, 'yes; ill with a sickness
for which there is no medicine.'
'Oh, nonsense!' cried Kooshy Ram. 'Come along with me, I know a
medicine that will cure you, I think.' So the young man seized the
merchant by the arm, and hoisting him to his feet, dragged him to his
own lodging; where he first of all gave him a large glass of wine, and
then, after he had refreshed him with food, bade him tell his
adventures.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the merchant's companions in the market-place, being
dull-witted persons, thought that as he did not return he must have
gone home by himself; and as soon as they were tired of waiting they
went back to their village and left him to look after his own affairs.
He would therefore have fared badly had it not been for his rescuer,
Kooshy Ram, who, whilst still a boy, had been left a great deal of
money with no one to advise him how to spend it. He was high-spirited,
kind-hearted, and shrewd into the bargain; but he threw away his money
like water, and generally upon the nearest thing or person in his way,
and that, alas! most often was himself! Now, however, he had taken it
into his head to befriend this miserable merchant, and he meant to do
it; and on his side the merchant felt confidence revive, and without
further ado told all that had happened.
Kooshy Ram laughed heartily at the idea of any stranger entrusting his
wealth to Beeka Mull.
'Why, he is the greatest rascal in the city,' he cried, 'unless you
believe what some of them say of me! Well, there is nothing to be
done for the present, but just to stay here quietly, and I think that
at the end of a short time I shall find a medicine which will heal
your sickness.' At this the merchant again took courage, and a little
ease crept into his heart as he gratefully accepted his new friend's
invitation.
A few days later Kooshy Ram sent for some friends to see him, and
talked with them long, and, although the merchant did not hear the
conversation, he did hear shouts of laughter as though at some good
joke; but the laughter echoed dully in his own heart, for the more he
considered the more he despaired of ever recovering his fortune from
the grasp of Beeka Mull.
One day, soon after this, Kooshy Ram came to him and said:
'You remember the wall where I found you that night, near Beeka Mull's
shop?'
'Yes, indeed I do,' answered the merchant.
'Well,' continued Kooshy Ram, 'this afternoon you must go and stand in
that same spot and watch; and when someone gives you a signal, you
must go up to Beeka Mull and salute him and say, "Oh, Lala-ji, will
you kindly let me have back that box of mine which you have on
trust?"'
'What's the use of that?' asked the merchant. 'He won't do it any more
now than he would when I asked him before.'
'Never mind!' replied Kooshy Ram, 'do exactly what I tell you, and
repeat exactly what I say, word for word, and I will answer for the
rest.'
So, that afternoon, the merchant at a certain time went and stood by
the wall as he was told. He noticed that Beeka Mull saw him, but
neither took any heed of the other. Presently up the bazaar came a
gorgeous palanquin like those in which ladies of rank are carried
about. It was borne by four bearers well dressed in rich liveries, and
its curtains and trappings were truly magnificent. In attendance was
a grave-looking personage whom the merchant recognized as one of the
friends who visited Kooshy Ram; and behind him came a servant with a
box covered with a cloth upon his head.
The palanquin was borne along at a smart pace and was set down at
Beeka Mull's shop. The fat shop-keeper was on his feet at once, and
bowed deeply as the gentleman in attendance advanced.
'May I inquire,' he said, 'who this is in the palanquin that deigns to
favour my humble shop with a visit? And what may I do for her?'
The gentleman, after whispering at the curtain of the palanquin,
explained that this was a relative of his who was travelling, but as
her husband could go no further with her, she desired to leave with
Beeka Mull a box of jewels for safe custody. Lala bowed again to the
ground. 'It was not,' he said, 'quite in his way of business; but of
course, if he could please the lady, he would be most happy, and would
guard the box with his life.' Then the servant carrying the box was
called up; the box was unlocked, and a mass of jewellery laid open to
the gaze of the enraptured Lala, whose mouth watered as he turned over
the rich gems.
All this the merchant had watched from the distance, and now he
saw--could he be mistaken?--no, he distinctly saw a hand beckoning
through the curtain on that side of the palanquin away from the shop.
'The signal! Was this the signal?' thought he. The hand beckoned
again, impatiently it seemed to him. So forward he went, very quietly,
and saluting Beeka Mull, who was sitting turning over the contents of
this amazing box of jewels which fortune and some fools were putting
into his care, he said:
'Oh, Lala-ji, will you kindly let me have back that box of mine which
you have on trust?'
The Lala looked up as though he had been stung; but quickly the
thought flashed through his mind that if this man began making a fuss
again he would lose the confidence of these new and richer customers;
so he controlled himself, and answered:
'Dear me, of course, yes! I had forgotten all about it.' And he went
off and brought the little box and put it into the merchant's
trembling hands. Quickly the latter pulled out the key, which hung by
a string round his neck, and opened the box; and when he saw that his
treasures were all there he rushed into the road, and, with the box
under his arm, began dancing like a madman, with great shouts and
screams of laughter. Just then a messenger came running up and,
saluting the gentleman attending the palanquin, he said:
'The lady's husband has returned, and is prepared to travel with her,
so that there is no necessity to deposit the jewels.' Whereat the
gentleman quickly closed and relocked the box, and handed it back to
the waiting servant. Then from the palanquin came a yell of laughter,
and out jumped--not a lady--but Kooshy Ram, who immediately ran and
joined the merchant in the middle of the road and danced as madly as
he. Beeka Mull stood and stared stupidly at them; then, with a shrill
cackle of laughter, he flung off his turban, bounced out into the road
with the other two, and fell to dancing and snapping his fingers until
he was out of breath.
'Lala-ji,' said the gentleman who had played the part of the relative
attendant on the palanquin, 'why do you dance? The merchant dances
because he has recovered his fortune; Kooshy Ram dances because he is
a madman and has tricked you; but why do _you_ dance?'
'I dance,' panted Beeka Ram, glaring at him with a bloodshot eye, 'I
dance because I knew thirteen different ways of deceiving people by
pretending confidence in them. I didn't know there were any more, and
now here's a fourteenth! That's why I dance!'
(Punjabi Story, Major Campbell, Feroshepore.)